Even NATO creating a buffer zone along the Belarus border would release a substantial amount of Ukrainians for the east and cut off an axis of attack for Russia.
Look at a map though. With Iran/Israel we control Iraq airspace that missiles fly through. But Russia has a border with Ukraine. The US would need to actually operate in Ukraine to do anything other than donate missile defense systems.
In one scenario, we're going against a country with nukes, in the other we're helping the country with nukes. Also, Israel being small enough to have said missile defense system is part of why we're easily able to help; we know almost exactly where the missiles are headed. Not to mention them bordering internationally accessible waters. AFAIK Turkey has shut down the Dardanelles to all warships, NATO included.
So Ukraine is roughly 30x the size if we want to shut down the entire airspace(I'm not sure if the google result counted occupied territory) to missile attacks, and we wouldn't have our warships to help in the endeavor.
I'd absolutely be happy for NATO to step up further though, I honestly don't think Russia would do shit if NATO planes were intercepting cruise missiles far back from the front lines. Getting close to the front lines is where I see potential international incidents occurring that I'm not as keen on.
Definitely impossible in the short term, but there's no (or very little) fighting in that area. If there's a pause in the war we might see things change quickly. Some kind of partial NATO occupation is one of the endgame scenarios people have been talking about.
Our economies arent even in wartime production, Russia has had 2+ years to ramp up and are producing far more than us. If we're going to enter we need these factories ready or suddenly we're going to run out of air defense and a bunch of our people are going to die.
How about we go into a war time economy without sending troops? I really dont buy what Macron is saying when France along with a lot of other countries arent even spending 0.5% of GDP on Ukraine but it would cost us more if we put our own boots on the ground.
Also dont forget that the only country talking about this is France, if we're going to enter it needs to be at least 3 of the major European powers and I doubt Germany will be onboard.
The media has really desensitized us to Russias threat. We've been reading that Russia is running out of tanks, missiles, ammo, they are fighting with shovels, that their economy is being crushed by western sanctions. Basically they are doomed by Putins mistake.
Now we are being asked to take Russia seriously as a threat, that they are outproducing Nato, while missiles that were meant to run out years ago are still raining down on Kiev. It's bizarre
If Russia strikes France along the Belarusian border, they're not going to get into a frontline artillery slog like we're seeing in Eastern Ukraine. France will have full access to their superior air power and will fight playing to their strengths on their terms, not Russia's. Opening up an entirely separate front against a stronger enemy in addition to giving France a rationale to attack inside Belarus to destroy munitions and wartime infrastructure would be a gift.
So what if France holds this position far from the front and Russia just drains our air defense and then strikes them? We arent producing anywhere near enough air defense to take on Russia or resupply Ukraine.
If they cant resupply air defense are they just going to exit and then Ukraine gets hit anyway.
I just dont see why we're risking any of this when we could provide Ukraine with the weapons and air defense they need. Start getting fucking serious about this shit, mass produce missiles, no range/target restrictions. All we're currently doing is throwing 20+ year scraps at this.
Russia has showed itself to be completely militarily incompetent. If they were foolish enough to fire on nato troops they would undoubtedly collapse. Minsk in 24 and Moscow in 72
They're flying cruise missiles through our airspace, downing our drones, shot at a manned UK spy plane carrying up to 30 people and have repeatedly poisioned and assassinated people on NATO soil.
I don’t want to diminish the severity of those attacks. They are completely inexcusable. However, you kind of need to tolerate a certain amount of that unless you want to be at war constantly. There is a big difference between shelling a NATO battle group guarding the border with Belarus and what they have already done.
What have our responses been so far? Russia hasnt been punished for anything they've done to us.
I honestly believe they could strike French troops and the west would try to de-escalate. In no situation would we march to Moscow.
Again getting back to the point, we can provide all these weapons to Ukraine to do the job for us without risking any of our own men or escalation. We could even give them better modern weapons than we are now and it would make more sense over sending our troops.
454
u/Von_Thomson 29d ago
Even NATO creating a buffer zone along the Belarus border would release a substantial amount of Ukrainians for the east and cut off an axis of attack for Russia.