Originally Posted By Capta:

I’ll be the devil’s advocate on this as usual.
Russia doesn’t need to be able to objectively succeed at conquering the Baltics with conventional forces to try, particularly if nukes are brought into the equation.
There were a couple of videos put out by Ukraine the Latest recently where a couple of Russia experts affirmed that Russia had “basically zero chance of succeeding conventionally in the Baltics now, especially with NATO’s increased posture in the Baltics and Russia’s heavy losses.”  However, they caveated that with a couple of factors, (paraphrasing) “western leadership does not understand and is having to re-learn that Russia only respects force,” and that “a newer, hungry cadre of Russian Generals is taking over their Army who have no experience with the west and don’t understand it.”  They also said that “this mutual misunderstanding, combined with the idea that they believed Russian behavior was becoming increasingly irrational, left the way open for accidents.”
If you look at the missile track over Poland (assuming it’s accurate) one missile took a detour over Poland for no other reason than to fly over Poland.  Clearly this is a provocation and a test, and I think Russian decision makers can be forgiven for thinking NATO has failed this test, as it has failed the test throughout the war with probably dozens of other similar incidents  The Russians are also probably looking at our response to the Houthis, a problem which is entirely possible they instigated to watch our response.  Whether NATO actions result from an intent to sucker Russia in further, or are well-intentioned but overly bureaucratic inertia, or are feckless cowardice, they will be taken by Russian decision-makers in the manner that confirms what they want to see.  It doesn’t matter if this would actually translate to unwillingness to defend NATO territory or honor article 5, it only matters that the Russians could convince themselves it would.
Russia is run by sick, evil, increasingly (IMO) desperate men. They have fairly successfully put on a face of normalcy, which IMO hides a dire situation inside.  Russia has always been extraordinarily insular and opaque to the West.  We made a better effort to understand and counter them during the Cold War, but that knowledge has perished, and in the last 30 years we’ve returned to the idea that “they’re a European country and they must think just like us.”  They are not.
Perun’s video on Russian military export sales really identified how bad Russia’s DIB situation was already and was going to be in the future.  Their orders have dropped to near zero, their next-gen kit are already failures which they can’t produce, and they have no money or tech exchange for development.  At they same time, the west was already qualitatively light-years ahead of them, and Ukraine has (belatedly) spurred remilitarization and procurement in NATO that they can’t possibly match.   Yes, they are pumping out refurbed T72s and 152mm ammo, but they are catastrophically fucked when it comes to matching up going forward.  The key point that we have to consider is what the Russian leadership perceives about the balance of conventional power in the future. Our Western assumption is that, obviously, they’ll understand the situation and decide that their only choice is to reach an accommodation.  This is dead wrong.
I also think it’s wrong to assume that the only priority of Russian leadership is retaining their power and perks.  They may be totally corrupt by our standards, but this doesn’t exclude ideology as a motivation, as we often assume it does.  Putin is near the end of his life.  At this point I’m comfortable with saying his motivation is near 100% ideological. The people who would likely replace him, hardcore FSB men, may also be rich as fuck, but they’ve also spent their lives plotting to advance the Russian Empire and destroy the west.  It’s a huge mistake to not credit Russian leadership with the ideology they are clearly taking action to implement.  Hitler and the Nazi party were corrupt as hell too.  Did that stop them or mean they’d act “reasonably” to preserve their power and perks?
I’ve repeatedly compared the war by Russia to Japan in WW2.  It doesn’t have to be possible to win in order to try.  One of Japan’s rationales for war in 1941 was that, given the collapse of naval building treaties and what they knew perfectly well about overwhelming US productive superiority, they had no choice but to act now or never.
I believe the Russians will convince themselves the conventional balance of power will only get worse for them, and they can’t wait any longer and will have to go with whatever they can scrape together as soon as they can, probably behind nuke threats or nuke use.  It doesn’t have to be sane, it only has to look sane to evil, desperate men.
My opinion is and has been that a combination of incompetence, corruption, high-level losses, and most importantly, high stress on their system in multiple ways has probably rendered Russian leadership incapable of making sound strategic decisions.
NATO needs to consider anything and everything as possible.
With nukes on the table somewhere short of a full exchange, what can Russia do conventionally right now?
With nukes on the table, what can Russia do after a short pause/freeze in the conflict in Ukraine to withdraw all the forces they can and reposition them, leaving the Ukrainian front guarded by a skeleton crew of infantry only?

Originally Posted By Prime:

Russian propagandists want to "restore historical justice" by capturing Finland, Poland, Baltic States and Alaska. Serbia will join voluntarily, they believe. pic.twitter.com/tCtpa1sAle

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) March 27, 2024