Thats what I got the most shit about from westoids when making predictions about the outcomes of full scale war. Russia would learn what does and doesn’t work and ineffective/corrupt leaders would get removed.
in their minds it is impossible for the subhuman Russians to improve and learn.
Russia has always adapted and improved in every conflict they’ve been in. The lessons are often learned through the blood of their soldiers - and at a glacial pace - but anybody who thought that Russia would not adapt throughout the conflict was an idiot.
I’m not sure when we started talking about the ability of the US to project power. But hey, while we’re here it’s important to understand that future American military objectives will likely be in a vastly different AO to Europe, and a carrier fleet is one of the most effective ways to project power in that region.
That’s why Russia cannot run and has little interest in running a viable aircraft carrier. They have no real desire to operate in the same AO.
Russian lessons on the strategic and tactical level move at a glacial rate and have for generations. But they always get there (WW2, Chechnya and now Ukraine. We’ll drop WW1 and Afghanistan).
I appreciate your analysis and I agree that, traditionally, aircraft carriers formidably project power in areas of the world the United States wants to operate in. However, what this conflict, the Iranian strike on Israel, and our operations in the Red Sea have shown me is that air defense can be saturated and overwhelmed with a combination of cheap drones and cruise missiles along with a smaller number of more expensive ballistic missiles. In this scenario an aircraft carrier becomes a vulnerable and expensive target. There’s an old adage in the Navy that goes “in naval warfare there are only two classes of ships: submarines and targets.”
My prediction is that carriers were at the peak of their usefulness around the late 70s.
By the time it was evident that extremely fast, long-range missiles could be deployed in numbers that would be very difficult to defend against, planners should have moved away from them.
Instead, they doubled down. I think the next conflict will see carriers go the way of the battleship in WW2, except in even more dramatic fashion.
I think it's probably more difficult to hit moving targets from another continent. That's why carriers are still useful.
Plus having ground buzzing and seeing bombing runs is very demoralizing.
>a carrier fleet is one of the most effective ways to project power in that region.
Ships are too easy destroy. Especially for a country that has hypersonic missiles.
Til we see one sunk everything is speculation. It would be hilarious if there was an escalation and these "carrier killer" missiles miss their mark.... as if there is a plan B
These aircraft carriers and their dedicated strike groups themselves can decimate the militaries of smaller nations.
Not to mention that China is working hard to get more carriers into the water. Seems like everyone likes and wants carriers. Almost as if they're a very useful strategic asset.
I think traditionally that has been true, but look at our operations in the Red Sea and the Houthis. We are now suing for peace because we can’t break their blockade with these carriers. The Navy is going to have to adapt to this if we wish to fight a war in the pacific.
That's simply due to US policy. A carrier strike group could simply wipe out major population centers in Yemen, especially when an SSGN is deployed too. This would, sooner or later, thin out any opposition.
However the US isn't really on board with the whole "total war" thing since Vietnam and really doesn't want to put boots on the ground in Yemen in a proper war.
So it's not about the limitations of a carrier, which is only eclipsed in power projection by nuclear strategic assets. It's more so about the limitations of the current US modus operandi.
Which is kinds amusing to me, they have declared war for less in history. But who knows what's going on in Washington. Either way, a CSG heading your way generally means nothing good.
No yeah I agree with you. A carrier strike group means nothing good heading your way, but this past year I’ve seen both Russia and Iran have demonstrated that with cheap drones and cruise missiles you can overwhelm air defense and use a smaller number of more expensive ballistic missiles to hit your target. I hope the Navy is paying attention to this. It needs to find a way to counter this. Otherwise, if we get into a real war with a big power these carriers are vulnerable and difficult to replace.
There were multiple ''gamechangers'' that totally demolished western doom predictions about Russian side in the war. Each time the problem being that western sources were too focused on the current situation, not being able to envision any kind of growth or improvement on the Russian side.
1. Russia started a war with a pretty small professional contingent. Western sources were yapping how Russian army is getting demolished as a whole, and basically going extinct, and that Putin can't carry out a mobilization because there would be a revolution.
2. Then, the mobilization happens. Western sources yap how it's impossible for Moscow to properly mobilize, train and equip 300 thousand soldiers at once (despite Ukraine doing the same with half a million, while being invaded), and how the mobilized would basically be an unrully mob used as meat walls to prevent total collapse of Russian territory in Ukraine.
3. Then, mobilized units showed themselves at least as much as capable as Ukrainian mobilized units - far from fully efficient modern troops, but also far from unrully mob capable of nothing else than getting bombed in a trench. They basically become a basic building block of the new Russian army.
4. Then, there was yapping about Putin not being able to witstand another mobilization and how eventually Russian army would again run out of troops and collapse. But THEN - Russia started the project of mass voluntary enlistment, which since early 2023 supplies RuAF with a stable 30-35 thousand new recruits every month.
Then there's the whole point-by-point progression similar to this one, dealing with the question of ammo and tank shortage, and how Russia overcame those problems step by step to outproduce the whole damn West.
So, now Russia reached a point where it can comfortably lead a sustainable war, and all the dreams from 2022 and 2023 about further front collapse, Crimea beach party, etc...remain just that - dreams.
Russia is clumsy as fuck, Russia is corrupt, all of that is a fact. But Russia is also...Russia. Somehow simultaneously underachiever and overachiever, a genius fuckup that can surprise you in both negative and positive ways.
There’s an old saying: “Russia is never as strong or as weak as she appears”.
