Originally Posted by
Ninthace
A supplementary question would be how would Russia attack the UK without involving other countries?
The Houthis have an answer for you. Also, Russia is getting better at drone warfare. Expect that to be a feature.
Originally Posted by
Recc
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.
Mostly submarines, since the North Fleet surface fleet would likely find itself in trouble. (Their carrier, Kuznetzov, is still in the yards ...what has it been, five years?)
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.
Yes, and they practice sea denial as a core competency. (Well, that was in the Soviet Era, not sure if they've carried that over. Probably have).
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.
There are enough trading partners around to make that feasible, yes.
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 the numbers are too small, one loses the ability to put sufficient forces into the field...
If it became an attritional war I would be even less confident.
Your reasoning is sound.
The only point I'd make is: Air defense. More funding likely needed. Yesterday.
I don't think that the European allies would shirk on their NATO commitment to the UK, but what form their response would come in is a matter of capability and political will.
I don't think that it will come to this, however, but ... if for some reason the US choses to withdraw from NATO the Washington Treaty requires a one year notice before that becomes a fact.
A year later, the US would have then relieved itself of the obligation to participate as a member.
As a practical matter, at that point NATO would have ceased to exist, but ... if the other alliance members chose to carry on (as it's a reasonably well run collective security organization) you could go back to calling it OTAN (the French term for NATO) and not miss a beat once the various gaps were filled.
.
Various NATO C2 and Infrastructure backbone (which is non-trivial) remaining in Europe would likely be either turned over to the Host Nations, or, be kept warm under a series of bilateral agreements/treaties/MOUs, whatever.