German Air Force Commander Says They Are Ready To Fight Russia. But Would They Really? - AOS for Lemmy.World - A generic Lemmy server for everyone to use.

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German Air Force Commander Says They Are Ready To Fight Russia. But Would They Really?

2d 5h ago by lemmy.ca/u/TwinkleToes in ukraine@sopuli.xyz from www.telegraph.co.uk

So - let's frame the scenario. Things are as they are today in 2026 and Russia goes with a coordinated attack against the Baltics, as it seems the most likely path. Romania and Poland are bigger prizes, but NATO members more coldly critical to NATO than the Baltics. But also - WAY too big and strong by themselves for Russia to take on right now. And Ukraine is in the way anwyays. The russian attack today is not a stray drone on a fringe border region, or handfuls of little green men - it's a full combined arms assault, a new phase against even a single state. It can really ONLY be the Baltics.

**Would Germany and other NATO allies (at least the European ones) respond? In short - whether they would or not is less important than this: Russia is ACTING like they believe they would. **

Why say that? Because they haven't done it yet. And even though it presents certain risks, the reasonably achievable reward might be worth it. Russia is pot committed to a reasonable return on this war at this point. Putin's legacy and personal safety is tied to somehow getting a settlement he doesn't deserve. But - that's 2026 thinking - let's go back to 2022 and role-play as a maniacal Russian leader looking to cement his legacy as The Great Restorer:

First - what is The Prize? Remember that the state of play today is not what it was at the start of the war. Let's start with two scenarios starting in Feb 2022. Nukes are off the table, as they don't really achieve what you want in a war of conquest - you don't nuke what you claim is yours, and it's not a worthwhile to take control of an irradiated ashtray. And China won't let them - but that's a topic for another day. You're Putin on Feb 21, 2022. Here's your options.

1. Invade Ukraine

PROs:

It has always been the crown jewel colony of the Russian empire. The industrial, agricultural, spiritual turbocharger
Large Russian speaking population you hope will welcome you.
Ethnic population 'close enough' to real russians to offset a century of demographic necropsy
Other former soviet republics forced to rethink pivoting allegiances to China or the West
Non-NATO member, don't have to worry about Art 5.
You feel you are ready. You have invested years of FSB effort and billions in bribes into being a corrosive dickhead next door to keep Ukraine weak and occassionally compliant with puppets like Yanukovich.
China's support is assured in a likely quid pro quo for their own planned invasion of Taiwan. They have your back - To protect it now, and put a dagger in it later.

CONs:

It's really big and they might fight back
Requires WAAAAY more of everything than the resources required to take than the Baltics. Missiles, navy, army, air force, logistics etc
Requires much, MUCH larger occupation force. Mitigated in that probably expected a short, brutal campaign of extermination to cow the population into compliance, then use reconstitued domestic Berkut forces to keep order for a puppet regime
Invetiably, but hopefully short term sanctions as the feckless pussies in the west just accept things as they are. This IS what they did in the earliest days, when it seemed like it would be a short affair. Sustained support didn't come until it was clear that Ukraine wasn't going to slip away into the pages of history like the Circassians (google it - it's a thing)

2. Invade the Baltics

PROs:

Baltic Sea access to resolve bottlenecks in St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad
Only a couple hundred miles across. Probably can overwhelm any defences within 1-2 months tops with the 2022 version of your army
Direct access from controlled borders
When the shooting starts, NATO PROBABLY does not go to war against 2022 Russia over a Baltic state.
If you win, you've destroyed Article 5 and permanently reduced NATO's standing

CONs:

NATO countries, theoretically under Article 5 protection
NATO troops stationed there would most certainly suffer casulaties
Biden is still president in 2022, ensuring a more robust response than Krasnov
If you invade the Baltics, there are no more delusions about your imperial intentions - you've attacked the strongest alliance in history as the first stroke. Invading Ukraine later becomes theoretically harder without any element of surprise. Any future build up or troop movements would be carefully monitored and an invasion assumed likely. And it probably generates a more robust level of NATO support for Ukraine regardless of the outcome of Phase 1.
China PROBABLY won't offer the same level of support in the even of a brazen invasion against NATO countries than they will against Ukraine, which they will say is an issue of internal historic security as opposed to attacking even the fringes the world's strongest alliance. China doesn't want to even chance finding out that article 5 is stronger than they expect.

Summary: Ukraine is the bigger prize, with less baggage. The Baltics are the easier target with more entanglemens. Putin goes with Ukraine, expecting an easy collapse. We all know what has happened since.

