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Plugger's avatar

Excellent article. I think any attack by Russia against NATO countries in Europe would be aimed at Diesel infrastructure. Oil refineries, storage, import terminals. It's a small list as Europe is especially vulnerable here. Without diesel their civilian economies collapse in short order and any military operations would grind to a halt.

The US mainland is also very vulnerable with it's dispersed and extensive civilian infrastructure (power generation and distribution, water, rail, etc.) Russia, I'm sure, if it wanted to could launch a campaign against it using hands-off third party actors already present in the increasingly socially and culturally divided US.

I think the smart people in the room (who are a few levels down from the idiots in charge) have already figured out that NATO and the US are on a hiding to nowhere but the delusional bubble that the leaders live in, as you've mentioned, is extremely dangerous.

"We'll if we can't beat Russia militarily, economically or diplomatically what option does that leave us?" That's a scary thought.

The massively indebted US and the EU are facing a looming financial system meltdown which is acting as a timer on the whole exercise. Hopefully the smart people get to have a say.

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c1ue's avatar

Good writeup.

Just noting that Russia (or any other semi-intelligent attacker) would absolutely not attack Western political or military headquarters in case of outright war. The likelihood of improving leadership would be too immensely risky...

The real targets in the US and UK would be transport facilities: ports and airfields receiving imports and those which host outgoing military and civilian transport capacity plus orbital assets. This would cripple US capability to project force anywhere outside of the US much less support Europe and the many foreign US bases. It would cause literal crisis in the UK - which imports more than half its food and is already short; Mercouris has reported egg, potato, fruit and vegetable shortages already and they are not even at war.

Even if Russia chose not to strike at US targets as noted above, the next item on the list is clearly cross Atlantic (or in the case of China, cross Pacific) transport. 1000 to 2000 km anti-ship missile systems allow China or Russia to attack both transport ships and planes from far out of range of carrier based fighter protection; this in turn forces Western militaries to try and take out these anti-ship missile carrying fighters and bombers more or less at home...buried deep within the modern Russian anti-aircraft net.

Lastly, insufficient focus on the real Achilles heel of NATO forces and systems: resupply. Macgregor and others have pointed out that the M1 Abrams, Challenger etc aren't just big and heavy - they are hogs for fuel, manpower, maintenance and other forms of logistical support. Having a gigantic, jet fuel sucking, non-mobile in a practical sense, monster hunk of metal makes sense if you're attempting to defend the Fulda Gap against 5 Soviet attackers per defender; it makes offensive projection an impossibility. It is literally like trying to live in a Ferrari - you would need to tow a pikey style trailer behind it. As I believe Macgregor said - each Abrams needs its own fuel tanker truck...

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