One of the things commentators in the West seem unable to grasp is the fact Russia is no longer concerned about NATO's former superiority. The 2024 NATO joint exercise has demonstrated clearly how unready NATO is for any kind of combat operation against Russia. NATO armored vehicles concentrate prior to moving to designated AOEs, which in the real world would result in their early destruction because in the modern battlespace such concentration is suicide. NATO's mine-clearing charade completely fails to account for the fact Russians stack mines on top of each other, thus disabling (or destroying) the mine-clearing equipment and leaving the armored vehicles behind it doomed to destruction by drones and artillery. NATO forces have no capacity to make ground assaults on heavily-defended Russian lines. NATO has enough artillery shells for (maybe...) 48 hours of high-intensity fighting; Russia can maintain its rate of fire indefinitely. The only advantage NATO has left is in the air, but you can't win a ground war with air power alone. Russia's capacity to take the Baltics is limited only by the time required to build up strength after it conquers Ukraine, and no-one I've spoken to from the Baltic nations believes NATO will be of any help at all when Russia finally invades them.

So, with zero political will and with almost-zero military capacity, the only thing delaying Russia's conquest of the Baltic nations is Ukraine's continued resistance. But Europe has nothing left to give Ukraine from a military perspective and the vermin Trump will, with his Republican enablers, ensure Ukraine gets no more help from the USA. So Ukraine will fall to Russia in 2025 and by 2027 at the latest Russia will take the Baltic nations - almost certainly at the same time Xi orders the PLA to invade Taiwan. With Europe totally useless and with the USA destroyed from within by the mindless creature Trump, the two dictators will act unopposed.

We could have stopped all of this, but we were too stupid, too spineless, and too complacent. Just as we were in the 1930s.