For NATO it's not as obvious, because there is no public support. The public does not want WW3 so they don't want to hear about it, if anything the war in Ukraine was sold with the implicit promise that it won't lead to that. The best NATO can do is quietly update conscription laws to include men and women.
The war in Ukraine has motivated the defense industry to increase their production capacity somewhat, but mostly they've just increased their prices to match demand, the same price gouging we've seen in all of society of late where there is no interest to increase supply and reduce prices. The best example of this is the F35 which costs a huge amount of money but can't be delivered to Ukraine and will be of limited use in WW3.
It's like the French heavy tanks of WW2, on paper they were formidable but in the real world they were next to useless. Which is to say that NATO is spending its big budgets on useless things, while the BRICS are spamming weapons that work.
By BRICS I mean Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. These are all preparing for full on war, as they are suffering from the proxy wars and bleeding money, men and terrain, from Ukraine to Syria.
But this also reminds me of WW2 where the Germans had learned from WW1 to adapt their tactics, and the Soviets from their opening losses. Russia lost up to a million men and much of its 2021 military in Ukraine, but has been reborn into a steamroller, able to take hits and hit back twice as hard. North Korea has now signed up, possibly losing many men but undoubtedly learning hard lessons and adapting. The result will be the most battle hardened troops in modern large scale combat, and an institutional capability to quickly train millions more in tactics that actually work.
Meanwhile Iran and China are preserving their strength, preferring to use proxies to fight their battles for them. Iran has had great success in Yemen, possibly hitting an aircraft carrier and shooting down an F18, but losing Syria was huge, and now their allies in Lebanon and Iraq will probably get squeezed next.
China though is the sleeping giant, with a technological and industrial capacity that matches or exceeds the US. They've been selling drones to both sides in Ukraine, empowering their production capacity, but will now cut off the west, giving the BRICS a monopoly on Chinese drones. Combined with their allies now also doubling down on drones with that formidable communist style top down mass production that is impossible in the west for profit reasons, that means these nations will soon gain a collective edge in drone swarms.
This reminds me of the Soviet tank armies of WW2 and after, which could have easily rolled up Europe through sheer numbers of cheap but effective weapons. In the same way right now in Ukraine where the initial tank rush was easily defeated, Russian drones are killing any Ukrainian units they find, collapsing the front lines on a daily basis. I've heard there are as many as 10 Russian drones for every Ukrainian soldier in the front, and I doubt NATO troops would fare much better.
All this is an arms race towards drone swarms, one the BRICS are winning. In context of the BRICS expanding to challenge the dollar and by extension US hegemony, and the middle east fighting, this suggest war is coming and coming fast. And if drone swarms are the norm then it won't require tens of millions of men drafted to man the trenches, as most will be more useful building more drones and missiles.
Speaking of missiles, that's another field were NATO seems to be lagging behind, relying on extremely overpriced precision systems that are easily jammed, while the BRICS go for production volume that can be built and fired faster than NATO can replace their missiles or their $100 million fighter jets and train pilots to use them.
NATO is stuck in legacy thinking of using air power and armored assault, while the BRICS have adopted drone swarms and missile barrages. Having a smaller but elite army doesn't work against superior firepower numbers at any range, because you can't kill the enemy fast enough before what's left kills you.
If the BRICS feel they have the edge in man and drone power then they can beat NATO conventionally. Russia could take Ukraine, North Korea could take South Korea, China could take Taiwan and the Chinese seas, Iran could take Iraq and Syria... Anything short of provoking nuclear war would be theirs for the taking.
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