I'm not buying it because as Judge Judy is fond of saying .... "If it doesn't make sense it isn't true!"
I think we are being sold a fantasy in order for the West to frighten us and soften us up for the inevitable negotiated concessions that it will make towards ending the standoff.
While the western governments and its attendant media keep whooping up such an attack, Vladimir Putin says he isn't planning any such thing.
I believe him,.
A Russian invasion of Ukraine makes no sense at all while bluffing a war does make complete sense.
Here are five reasons war is not on tap.
NUMBER 1
We have been told that Russia has amassed a huge force of 150,000 troops surrounding Ukraine, poised to attack any time now.
BUT 150,000 troops is NOT as big a number as we are led to believe.
When the USA led an invasion of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, it consisted of 500,000 troops, more than three times larger than the Russians invasion force today. And those American-led troops were infinitely better trained and equipped than the Russians who haven't fought a conventional war since World War 2. Ukraine is not small, it has twice the land area of Iraq, making an invasion even harder than the largely undefended Iraq.
NUMBER 2
A common military rule is that invading forces need to be three times as large as the defending force and Ukraine's 250,000 person defence force while not a crack-fighting force, is still formidable considering that they only have to defend, a huge advantage.
With the supply of ultra-modern weapons provided by NATO recently, Russia would likely win but with unacceptable losses.
NUMBER 3
The last contested military adventure Russia fought was in Afghanistan, a total disaster that still reverberates in Russia with the population unforgiving towards the government over the 15,000 dead and 35,000 injured soldiers.
All for naught.
The Russian people are hardy and brave as World War 2 demonstrated, but they aren't stupid and have little appetite for a foreign military adventure that will cost lives over little to gain.
The risk to reward is just not there.
That Russia doesn't want Ukraine to join NATO or fall deeply into a wester alliance is hardly a reason to risk a devastating war that would have, win or lose, Russia suffering disproportionate harm.
The victorious Russians would have to keep a huge occupying force to maintain control and a motivated Ukrainian population would launch a devastating guerilla war all backed by western support and weapons.
The Western reaction would be crippling sanctions that would further drive the Russian economy into the toilet.
NUMBER 5
Putin is a supremely crafty customer who understands that the West, led by Germany and the United States are both in no mood to face off in any military confrontation.
A bellicose and threatening Russia with a feigned invasion will wrest the necessary concession from the West, which is that Ukraine not join NATO or become a Western proxy state.
And so the fear-mongering spread by Western media is merely a smokescreen meant to soften the public into accepting Putin's terms, which incidentally are not that unreasonable.
Putin doesn't want another Western proxy state on its border, which is not altogether unreasonable.
Before you accept the Western argument that a free, independent state should not be bullied into accepting a foreign government dictate, let us remember that the USA did exactly the same thing back in 1962 in threatening Cuba into giving up offensive Russian missiles during the Cuban missile crisis.
So don't believe an invasion is coming, it makes no sense to either side..