But - it's now 2026, and the question is - would Germany and NATO allies actually fight back, with meaningful force, if an attack occurred today?

Probably they would. And probably it would be a quick overwhelming snapback against solely Russian military targets given the state of Russian air defense today. Every military target in Kaliningrad would be hit, the Baltic and Arctic Fleets would probably be wiped out in a day. Your subs would be stranded at sea unable to resupply and would be hunted down and destroyed within 3-6 months. In a month NATO would probably be enforcing a no-fly zone over all of Ukraine.

A No-fly zone over Ukraine is the end of the war, for this reason: Russia's overall strategy is as follows:

Pushing low functioning grunts into softly defended areas hoping organized Ukrainian defense will retreat because of logistic and resupply reasons. This isn't a great strategy, as they're getting droned into piles of oatmeal, either immediately, soon, or eventually.
Long range terror attacks from stand-off distance. Uses a lot of impossible to replace resources, but Ukraine can't really stop it by themselves.
Keep doing 1 & 2 until Ukraine gives you something to make it stop. This isn't a great strategy for an invader who wanted it all - but it IS what they're reduced to today.

#1 only works if Ukraine runs out of land to temporarily concede and agrees to stop killing infilrtration/occupation forces at some point.

#2 has never ever worked as a strategy to overthrow an industrial society. Not in the Battle of Britain, not in Vietnam, Not even with the full allied strategic bombing campaigns in WW2 against Germany and Japan, you needed a large ground force invasion right to center of the capitol for the former, and atomic weapons for the latter.

Ukraine can handle #1 by itself - Russia's tactics of pushing useless mouths forward to be droned will not achieve anything if Ukraine refuses to stop kiling them. Domestic drone production and deployment can bleed the Russian army white at this point.

As for #2 - a NATO no-fly zone would reduce Russia's stand off terror attacks to zero effectiveness, and would inevitably lead to NATO hitting irreplaceable Russian aircraft, to which Russia can't reasonably respond. Europe and more steps to escalate to, and Russia doesn't. NATO EU countries could send in ground forces (but probably wouldn't), and completely unrestrained volumes of air defense assets, since you are in open war against Russia at that point - no need to hold back domestic stockpiles like they are today. And they could unleash devastating economic penalties against russia. Remember - the EU is EVEN STILL buying LOTS of Russian energy, which would likely curtail in case of open conflict.

Thus - Neither #1 nor #2 by themsleves gets you anything justifying what you've lost in this historically stupid invasion. Attacking NATO directly at LEAST gets a more robust response that costs you Kaliningrad, the Atlantic Fleets, and most crucially, incurs a no-fly zone that ends the effectiveness of your air terror campaign. In effect - it ends the war and you'd end up with less in settlement than you have today.

In conclusion - whether NATO would retaliate or not is less important than the fact that Russia is acting like they think that they would. They're probably right - 2026 NATO is probably ready to respond to the 2026 version of the Russian Army. The 2022 version of the EU probably would have folded for a diplomatic solution, even with a Biden presidency providing a stiffer backbone to Article 5. It might well have been a much better idea for Russia to invade the Baltics instead of Ukraine. As Ukrainians have said - we are lucky they are so stupid.

Thoughts? Let's have a chin wag.

If Russia had invaded the Baltic's in 2022 there would have been a full NATO response no question. If NATO does not respond to article 5 there is no NATO in any meaningful sense any more and sleepy Joe would not have let that happen, he was also not afraid of Russia or compromised by them.

Invading in 2022, Ukraine was always the correct choice. Putin's big mistake was not going all in at the beginning. This was a major miscalculation for Putin who is reportedly a great strategist, possibly in the interpersonal and political realm but definitely not in the military. Russia and Putin's weird escalating boil the frog strategy has been a strange watch. It has allowed a slowly strengthening Ukraine to get back on their feet and back in the fight.

If Russia was to attempt an invasion of NATO today I believe the no fly zone would be over Moscow in a month, not Kyiv. Russia has recently started to use its more expensive SU-57 airframes as essentially artillery, lobbing stand off munitions from a distance. This indicates the cheaper SU-34 air frames are at their limits of usability. Europe has over 100 f-35 and about 1000 other 4-4.5 gen fighters. Europe also has a much larger population, 10 times the industrial manufacturing capacity and does not have 4.5 years of war fatigue. Europe stomps 2026 Russia low effort, I believe the tired Russian soldiers would surrender en masse if the real NATO showed up 4.5 years into the war.

