That or the Suwalki gap. They're both flashpoints.
My bet is that it'll happen sometime between 2029-2035, after UK, France and Germany have had their general elections, where populist parties with more pro-Russian stances are likely to gain power.
Fortunately while close, the border runs along a fairly wide river with just a single bridge across, so logistically somewhat complicated to supply with heavy equipment from the Russian side. At least covertly.
But definitely a scenario that needs to be considered.
Little green men. Crimea is an island.
Narva is much less interesting in that sense.
First, it assumes the people of Belarus is willing to start a war with NATO and it's very grumpy neighbor to the south. There isn't a world in which the Suwałki gap it cut off without strikes and an invasion of Belarus. Lukashenko might want it, but given the last "election" there will likely be a 5th, 6th, and 7th column waiting for guns to be carried over the border from Poland and Ukraine.
Second, while Kaliningrad might be defensible (though I doubt that), the Baltic Sea is not. Sweden, Denmark, and Germany will shut down any ships entering and leaving the Baltic. Ukraine and Turkey cut off the Black Sea, and the Russian fleet is left in Murmansk (which is likely immediately destroyed), and Vladivostok... which as a single port as mostly useless, and can be mostly cut off in the Sea of Japan.
I just really don't see a way that Russia takes any NATO territory without the entire thing being a psyop against NATO not responding via far-right isolationists, and we're not there yet, or as an assist to help China take Taiwan, which likely means world war, and we're all fucked.
With hindsight, we can conclude it was madness. Before the war we maybe could have concluded that it would be better to err on the side of caution because of what it will do to foreign relations.
I think there is a more than 50% chance that Belarus is reintegrated in some form into Russia within this century. It's very clear that there is no plan for sovereignty post-Lukashenko and all of the opposition(like in Russia) has been exiled(so powerless). This is probably the 2nd biggest miss of EU foreign policy in the 21st century after Ukraine, they basically put Lukashenko in the same basket as Putin even though up until 2020 he did everything he could to maintain his sovereignty and got hit with horrible sanctions. But IMO it's too late now.
>Second, while Kaliningrad might be defensible (though I doubt that)
Russian military doctrine is kind of nebulous, but the one thing it is extremely clear on is that Kaliningrad will be defended using nuclear weapons. Exactly because it's basically not defensible using conventional means.
So if the idea is to invade the Baltics, but "not allow an invasion of Kaliningrad, without nuclear retaliation"... well then we've going to have a nuclear war and everyone loses, simply because you can't retake the Baltics without Kaliningrad, and NATO isn't going to allow the Baltics to be lost.
This is hilarious as naval blockade by itself is an act of war.
I mean that's really the setup.
1. Get America to move towards a more isolationist setup / unwilling to help Europe or Taiwan. This is already in motion politically and via social media operations.
2. Get America stuck in a conflict with Iran. This is ramping up.
3. China takes Taiwan. Probably in the next 2-5 years.
4. Russia takes the Baltics and starts to carve further into Europe.
My further total crackpot theory on all of this is that most of this has been agreed upon by all the major powers involved.
1. Russia gets to claim over Europe in the future.
2. China gets Taiwan and control of Africa + APAC.
3. US gets control of North America and South America. This culminates in the annexation of Greenland once Russia takes Europe. This is the agreed upon transaction for America to back out of Russo-European affairs and China-Taiwan affairs. Canada and Mexico eventually are also merged into the US unwillingly but without any major allies left there isn't much to prevent it.
can confirm!
They have chewed up their army and lost a navy to a country without ships. How will they fight another war?
If they stop fighting actively, then it becomes easier to recruit again without mobilising. Give it a few years and they could have another go at some other location. They clearly don’t care about casualties. Maybe not against NATO, but Georgia, Azerbaijan etc. And so it could continue for a very long time.
”Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”
Citations for numbers from Claude, that are all best estimates.
Texas would already had seceded and turned into a neutral state in order to avoid further issues. And OFC several states bordering Canada and Mexico would secede too joining Canada and Mexico themselves in order to fight Washington and Nevada. Because that's the way to avoid being a nuclear target. Similar stuff would happen in Russia too with states becoming independent so they aren't a target from both Europe and the USA.
China would just stare there thinking on the good chunk of money would get post war. It would just declare neutral too a la Switzerland asking for diplomatic agreements between the two sides.
The most probable war today with Russia would be an small one in the Arctic because of oil/gas, totally irrelevant and with few casualities.
It would be easy to set up a Russian military presence, and it would be hard to dislodge it from a distance without considerable effort and expense.