23
Russia's new mobilization law yet another sign Kremlin is preparing for war with NATO, analysts say
(kyivindependent.com)
this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2025
23 points (100.0% liked)
Europe
489 readers
104 users here now
Europe community on dbzer0. Intended to be a place to discuss European news, politics, or just general topics from a European perspective. Since this is on dbzer0 expect the community to lean more leftist-anarchist but a wide range of views are accepted here (within reason).
Rules:
1. No Bigotry or Hate Speech
Any forms of Homophobia, Transphobia, Queerphobia, Racism, or Ableism will be met with swift and harsh action and will not be tolerated here whatsoever. Bigots will be banned immediately on-sight. This includes apologia of it.
Trying to be politely or intellectually bigoted i.e. "Just asking questions" won't be tolerated.
2. No Zionism
Any forms of Zionism or Zionist rhetoric will not be tolerated here, this includes Zionist apologia, accusations of antisemitism towards anti-Zionists, or blatant denial or downplaying of the genocide towards Palestinians. Any attempt to uphold or prop up the IHRA definition of antisemitism, will be treated as Zionism.
Anyone engaging in Pro-Zionist sentiment or apologia will be actioned in accordance with its severity.
Note: Trying to find loopholes or whataboutery to see what is or isn't genocide denial or Zionism will be treated as a violation of this rule. Don't test us.
3. Stay Civil
Please maintain civil discourse in the community. Do not engage in arguments with others, name-calling, or insults. Note that calling out bigotry or Zionism is not considered an insult. In heated arguments users are encouraged to or even required to disengage failure to do so will result in mod action.
4. No Misinformation
Spreading of misinformation intentionally in this community is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Spreading misinformation hurts the credibility of the community and can mislead people sometimes in dangerous ways. Users who intentionally post misinformation as articles, comment answers, or in attempt to win arguments will be actioned swiftly.
Note: This includes Russian and Chinese propaganda. Users with a history of such posting will be banned on sight.
5. No AI Content
Please do not post articles or content primarily created using generative AI. Generative AI content may contain misinformation or be lower quality and thus is discouraged. Posts and comments featuring it will be removed. However this community does not allow or tolerate Anti-AI trolling or hostility and users who engage in such behavior will be actioned for it, additionally Anti-AI trolling violates Rule 3 and often Rule 4 so it is generally unacceptable already.
Note: Rules 1 & 2 may be subject to preemptive mod action due to their severity, and they apply to a user's entire post history. Not just this community.
founded 3 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I'm not an analyst, but they're badly short of people in Ukraine, and a pretty big chunk of their economy is already focused on the war at this point. Why would any of this be other than just trying to secure what they need for fighting in Ukraine? Why would it mean a new war?
NATO will be distracted when China invades Taiwan.
If China really wanted to invade Taiwan, they'd have done a Ukraine to it a while ago. Nobody did shit about Crimea, and outside of the US, nobody would do shit about Taiwan. The US is pretty much the only wildcard in terms of how the world would react, and with Trump in charge, they have an actual opportunity, and they don't seem to have any kind of inclination to act on it that I have seen.
They want to inch their way out, a little at a time, gradually expanding the sphere of influence in ways that aren't going to risk upsetting the absolute Niagara Falls of money that's coming in from all their mutually beneficial trade with all the rest of the world. They also want to make big noises for domestic consumption about how they're a big scary regional power and everyone better stay the fuck out of their way, and they're probably going to take Taiwan next month if they decide so watch out... but really bombing Taiwan for real is not in the style of the current Chinese government. Why would they need that? Things are working. Why risk fucking it up?
(Predicting the future is foolish of course but that is my prediction / understanding of it.)
They’ve been drilling against full-scale US carrier models in the Gobi desert and practicing landing huge amounts of equipment by sea.
They’re almost ready.
What could possibly be the point of preparing for a non-nuclear war that includes close up fighting against US aircraft carriers?
It's good to keep your military prepared for all kinds of shit that might potentially go down, I can understand doing drills and being familiar with the enemy's kit. It seems fine. But the smart play in terms of Taiwan is that Trump will not do anything because he is Trump and he doesn't care all that much about Taiwan anyway. The play where they decide to start World War 3 and then win it, because they drilled against the aircraft carriers, and thus they were able to secure this one particular smallish island as "officially part of China" instead of "only unofficially part of China, and only to a 30% extent", seems... farfetched. That's kind of what I'm saying about the difference between saber rattling for domestic consumption vs. what they actually plan to do.
Look at these watercraft and tell me they’re just drilling: https://interestingengineering.com/military/china-barges-flood-taiwan-beaches-tanks
Xi must realize he screwed the pooch on peaceful reunification — Taiwan saw what happened to Hong Kong and did a quick 180. Xi also wants to write himself into the history books and conquering Taiwan would qualify. China has a rapidly-approaching demographic crisis (not from my point of view, but from that of someone planning an invasion) which means the window is closing.
When the US is well and truly in crisis, the EU (rump NATO) is balls-deep in a Russian invasion, who will stop Xi? Trump could easily sell out Taiwan for, I don’t know, a gift 747. Or something similar.
China has also drastically increased incursions into Taiwan’s territory to wear down their preparedness and conducted live fire drills inside Australia’s territorial waters just to put them on notice.
I’ll be surprised if China doesn’t attack before 2030.
Could be. They've definitely been building a bunch of what looks like invasion landing-craft, yes.