Russia is preparing for a full scale war
with NATO by 2026- so says an alleged leak of German intelligence. The leak supports this
conclusion by pointing out the reorganization of the Russian army, movement of troops along its
border with the west and repositioning of both conventional and nuclear missile forces,
and the mobilization of Russian defense industry. Within five years, the report
states, Russian strength could double. As of the writing of this script the veracity
of the report has yet to be confirmed, but even without confirmation what the
alleged report states is clearly evident already. But wait, we can hear you say
in the comments section already- didn't you report for two years that Russia
was weak, Infographics Show? Well, just because your dad never came back from
the store doesn't mean things can't change. What has prompted this new stance on Russia, who up until last fall was seen as a
rapidly diminishing power? How did we get here and how confident can we be about
further Russian aggression in the future? It all comes down to western support for
Ukraine, as it so often does. When the history of this war is written, no matter
what happens next one thing will be clear: the west refused to take the Russian threat
seriously and treated Ukraine as an afterthought, sending nothing more than token military aid
because it was never serious about defeating Russia. Even two years into the war we still don't
have a definitive statement from either the US or NATO that its goal is a Russian defeat. For his
many, many, many gross missteps in this conflict, the one thing that Putin has done expertly is
make the West brown its collective pants at any thought of Russian escalation, effectively
neutering all but token bits of aid for Ukraine. We need look no further than France's Emmanuel
Macron, who at the start of the war even as the Russians were being forced to retreat from
Kyiv in a humiliating defeat, stated that Russia must not be quote- humiliated. Well, two years
later we have a completely different Macron, who as one of the few European leaders who has
seen the writing on the wall is now mulling over the possibility of sending French troops
into Ukraine- with or without NATO support. To see how we got here, it's also helpful
to compare western aid versus Russia's own ability to resupply its forces. In early 2023,
the west finally agreed to send Leopard 2s, Challengers, and Abrams tanks to
Ukraine. The west celebrated the move and predictions of catastrophic Russian
defeats and Ukrainian forces taking Moscow by fall made the rounds across the media. Much
to the west's collective surprise though, a paltry force of barely over 100 tanks- not
even all delivered in time for summer- failed to win the war in one fell swoop versus
Russia's thousands of tanks and IFVs. Truly, not even Sun Tzu could have
possibly predicted that a few dozen second hand tanks wouldn't immediately
win the war against Putin's hordes. That's not to say that western tanks didn't help, or weren't decisive- they absolutely were.
Everywhere that western tanks showed up, Russian tanks immediately became a federally
protected endangered species. Western infantry fighting vehicles were also significantly decisive
in engagements against their Russian counterparts- as has been seen in countless clips from the
fighting, while the BMP runs, the Bradley hunts. And when western vehicles were defeated,
their crews didn't immediately join the Ukrainian space program the way Russian tank crews have
historically been promoted to cosmonauts. Instead, Ukrainian crews survived their vehicle's
destruction and lived to fight another day. But superior as western equipment may be, it's
incapable of winning a war in the pithy sums supplied to Ukraine. Even worse, to date
there has been no plan to actually replace these tanks with ongoing resupply. This leaves
Ukraine in the impossible position of having to plan out military operations where it
has no guarantee of actually replacing the equipment it loses in combat- which means the
nation is forced to hoard its resources out of fear it may not receive replacements.
This is not a smart way to wage war. Now F-16s are on their way to Ukraine, and
much hype is being made about their entry into the war. Like western tanks and IFVs
though, there is also no plan in place to replenish Ukrainian losses and continue supply
of jets over the long term. Like western tanks, F-16s will make a splash wherever
they appear but will ultimately be too few in number to significantly
affect the outcome of the fighting. This mirrors perfectly the entry of
long-range strike missiles into the Ukrainian arsenal. Storm Shadow and ATACMS made
a hell of a showing when they entered the war, with Ukraine granting an early retirement
to several Russian Black Sea fleet senior officers in just one Storm Shadow attack.
