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> Russia's military is hundred of times smaller than NATO's. Not really, depends what you compare. Perhaps hundred of times smaller budget wise, but capability

> Russia's military is hundred of times smaller than NATO's. Not really, depends what you compare. Perhaps hundred of times smaller budget wise, but capability it's not. > If NATO ever decides to attack Russia, Russia's military will be easily wiped out. Russia can easily block their own airspace to foreign fighters. They can also wipe out satellites as shown here. After that it becomes land warfare where they have superior numbers and wouldn't have issues repelling attack. > There are anti-missile shields near to Russia's borders (in Romania). Sure, this prevents nuclear strikes hopefully... but would be overwhelmed fast by amount of rockets Russia can throw. Plus Russia has hyper-sonic missiles that hug the ground... and this would be a priority target...

tsimionescu 5y ago
> Perhaps hundred of times smaller budget wise, but capability it's not. Budget accounts for a lot. > Russia can easily block their own airspace to foreign fighters. Citation needed. The combined air-forces of NATO are not "easily block"ed from anywhere. > After that it becomes land warfare where they have superior numbers and wouldn't have issues repelling attack. The USA has more active personnel than Russia, and Turkey (a NATO member) is another large military by active personnel. Technology wise, NATO is also far ahead (those budgets again). > Sure, this prevents nuclear strikes hopefully... The (unstated) point of the shield is to allow a NATO nuclear first-strike to go through without retaliation. The current shield is probably not enough to ensure Russia's military could be crippled with that first strike, but future versions of the shield may get there.
- adriancr 5y ago
  > The (unstated) point of the shield is to allow a NATO nuclear first-strike to go through without retaliation. The current shield is probably not enough to ensure Russia's military could be crippled with that first strike, but future versions of the shield may get there. You do realize that if a nuke goes off in the atmosphere anti-missile-tracking becomes impossible? (good luck doing radar, thermal or anything else...) So anti-missile only works for preventing a very small first strike... (or a mistake or anything of the sort) Now, I would wager that something like Starlink where each satellite has anti-missile tech could prevent a first strike with ballistic missiles. Then you have missiles that hug the ground... those are impossible to detect or destroy... Radar needs some ground clearance, their speed also makes it had to detect in time and stop. As for the rest I'll try and read and fetch citations, but Russian anti-air are effective in downing stealth aircraft and most aircraft. (see Serbia in the 90s...), SR-71 or others which fly too fast might not be stoppable but those can't really cause too much harm. > The USA has more active personnel than Russia, and Turkey (a NATO member) is another large military by active personnel. Technology wise, NATO is also far ahead (those budgets again). How do you move those to Russia's border and do logistics? :), also I'm not sure about that... but will take your word for it. > Budget accounts for a lot. Sure... but forced draft + cheap weapons have won wars in the past...
  - trasz 5y ago
    > if a nuke goes off in the atmosphere anti-missile-tracking becomes impossible Why?
    - adriancr 5y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_blackout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_blackout > it moved to the UHF region to help mitigate this effect.[16] Even then, it would be heavily attenuated.[7] > This means that exoatmospheric explosions are very effective against long-range early-warning radars like PAR or the Soviet Dnestr. A single 1 Mt warhead detonated at 250 km altitude would be about 600 kilometres (400 mi) downrange given typical trajectories, and might be expected to create an ionization disk 300 kilometres (200 mi) across. As seen from the radar, this would be an angle of (300 km/600 km)2 ≈ 0.3 sr, enough to hide any warheads approaching along similar paths. This would allow, for instance, a single warhead from a particular missile field to hide all the following ones from the same field. Although this would not affect the operation of the interceptors directly, being outside the range of even the very long-range Spartan, such operations could seriously upset raid direction and overall battle planning. Moreover, because the explosion takes place outside the range of the interceptors, there is no simple means of stopping it.[8] There's also a lot of uncertainty meaning it might be much worse, that is describe on same link.
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    > You do realize that if a nuke goes off in the atmosphere anti-missile-tracking becomes impossible? (good luck doing radar, thermal or anything else...) In this scenario, the NATO nukes would be fired, Russia would detect them, Russia would attempt to reatliate by firing their own missiles, the shield would destroy [some of] this volley of Russian missiles, then the NATO nukes would hit their targets and wipe out Russian ability to send any other retaliatory strikes. There may be a window between the first NATO nuke hitting (when the shield becomes useless) and the complete destruction of Russian reatliatory capabilities that still allows Russian nukes to be fired, but this at least gives some chance of a successful NATO first strike compared to the current version. > Russian anti-air are effective in downing stealth aircraft and most aircraft. This doesn't make them impenetrable. Defenses can be overwhelmed, artillery can be deployed to take down anti-air, strike troops can do the same. > How do you move those to Russia's border and do logistics? :), also I'm not sure about that... but will take your word for it. The numbers I got from here [0]. Note that I used the active personnel numbers - Russia does have more overall troops if you include reserves. Logistics is a problem, which becomes much simpler if there are already established NATO military bases in Ukraine and maybe even other former Soviet countries. Logistics is also not a trivial problem for Russia to solve - it's not like all of their troops are sitting at the Russia-Ukraine border, and they could also find themselves attacked through multiple borders. [0] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/military-size-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/military-...

