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> So "doubling military expenditures" for most of Europe is "going from nearly zero to slightly more than zero". Russia's defence budget is ~50 billion dollars

> So "doubling military expenditures" for most of Europe is "going from nearly zero to slightly more than zero". Russia's defence budget is ~50 billion dollars per year. The combined defence budgets of all of Europe is ~200 billion dollars per year, which is four times as large as Russia's. And that's from before the Ukraine invasion. The bulk of that defence budget belongs to NATO members who already have decades of experience in working together and having a shared command structure. We outspend Russia four to one, and if all European NATO members bump their defence budgets to the 2% requirement, we're gonna outspend Russia seven to one. Going from four times the defence budget or Russia to seven times the defence budget of Russia is nowhere near going from "nearly zero to slightly more than zero". > Active personnel 1,014,000 Oh no, a million demotivated peasants with rusty Soviet-era weapons! Whatever shall we do? Best we roll over and let Russia invade and take whatever they want! You're also stuck in the cold war mentality that Russia is still as big and strong as the Soviet Union was, and it's just not true anymore. Europe has three times the population, four times the defence budget, and ten times the GDP of Russia. Russia has had three decades of unparalleled corruption and decay, and we're supposed to feel threatened?!? No. Stop. Re-evaluate. Russia is no longer an existential threat to Europe.

dmitriid 5y ago
The total "active troops prepared for deployment and sustained operations" in Europe is less than 40k [1]. That's at least 3x fewer than Russia has committed to this war. That's less than Ukraine's deployed military before the war. > Russia is no longer an existential threat to Europe. If only I ever said anywhere whether I thought Russia was an existential threat to Europe. Stop. Re-evaluate. There's a specific point I was replying to. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Security_and_Defence_Policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Security_and_Defence_Po...
- orwin 5y ago
  The difference is that we have almost a thousand meteor ready, tens of thousands MICA and thousands of Scalp missiles. And our aces get 150 to 200h/yr of flight time, including training against F22 which are Su35 but actually good in dogfight. Russian pilots have mixed training and get less than 100 hours on plane. Without air support, you cannot go in an offensive war, even against 10k men. And Russia cannot go against our meteors with anything except their 10 su35(probably), of which at least 5 are prototypes(and they did loose the 11th against IR manpads, which is telling).
- henrikschroder 5y ago
  > The total "active troops prepared for deployment and sustained operations" in Europe That's some goal post moving. You were explicitly talking about military expenditures, and your claim that Europe's military expenditures doubling is insignificant is completely laughable given that the current level is already 4x Russia's. The only reason you pivoted to active troops, pretending we were talking about that all along, is because that's the only number that's bigger on the Russian side of the equation.

dmitriid 5y ago

The total "active troops prepared for deployment and sustained operations" in Europe is less than 40k [1]. That's at least 3x fewer than Russia has committed to this war. That's less than Ukraine's deployed military before the war. > Russia is no longer an existential threat to Europe. If only I ever said anywhere whether I thought Russia was an existential threat to Europe. Stop. Re-evaluate. There's a specific point I was replying to. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Security_and_Defence_Policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Security_and_Defence_Po...

orwin 5y ago
The difference is that we have almost a thousand meteor ready, tens of thousands MICA and thousands of Scalp missiles. And our aces get 150 to 200h/yr of flight time, including training against F22 which are Su35 but actually good in dogfight. Russian pilots have mixed training and get less than 100 hours on plane. Without air support, you cannot go in an offensive war, even against 10k men. And Russia cannot go against our meteors with anything except their 10 su35(probably), of which at least 5 are prototypes(and they did loose the 11th against IR manpads, which is telling).
henrikschroder 5y ago
> The total "active troops prepared for deployment and sustained operations" in Europe That's some goal post moving. You were explicitly talking about military expenditures, and your claim that Europe's military expenditures doubling is insignificant is completely laughable given that the current level is already 4x Russia's. The only reason you pivoted to active troops, pretending we were talking about that all along, is because that's the only number that's bigger on the Russian side of the equation.