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It's not like this is traditional proliferation. A huge number of Soviet nuclear weapons ended up in Ukraine with messy questions of PALs and operational control, especially of bombers. There's a distinction between the US sponsoring Ukrainian nuclear weapons like with Britain and simply not pressuring them to denuclearize. The latter is much less aggressive. Furthermore, the US had more freedom to impose upon Russia in the mid-1990s than the late 2000s, for obvious reasons. Creating a favourable status quo in the 1990s but not continuing to prod the bear has advantages. Incorporating the militarily weak and hard to defend Baltics is much less reasonable, long-term costs for negligible gains. Then consider the frankly sadistic-in-retrospect policy of prodding Ukraine into denuclearizing, then wooing them towards the West (without actually promising to defend them), incentivizing Russia to maul the country and derail such efforts.
Likewise with Taiwanese nuclearization. The US quashed that twice. I imagine there's regret floating around in Washington over that decision, if the self-consciousness for regret exists.
I said Russia had air superiority for the 2023 counteroffensive and that they had extensively fortified and prepared for a Ukrainian attack in that area (it was telegraphed not merely via satellite imaging but also being the obvious route for any Ukrainian attack). Most people agree with this. This was in service to my broader point that the celebrated NATO generals who expected a successful counterattack were foolish, they seemed to expect the Russian army to disintegrate upon contact with NATO-supplied armour.
You said first that Russia didn't have air superiority, they were merely dropping glide bombs, using attack helicopters (where have the Ukrainian attack helicopters gone I wonder) and drones. You then said that I wasn't using the doctrinal term correctly when I pointed out how you were necessarily changing the goalposts by taking 'air superiority' well beyond the realms of common sense. Then you said I was motte-and-baileying regarding the distinction between air superiority and air supremacy.
Here's US doctrine: https://www.doctrine.af.mil/Portals/61/documents/doctrine_updates/du_17_01.pdf?ver=2017-09-17-113839-373
The Ukrainians received prohibitive interference from Russian airpower during their counteroffensive, from Ka-52s for instance. The Russian defence was not similarly pounded by Ukrainian airpower.
Here's another article saying the Russians had air superiority: https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-07-31/ka-52-alligator-the-russian-helicopter-slowing-ukraines-counteroffensive-in-the-south.html
I can find more if you like!
Sure, the German army is weak. The Europeans don't have much ammunition relative to force size. I'll even say that the Ukrainian army might be the strongest army in Europe aside from Russia and maybe Turkey. But the combined power of all the European states is much much greater than Ukraine's! They actually have navies and even aircraft carriers. They have nuclear weapons. Yes, nuclear weapons are relevant to military power, they render the whole idea of a Russian invasion ridiculous. There is no plausible gain for a Russian invasion of Europe that outweighs the high risk of a nuclear exchange, even a nuclear exchange they 'win'.
You started off saying "Russia can have more military power than Europe, but not more than Ukraine with European support" then quickly shifted to 'land force power' and mass when I pointed out the vast difference in air power, naval power and nuclear power. Navies and air forces are relevant here. And just consider the military potential! Ukraine has 36 million at most. Europe has about 500 million. Please stop trying to twist your words around to justify these silly positions.
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