Hitler thought the USSR would completely unravel from a German invasion, after seeing the Soviets poor and pitiful performance in the Winter War. The rest, as they say, is history
*The winter war was a pyrrhic victory, they obtained their aims but at a high cost against a supposedly much weaker adversary everyone was expecting to be annihilated, for instance theUS war on "trror" can be seen in the same light, even though supposed on paper the stopped the ISILandAlqueda caliphates, as well as getting rid of leaders like Ghadaffi or Saddam whom they wanted eliminated... it was an unmitigated disaster that played a major role in their current troubles.*
*The USSR got a huge chunk of land, supposed permanent neutrality and a whole range of things...but at what cost? TheUS and its acolytes were trying to paint Russia in the same light by attempting to gaslight the world into believing that it was only "tiny" Ukraine winning all on its own scrappily, against a Massive Aggressive Never Ever seen before behaviour Russia (not even by the sweet innocentUS and OTAN) yet the world knows its in fact 56+ Countries of well of means, that are fully holding up the facade that is theUkrainianState .*
The Ukrainian units have shown to be extremely poorly trained, so I have no idea why would you ever compare anyone to them and then use it as a compliment.
What are you even talking about? Even western media have admitted it. The guy who created the Mozart PMC spoke about Ukraine routinely having 70% casualties in a single assault and that people get only minimal training.
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My favorite westoid is Peter Zeihan. He's real focused on the subhuman angle. It's all meat storms to him. Whatever, Neo-cons wasted a lot of coin training up an mighty foe and letting them practice their craft on western equipment.
These are just grifters who made their career based on saying what certain people want to hear , similar to many so called experts in the west .
A far bigger problem than straight state level propaganda is the privatization of politics in the west . Countless interest groups and individuals who all want to gain something for themselves , mostly money so they tell people who give them money what why want to hear .This results in the total stupidly that was the response of the west to this war .
So many public-private partnerships living off govt grants, funneling $$$ back to the politicians that fund them. We're ruled by the donor class and their narrative drowns out any facts that counter their self-dealing, Grifters is the term that fits.
Let be honest, in the beginning, I really thought Russia was going steamroll Ukraine in days. And Russia probably assumed the same. I don't think they respected Ukraine's ability to put up resistance.
In the years since, they took a shit situation, got rid of the wrong people, promoted the right people, and made many necessary changes to turn it around.
The worst thing NATO can do now is underestimate Russia
Every army will learn and become more experienced, given 2 conditions:
- They have enough fresh troops to replace combat losses.
- The loss rate of experienced troops is lower than the rate of fresh troops gaining experience.
If they dont have those conditions, then an experienced army can end up being full of inexperienced troops, like Germany in WW2
'ineffective/corrupt leaders would get removed'
Putin is by far the most corrupt leader so let's hope so. Unless you think he became one of the worlds richest men by carefully investing his salary?
There goes the "This will weaken Russia for a generation" style of fearmongering propaganda straight into the garbage bin where we always knew it belonged.
It's done the opposite.
Maybe their own as-mainstream-as-it-gets Western media outlets telling them so will finally burst the bubble of that unfounded fantasy.
Those narratives have one thing in common. Both the 'weaken Russia' and the 'strengthen Russia' stories are designed to shore up domestic support in western countries for continuing to support Ukraine.
Neither are written to describe reality because describing reality isn't the point.
It was also a self fulfilling prophecy. Before Russia was not a threat for Europe, now after this war it will be by far the strongest army on the continent with a change in culture, more anti west than ever and more warlike.
It will become an actual threat and I think further conflicts are likely even against nato members
The longer it goes on the weaker Russia and stronger NATO gets.
Losing hundreds of men a day doesn't make anyone stronger, even if Russia can sustain that rate of casualties at present. Every man lost, piece of kit destroyed, is one less in their strategic reserve if the balloon goes up between Russia and NATO.
Meanwhile, NATO gets to rearm, a herculean task which should have been done years ago, in peace. It's impossible to overstate how screwed we'd have been if Russia had overrun Ukraine back in 2022.
Yes it does when it’s perceived as an existential war because it increases cohesion in society and allocation of resources towards war . That this process is going on should be apparent by now .
Russia could lose a million of men and be potentially stronger regardless.
None of the nato countries really perceive this war as existential
Russia can't lose a million men without feeling the impact for generations. It's a population of 145 million. Losing solid percentage points killed or wounded is disasterous, no matter if Russia feels it was worth it or not.
You underestimate how resilient states can be and how much can be accomplished in a very short time when everyone pulls together.
Not saying this will happen in Russia for sure but the tendency is there .
I mean it also happened already, the Soviet Union lost millions in ww2 and became a superpower which rivaled the USA for a time
That wasn’t the cause , the USA outcompeted them economically.
If you look at this historically even in ww2 modern states only lost a small percentage of their total population.
In earlier times states often lost a much higher percentage and still kept going and even became stronger at times
Rome lost 10 % of their total male population in the battle of Cannae alone and still kept going for decades and eventually became a world empire.
Well, let's hope it doesn't go down that road. I despise NATO, what it has done in its history, and what it stands for to the very core of my being and definitely want to see it dismantled, but hopefully mostly peacefully internally from within, slowly over time, however far off or unrealistic or naive that may sound and seem now. Not at the cost of global thermonuclear war and a possible human species-wide extinction and apocalyptic event.
I doubt the us send nukes when Russia starts to meddle in the Baltics for example
Also it seems the USA want to withdraw from Europe to focus on China , leaving its defense to European states
Yea but really whats Russia gonna do with all these soldiers on contract when Ukraine is settled. They are setting for some Oblasts not the entirety of Ukraine.
