• Rapidcreek@lemmy.worldOP
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    9 months ago

    NATO has half a million troops. The largest navy and air force in the world. I like their chances

    • Neuromancer@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      NATO has more troops than that. The united state alone has 2 million.

      • Tinidril@midwest.social
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        9 months ago

        The largest air force in the world is the US Air Force. The second largest air force in the world is the US Navy.

        • LordWarfire@feddit.uk
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          9 months ago

          I hear this all the time and it’s very subjective - I would argue the second largest is the US Army Aviation Branch - if you count helicopters have a lot more aircraft than the US Navy.

          Also the Russian Air Force has more aircraft than the US Navy per most sources. I suspect the internet meme got the Navy and Army Aviation swapped around.

          • Tinidril@midwest.social
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            9 months ago

            Helicopters are kind of hard to categorize since they are tactically somewhere between aircraft and ground forces. Most helicopters are in support rolls while most airplanes are in combat rolls. Helicopters in combat rolls also get used like they are really fast ground forces.

            But yeah, I get what your saying about the subjectivity, and it’s true that my knowledge here is mostly from memes.

    • wjrii@kbin.social
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      9 months ago

      First, war is always a tragedy. Always. It is to be avoided until the reasonably plausible alternative is worse for human suffering. People who ignore this are asses (not saying you are one of them).

      Second, as long as it stays conventional and China stays on the sidelines, then yes of course NATO destroys the Russian military, or at least keeps it hemmed into existing Russian territory. That’s been true for 30 years.

      Third, those are VERY big ‘ifs’.