In terms of number of personell, the "large" countries in the EU, such as Germany, France and Poland have about 200k each. Russia has 3 million, when including reserves.

And while the Russian forces are actively trained as one force, European armies would have significant difficulties operating together and would lack shared leadership. Also, while some of the European forces are highly proficient, others are more at the level of militias, really only useful for defending their homelands, if that.

Without heavy US involvement, I would expect Russia to dominate a confrontation with EU forces in the early stages, by focusing on the forces of one country at a time. This is particularily true if the confrontation happens in terrain such as that of the Ukraine or Poland, where the flat land gives attacking armored forces an advantage.

With moderate US involvement, this changes a bit. Lets say the US sent an expeditionary force of 100k people, maybe half of which were fighting forces, then NATO would _perhaps_ be a match for Russia, but would probably not be superior, espeically in terms of infantry, armor and artillery.

Realistically, a defence of Nato with current forces needs to be done in depth, forcing Russia to attack into central Germany and/or the Carpathian mountains. Eventually, Russia would lose such a conflict due to massive economic inferiority, but this kind of conflict is not something European countries are willing to go into over just the Ukraine.

You're completely ignoring the economic angle. War is costly, especially for an aggressor, and Russia simply doesn't have the economy required to sustain a major offensive war, especially one far from his border.

I think you misunderstand me. I'm not claiming that Russia would enter an all-out-war with EU countries (at least those in Nato). What I'm saying is that in a geographically limited conflict in the area of Belorussia, eastern Poland and the Ukraine, Russia would start with an upper hand. It would be hard for EU countries to gather enough force to stop the attack on the Ukraine, and if they tried, they would suffer bigger losses than Russia.

And after the fall of the Ukraine, I think there is no way public opinion in the EU would support continuing a war aimed at freeing them.

On the other hand, if the EU did have the strength to outmatch Russia even on Ukrainian soil, and mobilized that force as Russia mobilized for attack, I think the attack would never have come.

In other words, I think this attack comes as a result of EU countries being too weak to be able to deter Russia, while the US is currently suffering too much internal conflict to really care.

It’s not quite the same but certainly reminds one of the ww2 moves hitler made as he took one strategic territory after another, and by the time the rest were ready to fight they had already ceded much important ground

i don’t think it’s so dire here. i think putin simply realized US wouldn’t move troops or retaliate with force, weighed them political or resource gains from attacking and decided it was worth it.

In hindsight perhaps the right move was for US to station a time peacekeeping force in ukraine to make the calculus of attacking more expensive, yet i’m too ignorant of the subject to understand.