Likewise ATACMS turned multiple Russian attack helicopters to swiss cheese in its
debut attack, and has on multiple times permanently de-nazified entire formations of
Russian soldiers far behind the front lines. But within months of their entry into the war,
the strikes stopped because the weapons ran out- and you guessed it, there was no plan for Ukraine
to actually get more. Britain itself was already in dangerously low supply of Storm Shadow due to
significantly underestimating the threat of major conventional war and criminal underinvestment
in its military- a casualty of the post-Cold war peace dividend shared by most powers in
the west. The United States balked over and over again about providing ATACMS out of fear
they would be used inside of Russia itself, and to be completely fair, it's the only nation
with a legitimate need for its own stockpile of missiles as ATACMS could play an important
role in a Pacific conflict against China. France stepped up to the plate and began
to provide its own SCALP missiles to complement delivery of Storm Shadow,
and Macron has recently announced the transfer of forty more SCALP along with
hundreds of other aerial bombs. However, Olaf Scholz refused to provide Germany's Taurus
missile despite pressure from across NATO, fearful of escalation- despite there being
no escalation to either Storm Shadow, ATACMS, or any of the dozens of other weapons given to
Ukraine in two years of fighting. Backlash against Scholz yet again balking at providing war-winning
weapons has escalated to the point that German legislators are investigating ways of providing
the weapons in a way that bypasses Scholz. The west, and wider world beyond, is
slowly waking up to the very real threat that Russia poses not just in Ukraine, but
beyond. But other than the west's criminal neglect in handling the Russian threat, how
is Russia gearing up to challenge Europe? The first factor is Russia's ability
to adapt to a war that it was losing up until relatively recently. Russia
has increasingly attempted to emulate the West's military culture that places
a high priority on individual initiative, without much success. This has left the Russian
military still operating under a Soviet-style top-down command structure with little room for
subordinates to act of their own accord. This has been especially true after the Wagner coup,
where Russian military leaders have increasingly been promoted more for their loyalty than
their actual experience or capability. These are all bad things, but the good thing for
Russia is that its military has proven adaptable to the many strategic and tactical failures of
the past. The Russian military for example no longer operates tanks and armored vehicles in
large formations during assaults, which we saw repeatedly decimated across the first half of 2023
and all of 2022. Instead, it has opted for smaller scale tactics, often sending assaults out in small
groups of unsupported infantry which identify and fix Ukrainian positions for artillery to the
pound. Rather than send in a large contingent of vehicles to reinforce the attack, instead we've
seen far smaller scale attacks of BMPs and tanks, limiting losses to Ukrainian artillery and drones.
This actually exploits Ukraine's shell shortage, as the UAF is loath to expend its remaining
stockpile of artillery shells on small targets. Next, Russia has offered increasingly lucrative
pay packages to new recruits willing to serve in Ukraine. When the conflict started, junior
officers made about 81,000 rubles a month- or $900, far below rates in western militaries.
However six months later junior troops who enlisted could earn as much as 195,000 rubles a
month, or $2100. Other perks include grocery and housing allowances- things that are typically
standard in the US military. In some cases, Russia even offered as much as 1 million rubles-
$11,000- as an enlistment bonus for its quote- elite divisions. These recruitment packages are
incredibly attractive to Russians living in the nation's poorest oblasts, with an estimated 13.5
million Russians living below the poverty line. According to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu,
these incentives have generated quotes- two combined armies, a mixed aviation corps,
and 50 new formations and military units, including four divisions, 18 brigades, and 28
regiments. Of course, Shoigu is a lying sack of Shih Tzus so his figures should be taken with a
grain of salt- though given the dramatic expansion of the Russian military, they're also not entirely
imaginary as most Russian claims often are. Then there's the mobilization of the
Russian industry, which has now been officially put on a war footing. This
more than anything accounts for Russia's growing successes in Ukraine, because
while Russian equipment may be garbage, it's generating enough to drown Ukrainian
defenders in a tidal wave of it. In 2024, Russian defense spending doubled to 7.1%
of its GDP- a figure similar to the famous arms buildup of the United States in the 1980s, when
America beat the Soviet Union at the Cold War by simply outspending it. Defense spending will
now account for about 35% of the total budget, and industries directly supporting the war are
experiencing unprecedented growth. Production of transportation vehicles rose 66.7% in 2023,
and computer and electronics manufacturing rose 42.6%- indicating that Russia is still able
to procure badly needed microchips despite international bans thanks to China. Navigation
