Re:Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., all...
by guappa on Thursday June 27, 2024 @09:43AM
(#40810433)
> It's a simple calculus.
It's wrong. But it's certainly very simple :)
You forgot about how an invasion force is supposed to swim across the baltic.
After all, Russia can't move a huge fleet in there, because access is between sweden and denmark. So they'd have to use whatever they already have in there.
And sea invasions are more complicated than land invasions.
Re:Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., all...
by mopsi on Thursday June 27, 2024 @12:25PM
(#40812263)
Swim, sea invasion, huge fleet - why? It's the Swedes who would need to do swimming after Russians airdropped VDV onto Gotland in a surprise attack like they did in Hostomel, secured Visby airport, and started landing heavy equipment with Il-76 transports. Russian operation at securing Hostomel airport outside of Kyiv failed because the nearby Ukrainian forces immediately counterattacked. Until recently, Sweden had no military presence on Gotland and the island was entirely undefended.
The only wrong thing here is the idea that the invasion of Gotland would have to look like Normandy landings.
Perhaps you need a better map. Gotland is a prime target for Russians. Establishing air defense batteries on Gotland, along with capturing the Suwalki gap between Poland and Lithuania, are two key steps of invading the Baltics. Suwalki cuts the land supply route and Gotland the air and sea routes.
To prevent liberation of Gotland and keep Swedish armed forces busy, they would then terrorize the remaining parts of Sweden with drones and missile attacks on cities the same way they do in Ukraine. Even Sweden isn't rich enough to buy enough air defense systems for that, hence the need for NATO to get access to pooled resources.
It's a simple calculus.