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It's like Russia was expecting to be able to conduct the largest aggressive conventional military operation in Europe since WW2 and not completely flip the apple cart of the global order.
Anyway, this threat loses a lot of teeth when the reason Ukraine is getting destroyed at the moment is because they are not in NATO.
At this point is there anything substantive any country could do at all that wouldn't irritate Russia? It seems as if the powers that be have become so utterly delicate that even something as innocuous as Sweden joining NATO is deemed to be advancing far beyond the "proper" limits.
If NATO's response isn't "we do what we want, fuck off" they've lost the next war already.
Now is probably the only opportunity they will get. With much of Russia's army tied up in Ukraine they could join in secret overnight and in the morning the rest of NATO could land huge numbers of airborne reinforcements and the whole thing would be a fait accompli. The only response Putin could make would be to trigger WW3.
Making triggering WW3 his only remaining choice does not sound like a good idea
Well then, Congratulations Russia! You have just given the Swedish NATO-movement more support than they could have ever mustered themselves! I have always been very sceptical of NATO membership, but the last month I changed opinion.
It's like Russia was expecting to be able to conduct the largest aggressive conventional military operation in Europe since WW2 and not completely flip the apple cart of the global order.
TLDR; they're fucking with our collective heads.
It's like Russia was expecting to be able to conduct the largest aggressive conventional military operation in Europe since WW2 and not completely flip the apple cart of the global order.
It's starting to look like Putin may have miscalculated here.
Well then, Congratulations Russia! You have just given the Swedish NATO-movement more support than they could have ever mustered themselves! I have always been very sceptical of NATO membership, but the last month I changed opinion.
Why were you skeptical of NATO membership? What are the downsides?
... That card's been played out, though, because it's only credible if you don't invade regardless.
Practically speaking, Russia wouldn't be able to do anything about this.
"We'll invade you if you join NATO" loses its power a bit when you invade people who haven't joined NATO.
Finland and Sweden should join now while Russia doesn't have the ability to invade (because their forces are busy in Ukraine).