Russia / NATO Tensions

[TankBuster]

Recently there has been an increase in tensions between Russia & NATO with various NATO deployments into Europe to deter/counter any Russian threats. Also, Putin has recently had his political opponent arrested, which is quite worrying.
I have also noticed there seems to be a lot of military exercises taking place around the UK at the moment too.

Which leads me to wonder, do NATO think Putin is planning something?

TankBuster

[MRTT]

To be honest, a war with Russia is incredibly unlikely, don't think either side is stupid to start something like that.

[TankBuster]

I too would like to think that both sides had a bit more common sense than to start a conflict, but it's clear to see that there has certainly been a bit more focus on Russia in recent months.

TankBuster

[MRTT]

Have to agree, sending aircraft to the Baltic States is purely a show of force, nothing to say a conflict is going to flair up between the two anytime soon.

[mushbuster]

Since 2014 Putin has stirred up conflict and basically took over Crimea, then did similar by proxy in Eastern Ukraine. This has been followed by significant and sustained asymmetric offensive cyber attacks across NATO counties, covert interference in western elections, a probable breach of the INF treaty and a significant build up of forces on the Russian borders of the NATO Baltic states. I wonder what the people of Estonia and Lithuania think about how sensible Putin will be to avoid avoid a conflict in the Baltics

[PeteHemsley]

i'm interested to listen to what these "threats" are exactly?

As far I know, There hasn't been any threats from Russia?

[22A]

On the Russia Today, an English language news channel (Sky 512), they appeared to be concerned that American troops are learning Russian. One of their studio experts suggested this implied America is planning an invasion!

[page_verify]

Mushbuster hits the nail on the head. Russia wants to become Europe's superpower, displacing the economic power of the European Union and the dwindling military power of NATO. It knows, and has had confirmed from experience, that the way to do this is through its immediate neighbours and allies. In the last decade, its actions in Georgia, Ukraine and Syria have frozen the collective mite of the UN, the European Union and NATO. If I lived in one of the border countries with a decent sized number of Russian speakers, then I'd be worried about "unmarked soldiers in black clothing" appearing to "protect the rights of Russian speakers abroad", while Russia parks its military a few miles away on its side of the border. Unfortunately, NATO was created in an era when the goal was counting up the number of tanks, strike fighters, bombers and warheads, and each side then took a deep breath and thought "we hope we never go to war as they might work out we're weak". Today, Russia knows that Article 5 is likely to mean nothing unless it sends an ICBM into Washington DC and charges through the plains of Europe. European countries already have too many problems, such as Brexit, on their plates to want to handle trouble with Russia. You can thank RAFC Cranwell's education on Air Power for that answer

[Reach1985]

I'm with page_verify on this - I wrote something similar on another thread on this forum about this subject. How likely the above scenario is (a special forces 'take over' of one of the Baltic states) I don't know (certainly not unlikely) but it would be a sure fire way to undermine and expose the cracks in both the EU and NATO and would probably bring about the end of both alliances ultimately.

[bentwaters81tfw]

On the Russia Today, an English language news channel (Sky 512), they appeared to be concerned that American troops are learning Russian. One of their studio experts suggested this implied America is planning an invasion!

I suspect RT was pulling an April Fool. The Russian sense of humour is very like ours.

[Snoop 95]

Bottom line as far as I am concerned is that both sides are posturing and sabre-rattling.
As far as Mr Putin is concerned it is wise to review his background. This is a man who was high in the KGB and is demonstrably nationalistic, which incidentally one would like to assume that every country's leader would be. With that said, he has seen the fall of the Soviet Union and the associated change in alliance of most of the former Soviet bloc countries and so will feel distinctly vulnerable now. He will not want 'The Western Countries' to encroach any further on 'his' former territory and so is now trying to show that Russia is still a force to be reckoned with. The West, in the form of NATO, are equally demonstrating that they 'are ready for him' and so he should not 'step over the line'.
With this scenario I do not find the situation at all threatening, indeed it raises a wry smile that humans are just like animals when defending their territory; fluffing out their chests! The only scary bit is if some idiot (from either side) decides that he is justified in 'throwing a punch'.

[page_verify]

Bottom line as far as I am concerned is that both sides are posturing and sabre-rattling.

Given what Russia's done in the last decade, what do you need to see it do to worry it's doing more than posturing? The people posturing right now are NATO about how credible a deterent they are against Russia, especially when Trump's in the news this evening saying North Korea is the biggest threat to America and he wants to fix that.

[Snoop 95]

I think you should note that what I have written is in the present tense and is in response to the subject heading and original entry of this item p v.
In fact what happened in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine bears out completely what I went on to say.