devices rose 72.4% and protective clothing rose by 40.4%. At arms factories across the
nation, production is now run 24 hours a day, and a new government committee has been
established to oversee defense production. This committee has absolute power over Russian
industry, even capable of taking over a company's budget entirely and forcing the cancellation
of vacation or time off requests by workers. If there's a bright spot in all this, it is
that Russian industry is significantly less efficient than it was pre-war. Thanks to a
combination of sanctions and the pull out of western businesses and investments, Russia
lacks the investments and technical expertise to maintain or replace some of its high technology
assets, forcing it to rely on more inefficient but locally produced alternatives. This is hitting
the Russian energy sector especially hard, as Russian oil companies were extremely
reliant on western technology inside of their refineries. Hardest hit has been natural
gas, with Russia not having the technology to liquify natural gas- a growing concern
as Ukrainian drone strikes increasingly target LNG terminals and other refineries
rather than actual oil extraction sites. But the reshaping of the Russian economy paints a
dire picture- as the West continues to hem and haw over every single bullet sent to Ukraine, Russia
is pumping out equipment at frightening rates. It claims to have received 1500 new and modernized
tanks after tripling vehicle-generation rates in 2023- yet it's impossible to know how many of
these are new and how many are simply refurbished vehicles pulled out of deep storage. We know those
stores are beginning to run out, and what's left is unlikely to be of much use- already there is
evidence that Russia is ripping the turret out of T-55s and using them as armored personnel carriers
instead. While estimates vary, a modest figure of 200 new tanks a year seems reasonable- and as the
numbers of tanks held in deep storage runs out, those factories will instead be free
to convert over to producing new tanks. In artillery shells, Russia has absolutely
dwarfed the west- with estimates of 250,000 new shells being produced a month, in addition
to an unknown number of shells purchased from North Korea. This puts Russia on track to
produce 3 million shells a year, while the US is expanding its own production capabilities to
hit 100,000 shells a month by 2025- though this effort has been stalled out due to Speaker Mike
Johnson refusing to allow a vote on the Ukraine aid bill. Of the one million shells promised to
Ukraine by the EU in 2023, just over half of that was ultimately delivered. There are efforts to
purchase one million shells from abroad, but that doesn't fix the dearth in production by the west-
and Russia has a massive head start on production. The results are evident on the battlefield.
Despite a successful and vigorous campaign against Russian artillery by Ukraine that saw
the UAF achieve shell parity or even superiority across parts of the front, we're now back in
the old days. Russia is once more firing ten times as many shells as Ukraine, with direct
battlefield effects. All across the front, the lack of shells is leading to slow but
incremental victories by Russian forces. Russia has also begun to produce drones
in vast numbers. At the start of the war, Russian forces were completely unprepared
for the onslaught of Ukrainian drones. Yet now Ukrainian forces are reporting not just
a parity in drones, but an overmatch in some areas. Iranian made Shaheed kamikaze drones are
now being produced domestically with Iranian help, and it's converting civilian drone industry
to military use. Inspection of crashed Russian drones has revealed Swiss, American, and Chinese
components, leading the west to attempt to tighten export controls. Yet most of these components
are easily available in other civilian products, and while this limits the effectiveness of
Russian drones, the sheer quantity of them is a quality all its own. While drone attacks
against civilian and infrastructure targets were originally only carried out by a small
number of drones, as recently as January the Ukrainians report shooting down as many
as 35 Shahed drones in a single attack. Leaked internal Russian documents show
that the nation plans on expanding production to 6,000 kamikaze drones
by 2025- though this plan comes with a hitch. These drones rely overwhelmingly
on western components from the US, Germany, Switzerland and other western nations, and
an effort to stop or curb second hand sales outside of the EU and North America could put
a serious crimp in these plans. Yet as usual, the goal of 6,000 drones a month hints at Russia's
willingness to pursue this campaign past Ukraine. It's not a simple matter to mobilize a nation's
industry and then just wind it down- switching from civilian to military production
is a sizable investment in resources, and one you only make if you're expecting
to continue producing military equipment in the long run. Simply put, Russia
has opened the floodgate and after weathering intense western sanctions it has
little reason to simply close it up again. If anything, Russia has gotten tacit approval
from the west itself to continue his campaign in Ukraine and beyond it as well. He has
proven that the west is largely disorganized, and despite proclamations of unity is
anything but. Each new major weapon delivery prompts fierce debate amongst western
leaders, and after two years of fighting NATO has yet to commit to Ukrainian victory.
