This has been spoken about recently, yes. Russia is switching to a full wartime economy and Russia at full wartime footing might be able to outproduce NATO on peacetime footing.
The Third Russian Empire
The logic is Russia will soon produce more tanks, IFVs and ammunition than NATO. Most of their spending goes towards the military and NATO has grown weary of supporting Ukraine. Therefore Russia will redouble their efforts and push forward with everything they have. Eventually the western alliance will crack and Ukraine will fall. Then Russia won’t switch back to a peacetime economy, but rather quickly rearm and attack again. Polish estimate is Russia would need three years, starting in 2024. This puts the likely attack in early 2027.
If Trump were elected in the US it might even be a somewhat dangerous plan. European part of NATO alone, without USA, caught unawares and ill-prepared to fight Russia, would strugge to face the Russian war machine. European NATO has enough equipment to face Russia and hope for good results, but ammunition would quickly become a problem. If Russia retains their full wartime footing it might be able to build stockpiles such that NATO itself would be outgunned.
Then again, Russia never fought a war against a near peer enemy. They attacked Ukraine and had their asses handed over to them by a half-trained, quarter-equipped army. It took Russians over a year to drag this into a bloody war of attrition that will leave Russia weaker than it got in. Now the idea here is to quickly rearm and try again against a bigger, better equipped foe.
Worse still, Russian air farce never faced a strong opponent. Ukrainian small, obsolete air force gives them a hard time enough, Russians can’t even reliably attain local air superiority and that’s from a few Patriot batteries, MANPADS and a couple MiG-29s older than the instructors that teach their pilots. Poland alone has a larger and better equipped air force and more air defences than all of Ukraine. They have two Patriot systems and six more on order, they will arrive before Russians can attack. Russians would have to fight an aggressive war of maneuver under conditions of air inferiority.
It is also doubtful Russia can sustain this level of military comittment without suffering extensive additional problems. A large segment of the “defence” budget is not even going towards the military, but the militarised police, to keep the serfs at bay. Furthermore going after NATO would require a strong, professionalised army that would rival the power of the secret police.
This, I think, is the largest argument against Russian invasion. Russia can build tanks aplenty, but if they’re manned by untrained semi-literate conscripts and commanded by officers promoted not on merit, but because their combination of loyalty and compromising materials on them (i.e. gay sex tapes), those tanks won’t get very far.
That doesn’t mean we should ignore the threat. I myself made the very same argument against Russia invading Ukraine, I claimed it wouldn’t happen, because it would be utterly idiotic for Russia to go for such an invasion and Putin wasn’t stupid enough to try. Well, it turns out he is stupid enough, so we should expect he might be stupid enough again and face his depleted armies against a larger, stronger opponent. We should prepare and expect Russia to act idiotic again and gear up for war against Russia if needed be.
But we should not fear it.
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Prepper1cense 