First, there is no NATO. It is dead.
Germany has border guards and a pretend military. Same for France which can’t even put it’s only remaining aircraft carrier to sea. Italy has paramilitary forces and some (good) Special Forces, that’s it. Spain a few naval vessels, MORE THAN THE UK, which has fewer naval vessels than the Belgian Coast Guard. The rest of NATO combined has a few thousand effective fighting men with NO zilch nada zip zero logistical capacity. NATO is the Holy Roman Empire.
Jerry Pournelle thinks it was a good thing we did not admit Georgia into NATO, I think we should have come to the formal and unmistakeable death of that institution now. Imagine if the League of Nations had been simply dissolved in 1932 and utopian dreams of liberals been wiped out early.
Wretchard — here is why Georgia is already defeated.
It has no means to resist, meaningfully, the modern, mechanized army of Russia. Fighting guerilla style is NOT for Westerners who live comfortable lives. To be a guerilla, one must leave one’s home, house, safe life, and live the life of a tribal nomad. Moving from place to place, sleeping rough, fighting, always living with the fear of death. For your average Afghani, or tribal Iraqi, this is normal life and no big deal. Second nature. But not for Georgians, or the South Vietnamese middle class, or the middle and working class Koreans, or the French under Vichy.
Most people will simply give up. Because to fight would require them to live and act like people they are not. Westerners are very, very good at mechanized armies because it plays to cooperative Western strengths. Westerners are very, very bad at guerilla warfare because it plays to tribal nomadic life which is totally alien.
This just in: Georgians are not Afghans. Nor are they tribal Iraqis. They live in houses. Perhaps not as nice as American ones, but Western houses. They do not sleep outdoors, carry on running, generations longs tribal feuds with monthly bloodshed with the neighbors. They are not intimately familiar with the AK-47 and smuggling routes to get more and ammo too. They are not familiar with killing and dying. They are comfortable middle class people for the most part who have been beaten and will submit willingly to whatever Putin decides to do with them.