Even worse, as Russian industry mobilizes, western efforts to match it sputter and struggle
to gain traction. Western gear may be superior, but that matters little when it's drowned
out by overwhelming numbers of Russian kit. NATO has shown that it lacks the backbone to
challenge Russia directly, and Putin's indirect threats of nuclear weapons have been sufficient to
deter the west. Facing a disorganized, reluctant, and unprepared west- Putin has every reason to
believe that he could win a war of attrition against NATO's eastern flank. This puts the
Baltics and even Poland directly in the firing line, and Russia has for years wanted to force
the Baltics back into its sphere of influence and close the Suwalki gap. There is even reason
to fear that Russia would attack Finland as well, as a way of punishing it for joining the
NATO alliance- but even more insidiously, to prove that NATO's article
five commitment is a farce. This has been a NATO fear for decades even
before the war in Ukraine. During his presidency, US President Barack Obama warned of a fait
accompli attack into the Baltics by Russia, with the nation seizing part- or the
entirety of- a Baltic state and then digging in on the defensive. Russia
gambled then and today that NATO would fear escalation to a nuclear conflict
too much to actually honor its article five commitment- and the war in Ukraine has
proven that he's probably right about that. If article five fails, the NATO alliance
would lose all credibility and quickly fall apart- reverting Europe back to
a pre-WWII state of insecurity. It would also open the door for Russia to
reclaim the Soviet territories it lost at the end of the Cold War, a stated goal
of Vladimir Putin and his administration. For years this has seemed far-fetched, and yet
it's not just NATO's failure in Ukraine that is making this possible- it's the possible loss or
at least non-commitment of NATO's most important member: the United States. As its largest
military power, the US underpins NATO's security, and indeed is the logistical backbone that
would get much of NATO's forces into the fight. Yet America's commitment to NATO has become
questionable at best, sparking a panic in Europe. Federal defendant Donald Trump has publicly
stated that he would not only allow, but actually encourage Russia to attack
NATO states that he felt weren't quote- paying their dues. No American president has
ever undermined the NATO alliance in this way, let alone actively encouraged a hostile foreign
power to attack America's allies. Yet Trump harbors other Putin sympathies that has alarmed
many in Europe and in the US, and in the past threatened to pull the US out of the alliance.
Now, it's his arm of the Republican party- the MAGA alliance- which is actively blocking badly
needed Ukraine aid, and has done so for months. Despite a bipartisan agreement to fund both
Ukraine aid and border security- the most robust border security bill in history, and one
endorsed by the National Border Patrol Council- Speaker and Trump ally Mike Johnson has refused
for months to allow the bill to come to a vote. Leaving NATO would require congressional
approval, and yet Trump has placed himself in position to gain the support that he needs should
Republicans control the Senate. Fear of upsetting MAGA supporters has prompted many otherwise
moderate Republicans to tow the party line, and with the appointing of Lara Trump
to the Republican National Convention, the MAGA block has significant power to empower
the election of MAGA friendly Republicans. This has opened the door to a Trump presidential
win in 2024, with Trump publicly stating that he would not support Ukraine any further. While
loyalists paint this as an attempt to enact a peace settlement, Europe is in an increasing
state of alarm over what a Russian takeover of Ukraine would entail- and what would come next as
Russian industry has been fully mobilized for war. The writing is on the wall, and Europe
must empower Ukraine to fight Russia today, and do it itself in a few short years-
potentially even without US support. Now go check out “Russia vs Ukraine – 2 years
later,” or click this other video instead!