tsimionescu 5y ago

> Perhaps hundred of times smaller budget wise, but capability it's not. Budget accounts for a lot. > Russia can easily block their own airspace to foreign fighters. Citation needed. The combined air-forces of NATO are not "easily block"ed from anywhere. > After that it becomes land warfare where they have superior numbers and wouldn't have issues repelling attack. The USA has more active personnel than Russia, and Turkey (a NATO member) is another large military by active personnel. Technology wise, NATO is also far ahead (those budgets again). > Sure, this prevents nuclear strikes hopefully... The (unstated) point of the shield is to allow a NATO nuclear first-strike to go through without retaliation. The current shield is probably not enough to ensure Russia's military could be crippled with that first strike, but future versions of the shield may get there.

adriancr 5y ago
> The (unstated) point of the shield is to allow a NATO nuclear first-strike to go through without retaliation. The current shield is probably not enough to ensure Russia's military could be crippled with that first strike, but future versions of the shield may get there. You do realize that if a nuke goes off in the atmosphere anti-missile-tracking becomes impossible? (good luck doing radar, thermal or anything else...) So anti-missile only works for preventing a very small first strike... (or a mistake or anything of the sort) Now, I would wager that something like Starlink where each satellite has anti-missile tech could prevent a first strike with ballistic missiles. Then you have missiles that hug the ground... those are impossible to detect or destroy... Radar needs some ground clearance, their speed also makes it had to detect in time and stop. As for the rest I'll try and read and fetch citations, but Russian anti-air are effective in downing stealth aircraft and most aircraft. (see Serbia in the 90s...), SR-71 or others which fly too fast might not be stoppable but those can't really cause too much harm. > The USA has more active personnel than Russia, and Turkey (a NATO member) is another large military by active personnel. Technology wise, NATO is also far ahead (those budgets again). How do you move those to Russia's border and do logistics? :), also I'm not sure about that... but will take your word for it. > Budget accounts for a lot. Sure... but forced draft + cheap weapons have won wars in the past...
- trasz 5y ago
  > if a nuke goes off in the atmosphere anti-missile-tracking becomes impossible Why?
  - adriancr 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_blackout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_blackout > it moved to the UHF region to help mitigate this effect.[16] Even then, it would be heavily attenuated.[7] > This means that exoatmospheric explosions are very effective against long-range early-warning radars like PAR or the Soviet Dnestr. A single 1 Mt warhead detonated at 250 km altitude would be about 600 kilometres (400 mi) downrange given typical trajectories, and might be expected to create an ionization disk 300 kilometres (200 mi) across. As seen from the radar, this would be an angle of (300 km/600 km)2 ≈ 0.3 sr, enough to hide any warheads approaching along similar paths. This would allow, for instance, a single warhead from a particular missile field to hide all the following ones from the same field. Although this would not affect the operation of the interceptors directly, being outside the range of even the very long-range Spartan, such operations could seriously upset raid direction and overall battle planning. Moreover, because the explosion takes place outside the range of the interceptors, there is no simple means of stopping it.[8] There's also a lot of uncertainty meaning it might be much worse, that is describe on same link.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  > You do realize that if a nuke goes off in the atmosphere anti-missile-tracking becomes impossible? (good luck doing radar, thermal or anything else...) In this scenario, the NATO nukes would be fired, Russia would detect them, Russia would attempt to reatliate by firing their own missiles, the shield would destroy [some of] this volley of Russian missiles, then the NATO nukes would hit their targets and wipe out Russian ability to send any other retaliatory strikes. There may be a window between the first NATO nuke hitting (when the shield becomes useless) and the complete destruction of Russian reatliatory capabilities that still allows Russian nukes to be fired, but this at least gives some chance of a successful NATO first strike compared to the current version. > Russian anti-air are effective in downing stealth aircraft and most aircraft. This doesn't make them impenetrable. Defenses can be overwhelmed, artillery can be deployed to take down anti-air, strike troops can do the same. > How do you move those to Russia's border and do logistics? :), also I'm not sure about that... but will take your word for it. The numbers I got from here [0]. Note that I used the active personnel numbers - Russia does have more overall troops if you include reserves. Logistics is a problem, which becomes much simpler if there are already established NATO military bases in Ukraine and maybe even other former Soviet countries. Logistics is also not a trivial problem for Russia to solve - it's not like all of their troops are sitting at the Russia-Ukraine border, and they could also find themselves attacked through multiple borders. [0] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/military-size-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/military-...