Do you know why the EU is able to sanction Hungary? Because Hungary isn’t supported by Poland anymore. Why? Because Hungary is playing Putin’s tune, which is anathema to Poland. Orban bet on the wrong horse.
Belgrade won’t be bombed into ashes, by NATO or anyone else. Unlike Russia the West isn’t into bombing cities into ashes and - actually - I doubt there will any bombing of Belgrade at all.
NATO hardware isn’t depleted. The only item the NATO countries may be lacking is artillery ammunition. It’s because the NATO doctrine is based on air attacks, not on heavy artillery fire.
“Unlike Russia the West isn’t into bombing cities into ashes and - actually - I doubt there will any bombing of Belgrade at all.”
Have you ever even talked to someone from Belgrade? I have. It REALLY did happen, and they’re still trying to figure out why. There’s even a Wikipedia page on it.
I agree it’s highly unlikely we will bomb Belgrade again. We bombed it pretty good last time around in 1999. I beg to differ on the West’s aversion to bombing cities to ashes, though. Ask the Japanese — we fire bombed their cities to ashes, then nuked a couple. Ask the folks in Dresden. When we consider a war to be existential, we can get all fire-breathing Godzilla on our enemies.
The reason NATO doctrine is based on air attacks is the US military is primarily aerospace and maritime. We don’t do big land army stuff as well (although we can easily field a good land army here in our own hemisphere). We sit between our two oceans, far from potential battlefields in Europe and Asia. It takes a whole lotta ships and planes to move a big land army and all its stuff across big old oceans, and also time. And the US is the King Daddy of NATO.
Ref Hungary. It’s the odd duck of Europe. They are neither Slavic nor Germanic yet are surrounded by Slavs, and for long centuries were bound up with the Austrians and various Slavic vassal states. Their relations with Austria didn’t end so well. Like the Slavs, they got a taste of the Muslim yoke and vowed never again, but they are not Slavs and don’t quite fit in with them, either. They really are odd ducks.
I would not so much interpret their balking at accepting woke Western ways and a flood of Muslim immigrants as “playing Putin’s tune” as simply their odd duckiness. They are an ancient, proud, stubborn and rather fierce people, and were rather a burr under the Soviet saddle (and the Hapsburg saddle, too, before that). The Hungarians tend to go their own way and don’t like being under the thumb of either German or Slav. While they are quite civilized, they somehow did not tame as well as their brother Finns.
Czechs are somewhat odd, too, and very likeable. Like many of their brother Slavs, they fell on the Catholic side of the Catholic/Orthodox fault line, but unlike the vast majority of Slavic peoples, never got seriously whooped up on by the Mongols or Turks or Tatars. While their history of relations with the Germans and Austrians (and Russians!) was hardly always pleasant(!), they managed to navigate rather well and flower in the end. Beautiful art and architecture, too.