Whenever I see this reasoning, I wonder how many people really believe not a single NATO country will ever elect a nutjob that might just decide to invade someone for a bullshit reason.

For example, hypothetically, what is the chance for a major NATO country will never have a president that might decide to bomb another country out of the blue, because that country according to said president, has weapons of mass destruction, despite the fact the same country intelligence said the target DOESN'T have such weapons? This will never happen right?

I recommend looking up European military readiness levels before diving too deep into fantasies. Who is supposed to invade Russia? Latvia, with its tank army of exactly zero tanks? Or a major country like Germany, with its barely 100 operational tanks and enough artillery ammunition for just two days?

Even in Russia, only complete loonies treats this as a plausible scenario. That's why you can see bunkers and anti-tank ditches and defensive lines being built on the European side of the Russian border, and nothing of this sort on the Russian side. They don't even have a basic chain-link fence. Mushroomers sometimes get lost and just walk into Russia.

> before diving too deep into fantasies

You do realise that the parent was actually making a historical reference? "Weapons of mass destruction"... doesn't that ring a bell?

Historical or about a week ago

That has nothing to do with "NATO tank invasion of Moscow".

So? Nothing in NATO brings the rest of the alliance along for the ride in that case. The core agreement is defensive, not offensive, and historically NATO has not at all been unified on attacks on other countries.

NATO was fairly well united in attacks on Afghanistan, Serbia, and Libya. (I'm just clarifying the historical record, not attempting to justify Russia's actions.)

There is a big difference between behaving like Saddam Husain vs a geopolitically boring country where nothing happens ever and the people have a high standard of peaceful living as a result. Another self imposed wound for Saddam choosing to be an overall thorn in the side during most of his entire regime. Iraqis could have had the chill high standard of living boring peaceful lives that is part and parcel in the western world. We act like these things are impossible to achieve elsewhere but really the people take to that readily when it is made available, and it is merely the leadership that needs to stop the almost high school tier tit for tat feuding and military mindset of the world that some have. We see this with every society that goes from warbent and militant to basically nothing happening since that pivotal regime change or shift in the wind moment and living peacefully: e.g. Japan after WWII. South Korea. Vietnam. Yugoslavia. East Germany. Spain. Italy. The list goes on with examples from around the world over the last century. Entropy favors peace but it is leadership that steers things otherwise every time.