Take an upvote and thank you for your feedback. As for there being "no question" of a 'full NATO response' to a Baltic invasion...I dunno. Think there would be SOME question. Probably an armed response, but slow and probably ineffective at stopping at least a temporary de facto takeover. There were a lot of defeatists in the early days who still thought Russia was invincible in a near-abroad clash like that.

And you're probably right anyways - less entanglements to go into Ukraine, plus....that's what they chose to do. I don't think NATO was even READY, much less willing to go full commensurate response to an open Baltic invasion. What I DO think is that if Krasnov was in charge then, then the Baltics, Moldova, even much of Poland and Romania might well be much more likely to have been invaded already. Depends on an uninvaded Ukraine's response at that point, I suppose.

Germany will respond if a NATO member is attacked and NATO command doesn't say something like "we don't need you right now". Germany will probably still move troops to be able to reinforce quicker, shall the need arise.

Germans take alliances very serious. Sometimes too serious tho, as you can see with the continued support of israel.

Thanks for that. Think you're right though hard to say for sure - We haven't known or seen an indepenent germany flex military muscle in 80+ years. It's sometimes said that the lack of unilateralism thus far is proof of NATO's lack of spine.

I don't think that's the case, honestly. Russia has been doing such a terrible job at this stupid imperial boogaloo that I think NATO have been quite clever to apply a salami-slice strategy until a near equilibrium state was achieved where they bleed and bleed and bleed, without achieving much. It's easy to forget the incremental strategy that the western allies took once it became apparent that Ukraine intended to fight for it's survival. First it was Javelins & NLAW's, then early drones from Turkey, then HIMARS, then AFVs - Bradleys, M113's, Marders, MRAPSs. Then Storm Shadows/SCALPS. Then Gepards, Patriots, SAMP-T's. Then Main battle tanks. Then F16's. Then Mirage's & Gripens.

Each incremental slice was small enough in terms of capability that it limited how mad Russia could realistically get, while at the same time daring them to say "IT WILL MAKE NO DIFFERENCE! RUSSIA STRONK! RUSSIA BLYATZKREIG INVEITABLE". At each stage, Russia didn't really do anything else - there was nowhere else for them to escalate to without great risk. Because they're dumb, and hubris is a prison.

In short - don't stop an enemy when they're making a huge mistake.

I think you're right. I think that under direct, sustained NATO attack, Germany, France, Britain, DEFINITELY Poland, but also Denmark, Czechs, Holland, maybe even Turkey, Romania would form a coalition of the willing to escalate to open war with Russia at this point. Merz hasn't been as muscular with Taurus deliveries than some felt he might have been early on, but Taurus seemed committed to a singular mission - taking down the Kerch bridge. Which might have resulted in Germany being singled out at the time had the ukrainians gotten and used them that way.

Anyways. cheers.

It's not a question of Yes or No, but relatively speaking.

Is continental NATO ready to mount a more robust response to Russian invasion in 2026 than in 2022?

Yes I'd say. Russia's VSMO in Ukraine has woken up NATO countries' leadership to the horrors that their countries people and economies would face if they were to face a similar invasion.

So they've stepped up their arms production infrastructure, are learning about Umanned Vehicle Forces, and building their own UVF infrastructure in the name of helping Ukraine.

But all this new infrastructure for the new warfare paradigm of drone warfare will also be useful preparation just in case Russia decides they need a new military adventure to acquire Baltic seaside resorts.

So is NATO better prepared? Yes.

thank you for your response. You seem to talk about preparations - which are beyond dispute, they are way more ready and less complacent than they had been. It seemed insane that Russia would cut it's own nuts off in terms of energy exports with a full invasion of national conquest - but they did it anyways, assuming nobody was much inclined to stop them.

And that's the question - prepared is one thing. Willing to fight a broad war and suffer signficant casualties is another. I think there's some truth the Russian assumption that the West isn't willing to even a fraction of the institutional, multi-generational suffering that Russians expect as table stakes to whatever passes for life. At whatever level of mateiral preparedness you found yourself - if you're Europe, would you respond immeidately with force today to a sustained, large scale attack on NATO territory today. Are you willing to lose 5,000 soldiers? 10,000? 50,000? That's a monthly tally for the Russians but would reduce nearly every European army to total ineffectiveness.

Russia probably won't do it, for even MORE reasons than they had NOT to invade in 2022. I think they would have if they thought they can get away with it. Restraint isn't useful to them at this point. But how large would an attack have to be on Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia before there are NATO jets in the air? In 2026, that seems way more likely than it did in 2022.