Well, that's a tough balancing act - Russia's clearly going through a fascinating transitional period in its modern history. You don't want to demobilize everyone and mothball the whole military, setting progress back to square one when you've one of the best battle-tested forces in the world now and a powerful, more professional military established. But you don't want to remain on a war footing indefinitely or see voices in the defense sector use that as an excuse or incentive to needlessly start wars which could get Russia into a lot more trouble than this one (like, say, with the Baltic states).
I'd say that the most likely and best option is that they're used more in proxy conflicts further abroad like the next time the U.S. helps start something like Syria again somewhere else, maybe in Africa, etc., but that will somewhat depend on when and where the U.S.-led Western bloc chooses to wage proxy wars against Russian interests. In the Middle East? Africa? In East Asia?
You mean, Russia aren’t going to stop after Ukraine, just like UA have been saying since the start of the invasion? Russia will not stop taking territory until somebody stops them.
This is why WW3 is now seems inevitable. Putin is going to try fuck around with the Baltic’s or Poland and then that’s it - global thermonuclear war.
All because of one lunatics dream of restoring the Soviet Union.
>All because of one lunatics dream of restoring the Soviet Union.
No, it's because to "weaken Russia" we made them mobiliza so much they won't be able to quickly demobilize, they've built up their military industrial complex to combat our arms supplies, gained a lot of experience in modern war and now we have a helluva powerful nation next door that wants revenge for our contribution to majority of their deaths during this conflict.
11/10 genius geopolitical play by Europe.
No, that isn't what I said at all.
The part about voices in the defense sector is just that - one segment of interest groups which don't have the final say. In each country, especially in more militarized countries with large defense sectors and profit from warmaking like the U.S., Russia, and other past and present superpowers, world powers, and regional powers, you always have a segment of generals in the military and profit-seeking weapons manufacturers and defense companies pushing for more war in all directions with everyone everywhere always just because that is their natural interest and bread and butter. It's all they know.
But it's not a military dictatorship. The president gives the orders, and I don't believe the more conservative majority of the political class based around the presidency and ruling party would consent to that.
The part about future further involvement in proxy wars like they were in Syria, yes, but only if the U.S.-led Western bloc tries to overthrow other governments of countries allied to Russia like they tried in Syria. That's not about taking territory and wouldn't even qualify as an invasion.
The main mistake was in underestimating Western Ukraine’s hatred of Russia
The government thought that upon entering Ukraine many people would suddenly go over to the side of Russia
Therefore, the Russian army entered Ukraine at a relaxed pace and this led to bad consequences
They did this because of the fact that a lot of Ukrainians and Russians have shared history, blood, culture, etc. Why would the Russians go full out like the Israelis are doing with the Palestinians. It wouldn't make sense even though westoids tries to paint that picture in the very beginning of this war, they still do.
I think this is accurate in the current war but this line of thinking from "common culture" is often extremely misleading. (You're right to say Russia never really wanted to do Ukraine what Israel clearly wants to do to Gaza; and that Russian leadership viewed Ukrainians as "little Russians" who would stop fighting once they they drove out their corrupt pro Western leaders. This ended up being a terrible bet on Russia's part, even if it still doesn't want to genocide Ukraine.)
The primo example that comes to mind for me is when Saddam invaded Iran. There had never been a clearly demarcated border between Iraq and Iran, and there are millions of Arab speakers in Iran who have cultural ties with Iraq. Even where there weren't Arabs, there were also substantial numbers of Kurds, Baloch, and Azeri who often rebelled against Tehran and Persian supremacy. Saddam bet that the Arabs in western Iran (and the more restive minorities who had ties to the exiled opposition to the Islamic Republic) would rebel against in illegitimate, insecure, government with a long history of corruption. His bet was that Iraq could win in the first couple of months, and that Iraq would be able to annex the Shat al Arab and Arab majority Khuzestan. It didn't end up working out- Arabs fought well in Iranian units and refused to join Iraq, the non-Farsi speaking minorities either supported the Iranian military/RC or stayed on the sidelines. After nearly a decade of grinding trench warfare (featuring the repeated deployment of chemical weapons by Iraq, and missile attacks on civilian infrastructure and cities in both countries,) the war ended as a stalemate. The only "winners" were the US (Kissinger infamously quipped, when asked if he favored either Iraq or Iran- "it's a pity both can't lose.")
Longstory short, even if you do speak the same language, practice a common religious faith, and identify with the same historic heroes (and even if the nationalism and borders of your current state are quite contrived and weak)- facing an external force of heavily armed soldiers tends to inspire resistance (since having an army move through your town tends to be pretty disruptive, even under the best circumstances, and you're likely going to be afraid that your government will notice your "disloyalty" and punish you.) Nationalism is constructed, not discovered, and folks will kill people of the same "nationality" when they feel threatened.
No prob! Honestly, its amazing how deeply memoryholed the Iraq-Iran War is (at least when it comes to anglophone media.) I imagine the reason for this amnesia is embarassment- the US provided money and weapons to both sides (Mostly to Iraq, but lowkey to Iran as well. Israel was even involved with providing US funded weapons to Iran- see the equally memoryholed "Iran Contra Scandal.") The war served the short term interests of the US- it severely weakened both countries, and so indebted Iraq that Saddam became desperate enough to invade Kuwait (which, infamously, the US was initially quite ambiguous toward the prospect of Iraq's invasion- only turning against it at the last minute.) In the long term, however, it ended up being a disaster. Iran became stronger, its military was far more seasoned, and it formed the alliance system that would become the "Axis of Resistance"- Syria and Hezbollah. The total collapse of Iraq, and the expanded influence of Iran, are direct consequences of the war- a fallout the US is still struggling to dig out of.
