Hmmm you know these military folks in leadership are not there because they are low iq. The Russians would have to go on major offensives with massive amounts of resources in all areas. As you said that costs billions and continually.
Perhaps they are playing to a different strategy? Think about this lets just formulate a hypothesis just for argument sake and to get our brains thinking on an abstract level. Say the Russians realised early that NATO were trying to lure Russia into a trap, a black hole in which they would pump endless resources for nothing. So they pulled back and thus are flipping the script and letting NATO pump endless resources into a shit hole Ukraine.
Russia was already a shit hole before all this kicked off so to them it makes no difference how much NATO try to economically punish them. But the joke is now on NATO who not only have to deal with China and Iran but now are caught up in Ukraine.
Just saying though on an abstract level.Say Russian leadership are super confident that they can defend the gains they made now against naything and everything NATO and Ukraine throw at them on the battle field. After NATO throw their blows then in the pause after that which NATO needs to catch their breath and prepare for the next blow then Russia captures a few more cities and villages, defend them then rinse and repeat. At least in the areas in which they enjoy local support.
As I said Russia was and is a shit hole so the question is how long can NATO financially sustain this war? All the while China is happily gaining strength without disturbance while NATO bleeds themselves dry. For example Europe is already fucked, infaltion going crazy, rising unemployment, rising energy prices etc etc etc. Will the EU populace still support the war come spring next year? I personally doubt, dont forget Europe has nothing in terms of resources except coal, wine and cheese. Maybe Amerimutts will still support the war come spring next year, I dont know but in the EU nobody will at least the working class wont because life is already approaching shit hole life for them having to flip each cent 3 times i.e they are struggling as is.
It is all hypothetical. I would have to write a 20 page essay to cover all areas of this hypothesis but you seem to be interested in military stuff so you know war is not just on the batlle field but also mind control,physcology, economics, education, propoganda, strategy, tactic etc etc etc. So yeah thats the way the Russians could be playing this one out.
You really understand the key aspects of what is going on in the big picture. Something I view is that to hold Europe over the long run, the US is going to have to much more directly run the EU countries and the EU. After 1990 when the West Europeans had gotten to near parity with the USA in GDP per capita, and the Cold War was ending, the US has sort of let them make their own decisions economically.
Even as the US had been running Western Europe for 45 years, from 1945 to 1990. Then since 1990 the US has mainly been letting the West Europeans run themselves, as we weren't as interested with the Cold War ending, and America focusing on other areas - like the ex-Warsaw Pact countries, and the Middle East. With things going so well in Western Europe it didn't make much sense to focus on them and they appeared to be equal to us with their GDP per capita the same as us.
I never believed however that the West Europeans had learned to be as smart as us. Ya when we were running their countries and put in place our full system in Europe, you get the same results. But what happens when we aren't running their countries.. they start changing our system and going for their own dumb ideas. This is a national security issue because countries where the average people of the country their standard of living is going downhill, if that continues it will eventually go beyond discontent to never ending wars and revolutions. Aka like Europe's past before we got there. Just the discontent weakens the Empire. A lot of the reason the Warsaw Pact countries wanted to join us in the 1990's was they saw how incredibly wealthy the West Europeans were in the early 90's. And not just a few very wealthy people, but the average person being that well off.
For Ukraine it is the same they see how Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania all their economies have grown 3-4 times since 1990, as they are in the West. And they want that too.
I view the European energy crisis was a long time in the making. We were telling them from the US for like 20 years, don't become dependent on Russia for that much of your energy needs because sooner or later it will get cut off, or you will become taken over by Russia.
And I'm not an electrical engineer.. but it was obvious to me that if you want to use natural gas instead of coal, because the natural gas is so clean, which seems smart to me that you do a couple of things.
-get diversity of supply
-get massive, massive storage
-above all don't tear down the coal power plants, and also keep the coal mines and coal transport systems operational, grid connections with the coal plants etc.
And on top of those things, an electrical systems operating normally with normal amounts of plants down for maintenance should provide 15-20% surplus capacity for the highest electrical demand day of the year as a minimum.
Anyway the EU should be ran by the US. With actual power engineers and GE and experienced electrical utility people designing, building and running the grid in Europe. So all people in our European Empire can get affordable, abundant and reliable power without having to think about it.
