Originally Posted by
Ninthace
No, the question is what would NATO do?
A supplementary question would be how would Russia attack the UK without involving other countries?
The first is a very good question. Donald Trump has gone on record as having made an article 5 response contingent on financial contributions during his first presidency, and has openly talked about withdrawing in his second. NATO without the USA and a matched nuclear deterrent would become a lot less credible. European governments (including the UK) would be extremely reckless to consider NATO as a reliable security guarantee post 2024. This may be a positive step in the longer-term, but it doesn't leave us a great deal of time to prepare.
My answer to the second question would be the use of a combination of ballistic and cruise missile strikes combined with an attempted naval blockade of UK ports using the Northern fleet. My reasoning is that the Russian submarine fleet is one of their most capable and modern assets and has numerical superiority over the UK fleet. Secondly, their armaments production has ramped up considerably due to the Ukrainian war, particularly in the manufacture of missiles. If Russia is able to conclude the Ukraine war on reasonable terms over the next year or two, full rearmament could be quite swift.
I would like to think that UK technological superiority would be sufficient to deal with such a threat in the absence of US and European assistance but I am not as confident of this as some here seem to be. If it became an attritional war I would be even less confident.