[HWR_14]

Who does Europe need to defend itself against? Russia can't invade Ukraine, and it has 1/10 the population (less?) and arms that are leftovers from European armories (and US armories). Is China going to roll troops across a continent?

[varjag]

If North Korea does, why not China?

Also worth mentioning that without the United States the present continental European militaries would struggle even against the battered ground forces of Russia. Can't really fight back with GDP of your service economy alone.

[HWR_14]

North Korea is being being paid by Russia to supply troops. Russia cannot afford Chinese troops. And even if they could afford them, China is throwing its weight around Asia and wants its military intact there.

[varjag]

Sure, and North Korea wants to man its border for the eventuality of war with the South. At least that's what everyone would have said before it happened. NK troops in Ukraine weren't on anyone's bingo card.

[vkou]

North Korea is involved in it for the same reason countries send military observers to conflicts.

It hasn't fought a war in decades, and it needs to figure out whether or not any of its shit/doctrines/etc works. It doesn't actually give a rat's ass about Crimea or Ukraine or Russian claims.

It fully relies on friendly logistics to participate in the conflict.

[belter]

Will your opinion change, when you see a photo of Polish soldiers looking at North Korean battalions across their fence border?

[HWR_14]

Absolutely not. North Korea is essentially selling mercenary services to Russia. They're the only country that will really do that, and they will have to rely on the pretty broken Russian supply lines to do so. And Russia probably won't even be able to afford to pay for a second wave from North Korea.

[int_19h]

What the war in Ukraine is showing is that Russia is capable of running a wartime economy, cranking out artillery shells etc at replacement rates, while Europe, so far, has not demonstrated the ability to do so, which is why supplies are dwindling - you can only run so far on existing stocks.

It should also be noted that Ukraine has been preparing for this exact scenario since 2014, building massive fortifications in the east (which is precisely why the Russian advance there has always been such a grind).

In the event of an open confrontation between Russia and European countries currently backing Ukraine, it's not at all a given that the latter can hold significantly better than Ukraine does today, without American help. European armed forces are generally in a pathetic shape, grossly undermanned and underfunded, and would simply run out of materiel before Russia runs out of bodies to throw at them.

[HWR_14]

Russia's economy is tanking fast. Their wartime economy, in addition to crushing the civilian economy, has already hit it's peak. Russia is pretty much running low on bodies just in Ukraine. They've already emptied the jails.

Europe doesn't produce artillery shells because NATO (even NATO minus US) can drop bombs after air superiority instead.

Most importantly, Ukraine is doing this well with politically imposed limits on what they can do with those weapons. In a Russia vs. NATO minus US war, Russia will have to defend against deep strikes on critical infrastructure.

[int_19h]

The problem with all this stuff is that we've heard "Russia's economy is tanking fast" already during the first year of the war, and yet...

As far as "running out of bodies", the more accurate statement would be "running out of volunteers". While much has been made of Russia emptying its prisons, this ignores the fact that the majority of its fighting force are people who come to fight willingly, largely because of pay. Ukraine, on the other hand, has to rely on forced mobilization. At some point, Russia will do the same if needed - and yes, the regime doesn't want to do it because of political cost associated with it, but they absolutely can pull that off if and when they needed.

The notion that you can "just drop bombs after air superiority" hinges on the ability to establish said air superiority. US might be able to pull that off against Russia, but I very much doubt that Europe can. Not to mention that bombs also run out.

[HWR_14]

Obviously bombs can run out. But that's why major NATO countries have stockpiles of bombs and the ability to produce them. The fact that they didn't maintain large scale artillery shell production isn't relevant to whether they maintained bomb production. I would guess that European NATO could maintain air superiority. The Ukrainians seem to have denied Russia air superiority without the benefit of anywhere near as large an air force.

Russia has been importing soldiers from third-party countries. It does not speak well for the state of your armed forces if every growing percentages of your troops aren't even your own citizens.

Meanwhile, Russia's economy has been collapsing over the past two years. Their central bank has a 21% interest rate, there a million jobs they cannot fill because those people are off fighting a war (it may only be 500,000 jobs, accounts differ). It's backstopped by being a petrostate so they have oil money as a country, but that only papers over things for so long.

[int_19h]

Like I said, we've heard "Russia's economy is collapsing" for 3 years straight now. I even believed it myself for the first year, but I have relatives actually living there - who aren't even pro-war - and the picture painted in the Western press has little to do with realities on the ground. Right now the economy is booming as far as most people are concerned. How sustainable it all is, is a good question, but given that the same people making the doom and gloom predictions long ago, I don't see why I should continue listening to them.

As far as Ukraine being able to deny Russian air superiority, that is evidence towards my point that Russia would similarly be able to deny air superiority to any European force. Westerners are way too used to fighting colonial wars against people whose best AA weapon is an old Stinger, but these things work very differently against a more or less modern power.

The lack of manpower is, again, for political reasons. Mobilization wouldn't be any more popular in Russia than it is in Ukraine. So they want to avoid it if they can by hiring mercs as replacement troops, whether from the heretofore neglected Russian province or from abroad like with NK forces. But make no mistake, Russia can do mobilization if it needs to, and they have more enforcement mechanisms for it compared to Ukraine, not to mention larger reserves. This is partly why the higher-ups are okay with such high losses, and it takes truly massive screw-ups for generals to get kicked out - the government doesn't see those losses as unsustainable.