This is pretty wild. Not sure what these European countries are thinking, they are all broke and they all depend on US to be the reason Russia or China from fucking around too much. And as said, they depend on Russia for their gas.
Are they counting on war to bolster their economies?
Are they trying to threaten Putin? Because that's stupid, you pick a fight with him and he will not back down even if he wants to. In his view this is an existential threat. And you aren't going to beat him back into anything that looks like an L, he just won't accept it.
"Boots on the ground and planes in the air" will only get more young men killed and realistically could kick off ww3 as China is somewhat obligated to step in if it gets bad for Russia.
At some point someone will launch nukes when they feel all is lost.
This is a scary thought.
I don't think that's it. Russia can pick off 3/4s of the countries in Europe without much of a hassle 1 on 1... But United Europe pushes their shit in (in a conventional war). I think that's their thinking here they want Russia to fear the whole collective as there is really only a couple individual countries that can even give them any trouble on their own.
I actually disagree with all this strategy anyway. There is a huge opportunity here with that will only exist for a moment in time, Russia isn't a communist state anymore.. Europe as a continent and NATO as an alliance has no problem having members who are just as authoritarian (or even more so) as Russia is currently.
Russia being the Boogeymen is American policy that Europe followed along with. With Trump taking a step back globally and in Europe especially combined with him being more receptive to Russia not being the boogeyman... There is an opportunity for Europe to improve Russia relations and even bring them into the fold.
They need to follow Trump's lead and help bring this war to a close though, or at very least get out of the way, then lots of economic partnerships with Russia to begin with. This is easy to do now and there is historical basis for this coming out of war. Obviously the other end of it which is to freeze them out economically history tells us that ends horribly.
www.forbes.com
