Putin is an old man who fantasises about eras bygone, hes a conniving and sneaky person with ultimately very simple and untintelligent goals.
i do not contest any of that, and still, europe cannot defend itself against him. the only reason ukraine has been able to hold their own is whith massive and regular shipments of us weaponry. something europe has never stockpiled, nor developed the means of fabricating, in enough quantity to make even a token defense against the russian war machine. these are fact.
Russia’s Army is spent. All they are able to do against Europe in the short term is lob missiles and some artillery, and send poorly equipped 2nd and 3rd rate units at them now.
dont get me wrong, It’d be bloody. itd no longer be the decisive ass kicking that it would have prior to the US’s fascist swerve. But Europe still has enough firepower to bring Russia to a halt. Russia expended its ability to wage large scale ground war in Ukraine.
I dont know if you’re American, Im not saying that. But Americans seem to grossly overfixate on how “weak” Europe is. They have gaps in their capability if America was to fuck off tommorow. But they are far from helpless. Europe’s weakness is political will to switch from butter to guns, but they still have guns.