this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2025
896 points (98.0% liked)

World News

41263 readers
4749 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 12 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

This is true to an extent. But in 1862 the US didn't have to worry about an invasion from Canada. If the Russians remove too much from the Far East though, China is going to rename Vladivostok to Haishenwai. Also ISIS is going to start infiltrating from Central Asia, again. Russia has real security concerns on it's borders that require a real military presence. They could not easily strip their border guard (a national paramilitary police that's commonly included in their military headcount) or border military units. They also cannot strip the major metro areas of their paramilitary units, such as the elite units guarding Moscow. Otherwise the next Prigozhin could succeed.

Russia already stripped what they could from the Far East at the start of the war so now they're largely left with units on NATO borders that haven't been called in yet. As much as it sucks, we all know NATO isn't going to attack Russia. And in fact this is where most of the reinforcing units are coming from for things like the Kursk Salient.

The next issue is battlefield saturation. In the American Civil War how many troops you could field was largely limited by control of water ways and rail lines. With modern vehicles and supply chains the limit is reached differently these days. Basically there's a point at which if you add another division to a line it starts to be detrimental instead of helpful. They will actually get into each other's way. This has remained largely unchanged since World War 2. And in fact the number of troops Russia has in Ukraine is reminiscent of World War 2, In June they reported they have 700,000 troops in Ukraine. This is likely the maximum amount of pressure they can put in the area.

So as long as Ukraine can deal with that number of troops efficiently, they could theoretically fight forever.

[–] antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

If the Russians remove too much from the Far East though, China is going to rename Vladivostok to Haishenwai.

Are there any real pretensions on the territory on China's part? It sounds like it would just cause more problems than it's worth (though it's not like that fact prevented Putin from attacking Ukraine), and possibly kill off BRICS.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago

Uh yeah. China is literally building islands to expand it's ability to access resources. The Russian Far East is also very resource rich. That's a pretty big incentive right there.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 5 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

Out of the BRICS nations, the least important is Russia. They have oil and land. And although China gets through a lot of oil, not much if it comes from Russia.

That said, I highly doubt China would invade any part of Russia. They don't need to. Superpowers tend not to poke the others directly.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 3 points 11 hours ago

Russia isn't a super power. And the reason countries don't poke each other outside of cultural ones is fear of retaliation. If the military is gone then what retaliation is there?

[–] WhatYouNeed@lemmy.world 7 points 16 hours ago

It won't be an invasion - it will be a special military occupation as the citizens in those areas really want Chinese representation.