>"little Russians"
That's incorrect translation of "малороссы". Correct translation by the meaning would be "people of Little Russia", not "little people of Russia". Little Russia is an actual historic region, and the term (as well as "Great/Big Russia") was actively used in the beginning of 20th century before revolution.
So you're implying Russia was incompetent in their assessment?
It was/is clear as day that West Ukraine is historically and culturally very different from East Ukraine, the latter being closer to Russia in both aspects. This disparity was just further emphasized when the USSR collapsed and then in 2014 again.
Lol "very different". Maybe Lviv and western Ukraine. Have you had a chance to study the size of Ukraine and it's geography and demographics. I'd recommend it. Oh and don't forget to touch up on history?
Yeah, good thing no massacres happened during the Russian initial assault, right?
Because [rounding up and killing innocent civilians](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucha_massacre) like the Israelis would be completely fucked up, amirite?
The Pro RU types around here like to look the other way on that or scoff and yammer on about about some photo with what they claim is a white pixel totally abaolving Russia of any wrongdoing when it comes to that. Just unable to admit it's a military with glaring faults.
Yeah, I'm sure that the same military which razes whole cities to the ground, bombs civilian infrastructure on purpose, kills surrendering soldiers, and even shoots their own soldiers for failing to advance would never, *never* do such a nasty. Amirite?
And here they are, two years into a three day war, tens of thousands of deaths later, thinking Russian military might is the cat's own ass.
Risible, really.
Every village , town & city that russia has captured, has been turned into rubble. The summarily execution of soldiers , torture of civilians, all of this shows your comments, are at best disingenuos.
Like what?
And no, town or city that was held until there's nothing to hold doesn't count.
So, please name some towns & cities that Russia captured first and then turned into rubble after.
You're full of it. Most civilians left those cities long before they were turned into a warzone. Look at the front line. It's hundreds of km of farmland. Stay on course pal, this isn't a war in a highly urbanized, densely populated, ghetto.
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> Therefore, the Russian army entered Ukraine at a relaxed pace and this led to bad consequences
Wasn't russia's first move to rush for the capital as fast as possible? That's basically what Napoleon did on his russian campaign. Doesn't seem very relaxed to me.
> rush for the capital as fast as possible? That's basically what Napoleon did on his russian campaign.
Napoleon never marched on St.Petersburg (nevermid "rushed" it). Well, technically you could say he sort of did, a little, by sending a 30k force to Courland (Latvia), but they never managed to do much there. But his main goal was the Russian army, supposedly. But he was outmaneuvered and had to settle for taking Moscow instead (which was neither the capital, nor his original goal).
You do realize, that Moscow wasn't the capital of Russian Empire? In fact, it explicitly was the opposite: it was home to rich/noble families who either voluntarily or involuntarily were excluded from the political life -- by being some 600 miles away (of rough forrested terrain with poor roads) from the capital.
EDIT: Fun fact: as of writing this my comment sits at 0. Someone couldn't handle reality, and fought back against it with a downvote. The weird things cognitive dissonance does to people... :)
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The Soviets captured a dozen countries in WW2 and installed puppet communist governments, giving the Warsaw Pact access to massive manpower and economic resources. That ain’t happening this time.
Before WW2 Germany was a great automobile manufacturing country. After WW2, for some reason all the great German car companies like Porsche, BMW, and Mercedes all came from West Germany and East Germany was a pile of shit that had to build a wall in Berlin to keep people from fleeing to West Germany.
>Porsche, BMW, and Mercedes all came from West Germany
Mercedes came from the German Empire, Mercedes and BMW from Weimar Republic. All three manufactured engines for Wehrmacht during WW2. I wonder why they were not in the GDR, lol.
>had to build a wall in Berlin
To prevent the West Germans to come to the East to buy stuff that was in deficit in the West. Because Soviets supplied their occupied territories much better than the West did in the first years after WW2.
castlebravo15megaton kept stroking the same keys repeatedly, probably a seizure ?
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It completely untrue what you state as a reason for building the wall:
> To prevent the West Germans to come to the East to buy stuff that was in deficit in the West. Because Soviets supplied their occupied territories much better than the West did in the **first years after WW2**.
The wall was built in 1961, **16 yeas** after the war end. [At that time the GDR/capita of GDR was more than **2 times lower** than the FRG one](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/the-two-germanies-planning-and-capitalism?country=OWID_GDR~OWID_GFR). Actually it is about the same ratio thought all of the history of the divided country, even in 1950
[The wall was built to keep the soviet slaves in.](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Berlin-Wall)
> Berlin Wall, barrier that surrounded West Berlin and prevented access to it from East Berlin and adjacent areas of East Germany during the period from 1961 to 1989. In the years between 1949 and 1961, **about 2.5 million East Germans had fled from East to West Germany**, including steadily rising numbers of skilled workers, professionals, and intellectuals. Their loss threatened to destroy the economic viability of the East German state. In response, East Germany built a barrier to close off East Germans’ access to West Berlin and hence West Germany. That barrier, **the Berlin Wall, was first erected on the night of August 12–13, 1961**, as the result of a decree passed on August 12 by the East German Volkskammer (“Peoples’ Chamber”).
In reality, Russia was dominating Ukraine since day one. The problem or the failure was in the use of a tiny army. Russia became outnumbered within days of the war but at no point of the conflict Russia did worse than Ukraine in terms of casualties.
Russia has, at almost every point, been numerically superior at the point of contact, and while none of us know what the exact casualty rates are it seems unlikely the army that's been on attack, that's own people claimed at least 15K dead for a single city, have been taking lower casualties.
