NATO must shift to wartime mindset, secretary general warns

Finland seems to be the only member of NATO who hasn't forgotten who their neighbors are. But yes, better late than never.

You're talking like the whole of Europe has been pouring everything it's got into the war in Ukraine, which it hasn't even come close to.

I think Czechia is the only country who has not immediately replenished military aid given to Ukraine. UK arms manufacturers continue to supply the international market. Meanwhile Russia is pulling tanks out of museums, begging from impoverished North Korea and has spent nearly three years capturing 20% of a non-NATO country below Egypt and Australia in military rankings.

The issue here is not that Europe is vulnerable to Russia, it's that there is a renewed American mandate to cut spending on other people's wars and deterrents and they are wondering whether Europe should cough up more money. Mark Rutte licks Trump's anus and is making what he thinks are the right sounds. Fair enough. On the flipside European lawmakers are going to be wondering whether Donald will go back to keeping intelligence documents in his bathroom, whether US military bases in their countries are really worth it and whether they want much to do with the US at all as gets more and more nutty.

instead of war let's use critical weather as an analogy

That's hard to agree with. War efforts are largely dependent on finite resources, of which the upstream comment argued that if Russia is struggling (and losing those finite resources for later use) in Ukraine, they're sure to have even less if they spread their efforts elsewhere.

Weather generally doesn't get "used up" the same way, so it would make more sense to be prepared for that theoretical unlimited supply of snow.

Do I think countries around Russia should be on alert? Yes. Do I think their position is weaker now than it was before they invaded Ukraine, which would continue further if they tried the same thing elsewhere? Also yes.

In your analogy it's like increasing your grocery budget by 25%, knowing that you already have more than enough groceries to see you through the winter and that extra 25% will rot before it gets used. Spending that extra money on groceries has also cost you the opportunity to buy a backup generator in case the snow knocks out your power supply as well as a new starter motor for your snowmobile.

Why put that aside? It was the whole point of their invasion.

I agree about that but in the case of defence against a potential Russian invasion of European NATO members I think it's a false dichotomy. We are already stronger than Russia by nearly all measures and would be better off investing in infrastructure that makes us more prosperous and resilient whatever the future holds.

Could be. But I was also around when the Soviet Union was still a thing and reached to East Germany.

Also, if you think I trust those shifty Belgians, you’re very wrong ;-)

Honestly though, a week should be fine for most purposes if we’re talking simple infantry weapons and general population readiness.

Most weapons are so easy, a child can use them. And they do. If the average Afghan dirt farmer can use a Kalashnikov, it wouldn’t be too hard to train you or anyone to use something like an AR-15 or a Glock pistol. Or indeed even a Kalashnikov, should you be able to liberate one from an invader.

Most people in Europe have never held a gun, much less shot one. That makes it a scary, unknown thing. A week’s worth of training should at least make people more comfortable with them and allow them to shoot one if the need arises. Think of it like learning first aid, only… the opposite.

We’re also talking deterrence here. To make it very unappealing to invade somewhere. You’re not going on the offensive.

2008 is about 17 years after the collapse of the USSR. Within that time, Russia experienced an economic crisis with the push for a "free market" and actually had lower life expectancy than during the USSR. Unless you want to argue that Russia is just inherently a warmongering country, surely something could've been done to prevent this later aggression. Similar to trump, putin getting elected is a symptom of a broken system.

We need to examine the conditions that allowed such a figure to get elected. It wasn't an instantaneous transition to putin, it took about a decade of a miserable economy where people had to sell whatever they could (including vouchers for shares in previously state enterprises they were given, which ended up being bought up by oligarchs to consolidate power) just to eat. Life actually got worse than during the USSR. Along comes putin and luckily for him, the price of oil increases while he's in power and things look like they're improving. Is it any wonder that someone like that could grab power during such a turbulent time? It's happened in the US with trump and things are a lot less dire here than they were in Russia post-USSR-collapse.

This is like saying don't lock your car door