[fractallyte]

Conversely, I have no doubt that Lithuania's armed forces have learned from Ukraine's experience: those Russian tanks would all be destroyed within the first few kilometers.

...and that assumes Russia still has enough tanks to even mount an offensive, in sufficient numbers to capture several capital cities, belonging to nations with a fearsome grudge against them.

(Three years ago, I would have fully agreed with your assessment!)

[trhway]

yes. That is why Russia hasn't yet moved, and still looking for a way to do it. Russia is deliberately stuck in the past where for example the "War scare of 1927" laid ground and provided the excuse for the militarization of and repressions in USSR and ultimately to the USSR starting WWII together with and as ally of Hitler. And the first thing USSR did back then in 1939 was the "solution" of the perceived issues of the 1927 (the issues which there for the last several centuries) - Finland, Poland and the Baltic states. If you look at the current Russian TV, chats, etc. - their thinking and perception are the same as back then. For them it isn't an issue of whether to do it, it is an issue of how to do it. It took 12 years from 1927 to 1939 during which the country got prepared for the war, at least how they perceived the necessary preparations - in particular it was industrialized and the society was militarized and put completely under dictatorship, and i think we see that today too.

[hackandthink]

The Soviet Union was right to be scared back then. The next invasion from the west happened 1941.

And I guess there is still some paranoia in Russia. The NATO Neocons are busy feeding it.

[Hamuko]

>The Soviet Union was right to be scared back then. The next invasion from the west happened 1941.

And everyone next to the Soviet Union was right to be scared since Soviet Union invaded Finland and Poland in 1939.

[trhway]

>The Soviet Union was right to be scared back then. The next invasion from the west happened 1941.

Not really. The USSR was scared about what they perceived as Anglo-led forces and so united with Germany against them and attacked them first. The invasion of 1941 came from Germany who was still an ally even just the night before the invasion - Hitler even fed Stalin (and Stalin went for it!) the fake that the German forces got accumulated on the USSR border to mislead Britain into thinking that Germany plans to attack USSR while instead Germany was supposedly preparing to invade Britain.

>And I guess there is still some paranoia in Russia. The NATO Neocons are busy feeding it.

The Russian paranoia hasn't changed much since Ivan The Terrible, long before neocons.

[hackandthink]

I think "Blood and Ruins" by Richard Overy is a great piece of work and a good account of the confusing history of the 1930s.

Munich was an "alliance" of Great Britain und Germany (and sort of Poland).

Then Germany and the Soviet Union allied against Poland.

Then Great Britain and The Soviet Union allied.

>The Russian paranoia hasn't changed much since Ivan The Terrible, long before neocons.

Prisoners of Geography is pop science but I like the chapter about Russia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_of_Geography

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/106335/blood-and-ruins-by-ov...

[axpvms]

>the next invasion from the west

The invasion from Nazi Germany, the USSR's ally in the invasion of Poland, and the one it signed extensive trade agreements with and helped to avoid sanctions.