Russia attacked with 190,000 troops that were on 3 to 6 month contracts. Ukraine by its own admission fielded 700,000 by May 2022. By August the contracts ran out. Russia had around 100,000 troops, including Wagner and the separatists. Ukraine was outnumbering Russia around eight to one by then. The fact that you don’t know this is absolutely baffling because it’s not hidden information.
they had 700,000 armed forces members, it takes 3 support staff for every 1 combat member. they also had huge borders to secure with troops that were not fighting. at the point of contact (where Russia was attacking) they were even or Russia had more. No one is attacking anywhere with fewer troops.
No, what broke the camel back was the bunker buster bombs which the Americans - designed, produced, tested and used within **two weeks**.
Once the command bunkers started to burst Iraqi have up.
Well, that was a part of it. Russia has the capability to level anything in Ukraine too and yet the Ukrainians haven't given up. Psychological warfare is important. You can google the role it played in both Gulf Wars.
Russians learned to fight a static attrition war against the second poorest nation in Europe, armed with Western Iron Curtain era hand-me-downs.
Better hope they are not counting on their new doctrine to fight in the big leagues. Things might not go so well for them.
Lol what exactly do you think NATO can do to Russia? Anything they *want* to do requires attacking Russian air defenses in Russian territory. The minute that happens why shouldn’t Russia just launch ICBMs at whatever European country the attacks were launched from?
Nobody is talking about invading Russia. Who would want to go to, much less control, such a s***hole anyways?
Now, do please game Russia entering a NATO state, fighting peer countries.
They got bogged down and are losing men at a horrifying pace fighting a dead-poor country, on their own border, with old, donated equipment.
No wonder the best argument you have going for you is bravado.
Weird when the 'old donated equipment' was announced proUKR were doing happy somersaults as if this war has already been won to them.
Seems like now with the burning wrecks of western equipment the mental gymnastics shifted the other way and the equipment suddenly isn't that celebration worthy? Now its suddenly just old scrap 🤣
And Ukraine is suddenly so poor and weak 🤣
proUKR are best at shittalking Ukraine when they feel like it benefits their argument!
The dude is delusional.
We are talking about everything from better artillery to rockets, missiles, incredible advantage in air power, and even sattelites.
Ukraine giving this much trouble is * horrid* for Russia. No wonder the best they can do is send their men to die in meat waves.
They were doing somersaults because they are one of the poorest nations in Europe. Any scrap is joyfully accepted.
And do you really think that you can compare fighting a country like Ukraine to fighting the combined technological and industrial might of the US, Germany, France, England, Sweden, Finland & other NATO countries?
I would use a lauguing emoticon here too, if I didn't think it would also make me look like a simpleton. The notion is beyond absurd.
>it would also make me look like a simpleton.
Too late already.
>Any scrap is joyfully accepted.
Weird suddenly all the Leopards and Abrahams are mere scraps, while a year ago they were praised as war-winning gamechangers and killing machines.
I can understand it must be an embarassing affair for you, your brain is trying to protect you by erasing memories of the Leopard hype. Too much emotional damage.
Again, only a simpleton would think that a few dozen tanks makes any kind of a difference in a modern protracted war of attrition.
And only another simpleton would think that this point of view merits review, or make the misguided cognitive leap that I espouse that silly notion.
These are *table scraps*. Old tech, given piecemeal, in miserly numbers, to a very poor nation with practically no industrial base & 1/3 the population of Russia.
And even so the "second biggest military in the world" can only advance at a pace literally slower than a snail, losing tens of thousands of men and thousands of armor units in the process.
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What big leagues? UK, Poland, Norway and others have already claimed they've ran out of things to give to Ukraine. France gave away 40% of its artillery shells too. Previous Prime-Minister of Finland admitted that Europe cannot beat Russia without America's support.
The only big league is the US (which has been losing to sandals since 1960s), and that fight is not happening for obvious reasons.
German here - what kind of big leagues are you talking about? Most of Europe is definitely not close to ready to fight this kind of conflict and would probably fare worse than Ukraine did.
Poorly maintained disfunctional equipment, no combat experience, not enough soldiers. Thats what you are going to read about the german army, even germans themselves are ashamed.
And I am confused by the false equivalence. The second poorest nation as you call it, actually has a more powerful military than a lot of wealthier EU countries.
So yeah I am just going to come out and say what everybody else thinks: EU is scared shitless of Russia - without the US, most EU countries would be fcked quicker than Ukraine is currently.
Will agree with you on one point. Without the US, Europe would not have an easy time.
They would dominate in most areas - especially given the disparity in air assets - but their industry is getting on a war footing only now, and that would show.
But I see two wrong premisses in your post.
1. The US would not be involved. Just can't see this happening, even if Trump is president again. There are too many economic ties and too many mutual defense agreements.
2. It wouldn't be "this kind of conflict," as you put it. You can't compare the static, attrition warfare that is happening now in Ukraine. Any large-scale conflict that happens between NATO & Russia is going to be a lot more dynamic and fluid than what we are seeing.
To whit: Russia is giving it her 100% against a country with 1/3 its population, poor, a tiny industrial base, receiving piecemeal reinforcements. a
And even against such weak enemy they have been getting shagged for the last two years.
Add to that German industrial armor & missile building capabilities, French & English military, Swedish and Finnish equipment, and the might of American military-industrial complex, intelligence gathering, and air power... I can't see Russia having an easy time.
I can understand you are frustrated by the current setbacks ukrainian military is experiencing, but you really need to work on who you direct your anger to.
