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Comment by throwaway48476 | Hacker News Reader

Russia has been waging a hybrid warfare campaign against Europe for a while now. Of course Europe is still in denial.

Europe doesn't want an armed conflict with Russia. Even if Europe would be willing to sacrifice as many people in a conflict as Russia has, they'd still be up against a megalomaniac dictator with nukes. Real victory in a traditional war against Russia is unattainable. Same with China, or the US, or possibly India; the people in power are willing to look crazy enough to choose nuclear armageddon as a last resort.

And it's not like Europe isn't fighting back. European intelligence has been deep inside Russian networks since before the first invasion of Ukraine. From the European side, the invasion of Ukraine is a proxy war, with billions of euros spent on fighting Russia, while to Russia the war is a normal invasion with Russian (and now North Korean) troops on the ground.

The way Europe (except for Ukraine, of course) is fighting Russia mostly benefits Europe, as far as I can tell. Most of Europe's losses, so far, have been economical. Switching to a war economy to defend against Russia would probably cost more and be less effective. Until Ukraine falls, I don't see why Europe would want to change that deal.

>Real victory in a traditional war against Russia is unattainable.

This is very wrong. Anything is possible, it's just a matter of political will.

The most likely scenario is russia is pushed to the brink and collapses internally like 1917 and 1990. Then Russia balkanizes along ethnic lines, like 1917 and 1990.

Unfortunately Russia didn’t balkanize in 1990. The largest Soviet republic became the Russian Federation and kept its borders.

The world today would be a much safer place if 1990 Russia had split into about six independent states, each comparable to Kazakhstan or Ukraine. Hopefully that will eventually happen when Putin is gone. Imperial Russia should cease to exist like imperial Austria did. It has been a great source of misery throughout the centuries.

The republics that gained independence broke free from the Russian empire. Several wars also broke out as a result including transnistria, Georgia and Chechnya.

Western Europe still has a massive manpower advantage, before you even look at investment and . If things develop to the level where the "comfortable city dwellers" in Europe is truly threatened I don't see Russia as being anywhere near the victor (though you're correct that in that case there won't be a "victor" so much "Might Lose A Little Less"). But the goal is to push up to that limit but no beyond, at least for now.

I don't think many people are actually nationalistic zealots who want to eliminate other countries so long as theirs is technically still existent, as even a king of ashes won't have a great life compared to a mid-range billionaire today.

> a megalomaniac dictator with nukes

I'm not alone in believing that this alone is reason enough to risk everything. A threat to freedom anywhere is a threat to freedom everywhere.

That is a nice slogan but the “everything” is an estimated 5 billion deaths globally as direct and indirect result of a large scale nuclear exchange between Russia and “The West”. Putin is going to get old and die and Russia will likely look very different in 50, 100, 250 years. Other than the permanent enslavement of the human race, I can’t see any goal worth destroying all of human civilization and killing the majority of the people on the planet.

> And it's not like Europe isn't fighting back. European intelligence has been deep inside Russian networks since before the first invasion of Ukraine. From the European side, the invasion of Ukraine is a proxy war, with billions of euros spent on fighting Russia, while to Russia the war is a normal invasion with Russian (and now North Korean) troops on the ground.

This is flatly wrong and gives far too much credit to Europe. The US had to shake Europe and Ukraine awake to the impending invasion of Ukraine. And I say this as an EU citizen.

The EU just announced a series of financial measures designed to support a massive level of re-armament by member states. I don't think we are in denial. Whether we can effectively respond is a different question.

Rearmament is stupid. For every $1 spent destroying Russian equipment it's equivalent to $10 not spent on deterrence over the next 10 years. The only thing more expensive than a war is an arms race.

It's also a way to subsidize your own country by subsidizing the arms industry. Pretty much what has happened in the US in the past years (pretty much all "gifts" are subsidies of the arms industry).

The combination of both is usually optimal.

- Investing in deterrence is cost effective... up to a point.

- Directly sending Ukraine arms is cost effective... up to a point.

Right now, it's fair to say that (relative to Russia) Europe has been underinvesting in defense for a couple decades.

Good news: they seem to have recognized this and invested in recapitalizing their industrial defense base.

It's not just Russia we need to be weary about. America needs to be guarded against.

Rearmament is deterrence. Unless you have a big enough stick, you can't deter anything.

You don't need to deter what doesn't exist.

Makes sense a throwaway account is spreading Russian propaganda and self conflicting within 1 comment of itself.

> We should spend money on deterrence.

Then

> You don't need to deter what doesn't exist.

I guess next you'll say Russia isn't even at war with Ukraine and we shouldn't believe our lying eyes?

??? I'm suggesting europe take the 800 billion they're going to spend on deterrence and instead buy weapons for Ukraine today. This would degrade russias military sufficient to need to spend less on deterrence in the future. In no way is this supportive of russia.

As an example: If europe gave Ukraine enough cruise missiles to wipe out russias Tu 95 fleet that would be a permanent loss. They were built by the Soviet Union and rebuilding them would take a hundred years at least.

What europe fails to see is the massive ROI from supporting Ukraine today.

Europe seems to be doing exactly that.

Things just changed, so it will take a while to see what is actually happening. But they did claim to have increased a lot what they send to Ukraine.

Deterrence is usually the reason why a category of nation-state aggression doesn't exist. Otherwise, the fact that we've never had a global nuclear war would be sufficient to prove that we don't need to deter a global nuclear war.

It was you who brought up deterrence...

I agree somewhat but this is also aimed at independence from the US. The US has shown itself to be an unreliable ally that can get you in a dangerous position and then leave you hanging.

So much of that money is going to close the capability gaps.

Several of the EU sanctions explicitly state as a rationale that they are in reaction to Russia’s hybrid activities against the EU member states.

It's not in denial, rather Kissinger's problem seem to not have been solved.

Henry Kissinger: "Who do I call if I want to call Europe?"

The irony of Trump being in power is that this might just happen during his term. I really hope so.

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