>> Doing so rashly? That vastly increases the chances because it encourages Russia to do something in the 3-5 year timeframe.

Can you sit down with a map and draw out exactly *WHAT* you think Russia will be capable of doing 5 years from now? Keep in mind that:

1. We watched the best-equipped and trained brigades in Ukraine bounce off well-prepared minefields and trenchworks in summer 2023. Just like in WW1, technology is in a state where defense is easier than offense.

2. Europe has years of prep time, and unmolested industrial capacity available, to build defenses that would make the "Surovikin Line" look like a speedbump.

This is why people joke about "Schrodinger's Russia": where Russia is so weak that people make fun of it for its slow progress in conquering Ukraine, yet is also so powerful that it has 500+ million Europeans shaking in their boots at the idea that Russia is gonna blitzkrieg the whole continent or something.

They can build up a force capable of annexing the strip of land between Belarus and Kaliningrad. They have a large number of experience troops and a massive number of conscripts, their drone capacity currently dwarfs Europe and is expanding. They also have hundreds of thousands of experienced operators.

They also have one of the most capable psyop machines in the world and a massive network of spies / 5th Column in place. They are especially strong in Eastern Europe and Germany.

So there's very much a risk that they try to hybrid style "grab" there then at a time when they have sown political chaos into Europe.

We can reduce the risk of we have overwhelming force available at hand - like we currently do as allies of the US - which makes any such move literal suicide as we would obliterate them.

Also - now this is my viewpoint - by committing to re-arming now and providing everything we have to help Ukraine kick Russia out of their country - a full rout of the Russians - we vastly reduce the risk of anything like that ever happening again and we set the conditions for the eventual liberation of Belarus and demilitarisation and neutralisation of Kaliningrad.

Basically: we get sharp fangs now so we can push the best time-line.

Also: there is an unlikely but not unthinkable scenario where American, under Emperor Trump (or Musk) switch to using gunboat diplomacy and bully Europe the way the British (and other European nations) bullied others in the past. And like America itself did to its neighbours in the Victorian times. So re-arming such that we have complete independence from the US reduces their leverage.

In a good timeline having both a strong Europe and strong US on the same side puts us in a very good place wrt China / India etc in the future.

>They can build up a force capable of annexing the strip of land between Belarus and Kaliningrad.

Ok, I'll take this as a starting point. Let's assume Russia has committed to seizing everything south of Kaunas and Vilnius, and north of Suwalki. The eastern part of this patch of land is ~200km frontage with Belarus (south of the E28 Highway). Because Kaunas and Vilnius combined have populations of ~900k, I'm going to assume the Russians will aim to bypass rather than seize them, so that will involve establishing blocking positions south of both cities in order to isolate them from the desired terrain. It also involves capturing Alytus, about the same size and population as Bakhmut. I would need to dig through some doctrinal publications to figure out how the Russians would template a force package for this op, but I'll spitball it at at least an entire corps/Combined Arms Army of 2-3 divisions and a few separate brigades, maybe 60-80,000 men?

While the focus is on repulsing an attack in this southern sector, let's assume Lithuania fortifies the entire border with Belarus, which is ~350km. Minefields 1km deep with 1 AT or 1 AP mine per 6 square meters would require ~60 million mines and $5 billion USD (about 1 year of Lithuania's military budget). That's an extreme lift but not impossible if amortized over several years, even without help from other EU nations. A defensive belt built behind a minefield like that will take the Russians weeks to penetrate if properly supported by other assets. Those weeks give the rest of the EU decision space for political action as well as time for mobilization/flowing combat power into the Area of Operations.

So the real question is "why"? Why would Russia want to expend the resources to accomplish this? Figure out what Russia wants and then structure a defense that imposes an unpalatable cost on the attacker. My position is that it can be accomplished without American involvement. Finland spent the Cold War a) outside of NATO b) with no independent "security guarantees" c) without getting invaded by the Soviets (again).....because it also made itself expensive enough to invade/annex that the Soviets didn't think the cost of re-absorbing that particular bit of formerly-Russian-Imperial-territory to be worth it. Facing down a massive conventional military assault from a well-equipped and supported adversary is not impossible: the Lebanese have done it twice in the past twenty years against the Israelis. Be like Lebanon.

>by committing to re-arming now and providing everything we have to help Ukraine kick Russia out of their country - a full rout of the Russians

That's not realistic. At all. There is no reality where Ukraine forcibly ejects Russia from the land bridge that it has established with Crimea. Breaching Russia's fortifications requires more combat engineering equipment than exists in all of NATO at this point. The Ukrainian 2023 offensive was supposed to reach Tokmak in 3 days. It took them closer to 90 days to even breach the 2nd of 3 defensive lines north of the city. Let alone actually reach Melitopol and Berdiansk. No army on the planet is trained and equipped to deal with kilometer-deep defensive belts covered by artillery, UAVs, attack helicopters....AND enemy air superiority. You would need to completely collapse the Russian army and economy 1917-style, which is also not looking likely, or at least not likely to occur before Ukraine itself collapses.

At some point Europeans need to come back to reality. Until then.....Americans are no longer interested in getting tangled up in Europe's mess (even though the mess is largely our fault).

> So re-arming such that we have complete independence from the US reduces their leverage.

Which ironically is what Trump wanted Europe to do anyway: pay for your own security with your own money!

> In a good timeline having both a strong Europe and strong US on the same side puts us in a very good place wrt China / India etc in the future.

The US is returning to a Pacific focus, like the one we had 1890-1913 (ish). I think this is the correct posture for us. We don't need to be on the "same side" of Europe, just like we weren't really on any European side until Woodrow Wilson, America's worst President, ruined everything by getting us into WW1. Due to geography we are fundamentally a maritime power, and we should be focused on trans-Pacific trade with the growing economic heart of the planet: the Valerierpieris Circle ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeriepieris_circle ).

Hopefully my post isn't too disjointed and rambly...