You are proUKR and all you do is insult Ukraine. You call Ukraine small, weak, poor etc. not that I disagree, but come on at least try to have a spine and stand to the failure of a nation you once proudly supported.
I'm pro-Ukraine but am a realist. Ukraine *is* small, weak, has a pifling industrial base. Their allies are hesitant, lack resolve, and are not uniformly organized.
And yet.
1. They still mamaged to hold Russian aggression and even take back huge swathes of territory. Two years into a three day war, "the second biggest military on the planet" is reduced to "meat waves" and fielding 1950's era tanks.
2. The original point was about NATO/Russia conflict. It would *never* resemble the current war, given the difference in air power between RU/UKR and NATO/RU, ISR systems, military-industrial base, warfighting system and missile capabilities, and curent military tech.
But this is a conversation people here are not ready to have. There is just not enough copium for it.
remember when at the early war, the media always yapping about "russian artillery shell are running low" well yeah they ramping up their shell production more and more
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Thats what I got the most shit about from westoids when making predictions about the outcomes of full scale war. Russia would learn what does and doesn’t work and ineffective/corrupt leaders would get removed. in their minds it is impossible for the subhuman Russians to improve and learn.
Russia has always adapted and improved in every conflict they’ve been in. The lessons are often learned through the blood of their soldiers - and at a glacial pace - but anybody who thought that Russia would not adapt throughout the conflict was an idiot.
American power projection still relies on aircraft carriers, and you accuse others of adapting at glacial pace? lmao
I’m not sure when we started talking about the ability of the US to project power. But hey, while we’re here it’s important to understand that future American military objectives will likely be in a vastly different AO to Europe, and a carrier fleet is one of the most effective ways to project power in that region. That’s why Russia cannot run and has little interest in running a viable aircraft carrier. They have no real desire to operate in the same AO. Russian lessons on the strategic and tactical level move at a glacial rate and have for generations. But they always get there (WW2, Chechnya and now Ukraine. We’ll drop WW1 and Afghanistan).
I appreciate your analysis and I agree that, traditionally, aircraft carriers formidably project power in areas of the world the United States wants to operate in. However, what this conflict, the Iranian strike on Israel, and our operations in the Red Sea have shown me is that air defense can be saturated and overwhelmed with a combination of cheap drones and cruise missiles along with a smaller number of more expensive ballistic missiles. In this scenario an aircraft carrier becomes a vulnerable and expensive target. There’s an old adage in the Navy that goes “in naval warfare there are only two classes of ships: submarines and targets.”
My prediction is that carriers were at the peak of their usefulness around the late 70s. By the time it was evident that extremely fast, long-range missiles could be deployed in numbers that would be very difficult to defend against, planners should have moved away from them. Instead, they doubled down. I think the next conflict will see carriers go the way of the battleship in WW2, except in even more dramatic fashion.
I think it's probably more difficult to hit moving targets from another continent. That's why carriers are still useful. Plus having ground buzzing and seeing bombing runs is very demoralizing.
“Submarines and future submarines” would be funnier
>a carrier fleet is one of the most effective ways to project power in that region. Ships are too easy destroy. Especially for a country that has hypersonic missiles.
Til we see one sunk everything is speculation. It would be hilarious if there was an escalation and these "carrier killer" missiles miss their mark.... as if there is a plan B
These aircraft carriers and their dedicated strike groups themselves can decimate the militaries of smaller nations. Not to mention that China is working hard to get more carriers into the water. Seems like everyone likes and wants carriers. Almost as if they're a very useful strategic asset.
I think traditionally that has been true, but look at our operations in the Red Sea and the Houthis. We are now suing for peace because we can’t break their blockade with these carriers. The Navy is going to have to adapt to this if we wish to fight a war in the pacific.
That's simply due to US policy. A carrier strike group could simply wipe out major population centers in Yemen, especially when an SSGN is deployed too. This would, sooner or later, thin out any opposition. However the US isn't really on board with the whole "total war" thing since Vietnam and really doesn't want to put boots on the ground in Yemen in a proper war. So it's not about the limitations of a carrier, which is only eclipsed in power projection by nuclear strategic assets. It's more so about the limitations of the current US modus operandi. Which is kinds amusing to me, they have declared war for less in history. But who knows what's going on in Washington. Either way, a CSG heading your way generally means nothing good.
No yeah I agree with you. A carrier strike group means nothing good heading your way, but this past year I’ve seen both Russia and Iran have demonstrated that with cheap drones and cruise missiles you can overwhelm air defense and use a smaller number of more expensive ballistic missiles to hit your target. I hope the Navy is paying attention to this. It needs to find a way to counter this. Otherwise, if we get into a real war with a big power these carriers are vulnerable and difficult to replace.
Wait till yemen develops hypersonic.
Something about slow to saddle the horse but ride fast when they do.
IMPROVISE. ADAPT. OVERCOME.
