> A large war in Europe is likely in the coming weeks. The current security architecture of the continent, the future of NATO, and America’s role in shaping security outcomes there are all at stake. Beyond Europe, this conflict would have profound implications for U.S. defense strategy, and may upset America’s best-laid plans to focus on the eroding military balance with China. Ukraine, whose fate hangs in the balance, may be at the center of the crisis, but Moscow has a greater goal in mind: the revision of Europe’s security order. The Russian armed forces have conducted a substantial buildup around Ukraine, with Moscow threatening unilateral military measures if it is not able to achieve its goals at the negotiating table.
Ummm I don't remember that - can you give some more details?
I do remember them running articles like "what should NATO do if Russia invades". Which isn't a dismissal.
Of course, it would have been a really bad thing to dismiss & deride a Russian invasion that took Kiev in 4 days and ended with the partition and neutering of Ukraine with less than 1000 Russian dead. But I don't live in that reality, I live in the reality in which the Russians managed to pull of an even bigger foreign policy mistake than Iraq 2003. It's not got to the all time high of June 1941, but it's getting closer with every week that goes by.
It's quite expectable for someone who understands things about warfare, to make that mistake. See, Putin was seen as a guy who understands warfare, after all he was quite successful in Syria (or so it seemed, until he eventually lost 3 years later). So few could expect him to launch an invasion so badly unprepared and so doomed to fail: only way it could have succeeded, in a hindsight, was if indeed, Ukrainians were eager to get out of the dirty hands of 'fascists' and back to Mother Russia, but everyone who wasn't living in front of Putin TV 24/7 knew it wasn't the case. True, vast majority of analysis expected Ukraine to fold quickly and probably majority of Ukrainians believed the same thing, but if someone was a true expert, they should have foreseen it - and thus, believe that invasion threat was just a game Putin played to get Ukraine to concede to some of his demands peacefully. That was a very rational thing to expect for someone who understood things. But instead, it turned out to be what it was: just a major blunder.
Just as in 1941, actually. By 1941, entire world knew that Hitler was a military genius who never made a mistake. Who could expect a military genius to commit to such an absurdly foolish thing? And yet he did - and because no one could (rationally) expect it, he got all the advantage of surprise possible, and probably more of it than he ever expected - and yet he lost. Turned out to be not such a genius after all. But everyone who dismissed probability of him invading in 1941, had a point. Most rational and knowledgeable people should have dismissed that probability.
