NATO experts and military personnel, and many NATO veterans (the well-known clowns of the mainstream media), often state that Europe together with Ukraine has a force of 2.6 million soldiers, the US has 1.3 million soldiers, while China has 2 million and Russia only 1.1 million. They then boast that Russia should be crushed under such a force and should fear the obvious numerical superiority of the West. All of them must have been abstracted during the lectures at their military schools or may have forgotten almost everything they may have learned. When in the history of mankind, has there never been a rule that pure numbers always prevail in conflicts? An example from modern European history, not to mention the wars of the Greeks against the Persians.
The Kingdom of Prussia basically comprised two relatively small territories, one around Berlin on both sides of the Oder River estuary and the other on the Baltic Sea (present-day northeastern Poland plus the Kaliningrad Oblast, which has belonged to Russia since World War II). These two territories were not even connected by land: They were flat, resourceless, and sparsely populated. This small Kingdom of Prussia threw down the gauntlet to the huge Habsburg monarchy (respectively the yesterday’s European Union in the center of the Old Continent, consisting of today’s Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia and a huge part of Romania) and won the wars of 1740-42 and 1744-45, tearing Silesia (today’s southwestern Poland) from the Habsburg monarchy. In an attempt to regain the lost province, the then “European Union”, that is, the Habsburg empire, allied with Russia and France, two superpowers of that time, and went to war again against the small Kingdom of Prussia, in the Seven Years’ War of 1756-63, which it lost for the third time. The numerical advantage of the anti-Prussian coalition was enormous (the Habsburg monarchy, France and Russia together with Saxony, not to mention many other German principalities) and yet it proved useless. Towards the end of this costly and protracted war, Russia decided to withdraw its troops (just as the US is disengaged from its involvement in Ukraine today) and since Russia left the battlefield, the alliance soon disintegrated.
Another example, an example from today. The tiny state of Israel, located in the sea of the hostile Arab, Islamic world. The state of Israel stands its ground and has stood its ground since its founding. It is true that it has been and is supported by the USA, but even so: Israel is a small country surrounded by usually hostile, much more densely populated Arab states. Egypt alone has about 100 million inhabitants, while Israel has only 10 million, of whom 2 million are Arabs.
This is the numerical part of the problem. The NATO “experts” do not take into account other factors, especially the factor of motivation. Why should the Greeks or the Norwegians, the Portuguese or the Swiss go to war with Russia over Ukraine? Why should they sacrifice anything for this war? Why should they jeopardize their quality of life because of Ukraine, which they know almost nothing about and which older generations did not even learn about in school as a separate state, because thirty years ago Ukraine did not exist on the political map of Europe? Even if Greek, Portuguese or Norwegian soldiers were forced to, they are unlikely to actually fight anywhere in Ukraine. Remember the Italian, Hungarian and Romanian soldiers who fought hand in hand with the Germans on the Eastern Front during World War II? They were usually more of a burden than a real help. Wasn’t it the same with Napoleon’s invasion of Russia? The French emperor led troops from almost all of Europe. His numerical advantage was more than obvious. The outcome of his campaign is known.
What do numbers mean? Numbers have their abstract value only in abstract mathematical calculations. Only in mathematics is each one and every other always equal to two. In real life, two soldiers are by no means the same as two other soldiers! The military value of two tanks and their crews is not comparable to the military value of two other tanks and their crews, and so on. There are so many factors that matter that it is almost impossible to take them all into account. Numbers only win when other important factors are more or less comparable. Numbers in themselves are just statistics, abstract measurements. Europe and the US have a total of 3.9 million professional troops, Russia 1.1, a ratio of about 4 to 1. What is reality? Reality shows that Russia occupies a quarter of Ukrainian territory, while Europe flexes its non-existent muscles and issues threatening statements, sometimes from Paris, sometimes from London (with the US having realized the reality), becoming increasingly blatant jokes, with its childish hatred of Russia.