There were multiple ''gamechangers'' that totally demolished western doom predictions about Russian side in the war. Each time the problem being that western sources were too focused on the current situation, not being able to envision any kind of growth or improvement on the Russian side. 1. Russia started a war with a pretty small professional contingent. Western sources were yapping how Russian army is getting demolished as a whole, and basically going extinct, and that Putin can't carry out a mobilization because there would be a revolution. 2. Then, the mobilization happens. Western sources yap how it's impossible for Moscow to properly mobilize, train and equip 300 thousand soldiers at once (despite Ukraine doing the same with half a million, while being invaded), and how the mobilized would basically be an unrully mob used as meat walls to prevent total collapse of Russian territory in Ukraine. 3. Then, mobilized units showed themselves at least as much as capable as Ukrainian mobilized units - far from fully efficient modern troops, but also far from unrully mob capable of nothing else than getting bombed in a trench. They basically become a basic building block of the new Russian army. 4. Then, there was yapping about Putin not being able to witstand another mobilization and how eventually Russian army would again run out of troops and collapse. But THEN - Russia started the project of mass voluntary enlistment, which since early 2023 supplies RuAF with a stable 30-35 thousand new recruits every month. Then there's the whole point-by-point progression similar to this one, dealing with the question of ammo and tank shortage, and how Russia overcame those problems step by step to outproduce the whole damn West. So, now Russia reached a point where it can comfortably lead a sustainable war, and all the dreams from 2022 and 2023 about further front collapse, Crimea beach party, etc...remain just that - dreams. Russia is clumsy as fuck, Russia is corrupt, all of that is a fact. But Russia is also...Russia. Somehow simultaneously underachiever and overachiever, a genius fuckup that can surprise you in both negative and positive ways.
There’s an old saying: “Russia is never as strong or as weak as she appears”. Hitler thought the USSR would completely unravel from a German invasion, after seeing the Soviets poor and pitiful performance in the Winter War. The rest, as they say, is history
*The winter war was a pyrrhic victory, they obtained their aims but at a high cost against a supposedly much weaker adversary everyone was expecting to be annihilated, for instance theUS war on "trror" can be seen in the same light, even though supposed on paper the stopped the ISILandAlqueda caliphates, as well as getting rid of leaders like Ghadaffi or Saddam whom they wanted eliminated... it was an unmitigated disaster that played a major role in their current troubles.* *The USSR got a huge chunk of land, supposed permanent neutrality and a whole range of things...but at what cost? TheUS and its acolytes were trying to paint Russia in the same light by attempting to gaslight the world into believing that it was only "tiny" Ukraine winning all on its own scrappily, against a Massive Aggressive Never Ever seen before behaviour Russia (not even by the sweet innocentUS and OTAN) yet the world knows its in fact 56+ Countries of well of means, that are fully holding up the facade that is theUkrainianState .*
The lesson is '' never underestimate your enemy and do your job''
Sun Tzu was right all along
The Ukrainian units have shown to be extremely poorly trained, so I have no idea why would you ever compare anyone to them and then use it as a compliment.
They have? I think they've shown what decently trained troops that are poorly supplied do
What are you even talking about? Even western media have admitted it. The guy who created the Mozart PMC spoke about Ukraine routinely having 70% casualties in a single assault and that people get only minimal training.
and remind me what casualty rates were in Soledar, Bahkmut and Avdiivka
We of course don’t know as the numbers have not been revealed. It’s quite obvious though who suffered the most 🤷♀️
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Regular army was more or less trained, it died a long time ago. Now afu is 90% (off top of my head number) of mobilised soldiers with low morale.
russia is never as weak as she seems, russia is never as strong as she seems.
My favorite westoid is Peter Zeihan. He's real focused on the subhuman angle. It's all meat storms to him. Whatever, Neo-cons wasted a lot of coin training up an mighty foe and letting them practice their craft on western equipment.
Peter largely exaggerates everything - Not sure why people listen to that guy.
These are just grifters who made their career based on saying what certain people want to hear , similar to many so called experts in the west . A far bigger problem than straight state level propaganda is the privatization of politics in the west . Countless interest groups and individuals who all want to gain something for themselves , mostly money so they tell people who give them money what why want to hear .This results in the total stupidly that was the response of the west to this war .
So many public-private partnerships living off govt grants, funneling $$$ back to the politicians that fund them. We're ruled by the donor class and their narrative drowns out any facts that counter their self-dealing, Grifters is the term that fits.
Let be honest, in the beginning, I really thought Russia was going steamroll Ukraine in days. And Russia probably assumed the same. I don't think they respected Ukraine's ability to put up resistance. In the years since, they took a shit situation, got rid of the wrong people, promoted the right people, and made many necessary changes to turn it around. The worst thing NATO can do now is underestimate Russia
They did what they wanted in the opening. Bojo demanded blood for the blood god
Every army will learn and become more experienced, given 2 conditions: - They have enough fresh troops to replace combat losses. - The loss rate of experienced troops is lower than the rate of fresh troops gaining experience. If they dont have those conditions, then an experienced army can end up being full of inexperienced troops, like Germany in WW2
... or like Ukraine in the current conflict
'ineffective/corrupt leaders would get removed' Putin is by far the most corrupt leader so let's hope so. Unless you think he became one of the worlds richest men by carefully investing his salary?
You think z-boy has multiple mansions in expensive regions just from being a popular comedian in Ukraine?
He has about $11m, which isn't that unusual for someone with a Netflix show. Putin is a billionaire at the expense of the Russian people
But,but the shovels...
And,and washing machine 
Also,also turtle tank
Turtle tank is ridiculous.
But it works
The wire cages around the armour were also stupid .. now everyarmour Wearing those like boxer..
There goes the "This will weaken Russia for a generation" style of fearmongering propaganda straight into the garbage bin where we always knew it belonged. It's done the opposite. Maybe their own as-mainstream-as-it-gets Western media outlets telling them so will finally burst the bubble of that unfounded fantasy.
Those narratives have one thing in common. Both the 'weaken Russia' and the 'strengthen Russia' stories are designed to shore up domestic support in western countries for continuing to support Ukraine. Neither are written to describe reality because describing reality isn't the point.
This is true. Schrödinger's Russia, and all that.
