Russia on brink of ... NOPE! Russia INVADES Ukraine!

Page 1188 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

rommelrommel

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 2002
4,411
3,192
146
Belarus and the Russians in Kaliningrad should be concerned... at this rate, Poland will soon have the best equipped army in Europe

And at some point, the Germans might start to get concerned about the Polish military build up... along with a nationalist-leaning Polish government

Germany has nothing to worry about, but if it gets their rearmament program to actually move, that's fine by me.
 

kage69

Lifer
Jul 17, 2003
28,831
40,425
136
Plus 500 Stingers, nearly 8k APKWS, and more.

It will take years to realize full delivery but this is still a shitload of arms.

Pocket artillery and kinetic drone killer FTW! I do love me some cost effective bolt on smart parts. True "warheads on foreheads" kit there.

Poles have their own MANPADS line, 100% indigenous parts IIRC. Interesting that they'd buy Stingers. I wonder if it's ammo for Avengers and previously purchased launchers, or did they grab more launchers?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Leeea

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
48,246
37,666
136
Pocket artillery and kinetic drone killer FTW! I do love me some cost effective bolt on smart parts. True "warheads on foreheads" kit there.

Poles have their own MANPADS line, 100% indigenous parts IIRC. Interesting that they'd buy Stingers. I wonder if it's ammo for Avengers and previously purchased launchers, or did they grab more launchers?

Probably easier just to buy Stingers than integrate Piorun on the Apache.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Leeea

Pens1566

Lifer
Oct 11, 2005
12,321
9,175
136
Belarus and the Russians in Kaliningrad should be concerned... at this rate, Poland will soon have the best equipped army in Europe

And at some point, the Germans might start to get concerned about the Polish military build up... along with a nationalist-leaning Polish government

Any armor march across Poland just got much, much tougher.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Leeea

rommelrommel

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 2002
4,411
3,192
146
  • Wow
Reactions: Leeea and RnR_au

GodisanAtheist

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 2006
7,166
7,666
136
A common refrain of mine when I hear people (usually family) complaining about Europe not paying their fair share for military hardware etc is that Europeans are just about the last people on earth we need rearming.

Dudes were literally in a constant state of war for the past 2000+ years, conquered the rest of the planet, then finally turned on each other when no one else offered up good sport and ended up killing like 50 million people.

Having the US provide for Europe's defense is a small price to pay and no small part of the reason the globe is in a Pax Americana.
 
  • Like
Reactions: feralkid and Leeea

RnR_au

Platinum Member
Jun 6, 2021
2,062
5,007
106
Dudes were literally in a constant state of war for the past 2000+ years, conquered the rest of the planet, then finally turned on each other when no one else offered up good sport and ended up killing like 50 million people.
Most of the Europeans gave up the ideas of Imperialism after WWI. Certainly it was dead after WW2.

I'm struggling to imagine any of the Euro nations to start sabre rattling vs one of their neighbours. High education rates tends to restrict extremism to the far corners of the political spectrum and hence limits political power for any extremists.
 

Racan

Golden Member
Sep 22, 2012
1,151
2,087
136
Most of the Europeans gave up the ideas of Imperialism after WWI. Certainly it was dead after WW2.

I'm struggling to imagine any of the Euro nations to start sabre rattling vs one of their neighbours. High education rates tends to restrict extremism to the far corners of the political spectrum and hence limits political power for any extremists.
Not to mention we have the European Union which was created with one of the goals to keep the peace in Europe.

I don’t see why one would be afraid of a militarily strong EU including Germany more than one would fear the US having a strong military.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Leeea and RnR_au

Pens1566

Lifer
Oct 11, 2005
12,321
9,175
136
A common refrain of mine when I hear people (usually family) complaining about Europe not paying their fair share for military hardware etc is that Europeans are just about the last people on earth we need rearming.

Dudes were literally in a constant state of war for the past 2000+ years, conquered the rest of the planet, then finally turned on each other when no one else offered up good sport and ended up killing like 50 million people.

Having the US provide for Europe's defense is a small price to pay and no small part of the reason the globe is in a Pax Americana.

Yeah, makes me wonder what it'll be like after this conflict where there is a newfound power vacuum from Russia ending up a 4th rate military that only has nukes to sling around (maybe).

Most of the Europeans gave up the ideas of Imperialism after WWI. Certainly it was dead after WW2.

I'm struggling to imagine any of the Euro nations to start sabre rattling vs one of their neighbours. High education rates tends to restrict extremism to the far corners of the political spectrum and hence limits political power for any extremists.

It's not so much the imperialism that worries me though.You could get a pretty nasty little conflict just between regional neighbors for pretty stupid reasons (say, baltics or any of the break away "republics"), or even something internal like Yugoslavia. Now, NATO ties temper that a bit, but stranger things have happened. You're gonna have all kinds of arms built up in a small-ish geographic region with no real boogeyman nation-state to worry about anymore. That aggression/anger/fear/whatever always has to be directed somewhere. It's our nature.

Not saying it'll happen, but definitely a new geopolitical reality to deal with.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,165
30,117
146
Yeah, makes me wonder what it'll be like after this conflict where there is a newfound power vacuum from Russia ending up a 4th rate military that only has nukes to sling around (maybe).



It's not so much the imperialism that worries me though.You could get a pretty nasty little conflict just between regional neighbors for pretty stupid reasons (say, baltics or any of the break away "republics"), or even something internal like Yugoslavia. Now, NATO ties temper that a bit, but stranger things have happened. You're gonna have all kinds of arms built up in a small-ish geographic region with no real boogeyman nation-state to worry about anymore. That aggression/anger/fear/whatever always has to be directed somewhere. It's our nature.

Not saying it'll happen, but definitely a new geopolitical reality to deal with.

I don't know. The only reason I can think of any Baltic nations getting testy with each other is because Lithuania has only one tiny beach town, so most of them flood into Latvia during the summer, greatly annoying the Latvians in their beach towns and camp grounds for a few months. I guess the Lithuanians also compete for the amber that naturally washes up on the shore along the coastline in that part of the world, which I'm sure really annoys the Latvians, ....but I don't see them going to war over it.

Maybe the Lithuanians are also jealous of Kristaps Porzhingis right now, because they are supposed to be the northern European basketball powerhouse.

The Estonians are too busy digitizing everything in their country--including the people, I imagine--to worry about anyone else or anyone else to worry about them. ...maybe we all need to worry about Estonia once they finish their project, though.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Leeea and RnR_au