Russian President Vladimir Putin said Europe "has no peaceful agenda" and "is on the side of war" just before meeting U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff.
What’s funny is that you say this now and then in the same breath say that Europe must build up NATO and destroy Russia to protect Europe from Russia. Nice cognitive dissonance you got there.
Which is it? Russia is an existential threat that must be met with increasing budgets, military build up, possibly a draft, and preemptive violence, or Russia being a threat to the EU is laughable?
I said nothing about whether the EU should build up, don’t put words in my mouth.
The EU has been up front and open about why they are increasing their military budgets - because they no longer view the US as a reliable partner. Russia hasn’t changed. The EU wants to use veiled military threats to project power and influence like they used to do alongside the US, and doesn’t rule out that Russia will do something stupid like starting a costly war it can’t win. So yeah, it’s the latter - Russia being a military threat to the EU is laughable, but them not having a feasible chance at meaningful military gains doesn’t mean it’s not worth disincentivizing them from flailing around and hurting people.
Don’t think I didn’t notice you still haven’t cited the sources for your numbers, or that you’re a week old account that does little else other than attack the US and EU and glaze Russia and China.
What’s funny is that you say this now and then in the same breath say that Europe must build up NATO and destroy Russia to protect Europe from Russia. Nice cognitive dissonance you got there.
Which is it? Russia is an existential threat that must be met with increasing budgets, military build up, possibly a draft, and preemptive violence, or Russia being a threat to the EU is laughable?
I said nothing about whether the EU should build up, don’t put words in my mouth.
The EU has been up front and open about why they are increasing their military budgets - because they no longer view the US as a reliable partner. Russia hasn’t changed. The EU wants to use veiled military threats to project power and influence like they used to do alongside the US, and doesn’t rule out that Russia will do something stupid like starting a costly war it can’t win. So yeah, it’s the latter - Russia being a military threat to the EU is laughable, but them not having a feasible chance at meaningful military gains doesn’t mean it’s not worth disincentivizing them from flailing around and hurting people.
Don’t think I didn’t notice you still haven’t cited the sources for your numbers, or that you’re a week old account that does little else other than attack the US and EU and glaze Russia and China.
Don’t worry. I have been posting on the grad for a long while. Just decided I wanted to get into more debates and too many instances block the grad.
As for the sources for those numbers I just copied and pasted the AI overview from Google. Low effort. Happy to dig in though.
Looks like it uses Wikipedia as it’s first source.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Armed_Forces
The number for enlisted military on that page is sourced as an article from the AP https://apnews.com/article/putin-finland-sergei-shoigu-ee953abf7f9bf217ccdaa61ec1b35ddd
Which states in December of 2022:
But it provides no source for that claim.
The numbers for Europe also are backed by Wikipedia here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_military_and_paramilitary_personnel
And here’s a useful article that breaks it down pretty well
https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/which-country-has-the-biggest-army-in-europe-ranking-all-european-forces-by-size-9023
Russians are existential threat for anyone that believes in democracy, self determination and human rights.