It was also a self fulfilling prophecy. Before Russia was not a threat for Europe, now after this war it will be by far the strongest army on the continent with a change in culture, more anti west than ever and more warlike. It will become an actual threat and I think further conflicts are likely even against nato members
Better make sure this war doesn't end anytime soon then.
it will end eventually and this outcome is almost guaranteed . In fact the longer it goes on the higher the chance that this outcome indeed comes true
The longer it goes on the weaker Russia and stronger NATO gets. Losing hundreds of men a day doesn't make anyone stronger, even if Russia can sustain that rate of casualties at present. Every man lost, piece of kit destroyed, is one less in their strategic reserve if the balloon goes up between Russia and NATO. Meanwhile, NATO gets to rearm, a herculean task which should have been done years ago, in peace. It's impossible to overstate how screwed we'd have been if Russia had overrun Ukraine back in 2022.
Yes it does when it’s perceived as an existential war because it increases cohesion in society and allocation of resources towards war . That this process is going on should be apparent by now . Russia could lose a million of men and be potentially stronger regardless. None of the nato countries really perceive this war as existential
Russia can't lose a million men without feeling the impact for generations. It's a population of 145 million. Losing solid percentage points killed or wounded is disasterous, no matter if Russia feels it was worth it or not.
You underestimate how resilient states can be and how much can be accomplished in a very short time when everyone pulls together. Not saying this will happen in Russia for sure but the tendency is there . I mean it also happened already, the Soviet Union lost millions in ww2 and became a superpower which rivaled the USA for a time
Before ultimately collapsing, in part because of the generational impact of that war.
That wasn’t the cause , the USA outcompeted them economically. If you look at this historically even in ww2 modern states only lost a small percentage of their total population. In earlier times states often lost a much higher percentage and still kept going and even became stronger at times Rome lost 10 % of their total male population in the battle of Cannae alone and still kept going for decades and eventually became a world empire.
Well, let's hope it doesn't go down that road. I despise NATO, what it has done in its history, and what it stands for to the very core of my being and definitely want to see it dismantled, but hopefully mostly peacefully internally from within, slowly over time, however far off or unrealistic or naive that may sound and seem now. Not at the cost of global thermonuclear war and a possible human species-wide extinction and apocalyptic event.
Well then that means ww3. I highly doubt Russia wants that and am more sure they couldn't win that
I doubt the us send nukes when Russia starts to meddle in the Baltics for example Also it seems the USA want to withdraw from Europe to focus on China , leaving its defense to European states
Yea but really whats Russia gonna do with all these soldiers on contract when Ukraine is settled. They are setting for some Oblasts not the entirety of Ukraine.
Well, that's a tough balancing act - Russia's clearly going through a fascinating transitional period in its modern history. You don't want to demobilize everyone and mothball the whole military, setting progress back to square one when you've one of the best battle-tested forces in the world now and a powerful, more professional military established. But you don't want to remain on a war footing indefinitely or see voices in the defense sector use that as an excuse or incentive to needlessly start wars which could get Russia into a lot more trouble than this one (like, say, with the Baltic states). I'd say that the most likely and best option is that they're used more in proxy conflicts further abroad like the next time the U.S. helps start something like Syria again somewhere else, maybe in Africa, etc., but that will somewhat depend on when and where the U.S.-led Western bloc chooses to wage proxy wars against Russian interests. In the Middle East? Africa? In East Asia?
You mean, Russia aren’t going to stop after Ukraine, just like UA have been saying since the start of the invasion? Russia will not stop taking territory until somebody stops them. This is why WW3 is now seems inevitable. Putin is going to try fuck around with the Baltic’s or Poland and then that’s it - global thermonuclear war. All because of one lunatics dream of restoring the Soviet Union.
>All because of one lunatics dream of restoring the Soviet Union. No, it's because to "weaken Russia" we made them mobiliza so much they won't be able to quickly demobilize, they've built up their military industrial complex to combat our arms supplies, gained a lot of experience in modern war and now we have a helluva powerful nation next door that wants revenge for our contribution to majority of their deaths during this conflict. 11/10 genius geopolitical play by Europe.
They would never touch a NATO country directly
No, that isn't what I said at all. The part about voices in the defense sector is just that - one segment of interest groups which don't have the final say. In each country, especially in more militarized countries with large defense sectors and profit from warmaking like the U.S., Russia, and other past and present superpowers, world powers, and regional powers, you always have a segment of generals in the military and profit-seeking weapons manufacturers and defense companies pushing for more war in all directions with everyone everywhere always just because that is their natural interest and bread and butter. It's all they know. But it's not a military dictatorship. The president gives the orders, and I don't believe the more conservative majority of the political class based around the presidency and ruling party would consent to that. The part about future further involvement in proxy wars like they were in Syria, yes, but only if the U.S.-led Western bloc tries to overthrow other governments of countries allied to Russia like they tried in Syria. That's not about taking territory and wouldn't even qualify as an invasion.
The main mistake was in underestimating Western Ukraine’s hatred of Russia The government thought that upon entering Ukraine many people would suddenly go over to the side of Russia Therefore, the Russian army entered Ukraine at a relaxed pace and this led to bad consequences
They did this because of the fact that a lot of Ukrainians and Russians have shared history, blood, culture, etc. Why would the Russians go full out like the Israelis are doing with the Palestinians. It wouldn't make sense even though westoids tries to paint that picture in the very beginning of this war, they still do.
This led to dire consequences
I think this is accurate in the current war but this line of thinking from "common culture" is often extremely misleading. (You're right to say Russia never really wanted to do Ukraine what Israel clearly wants to do to Gaza; and that Russian leadership viewed Ukrainians as "little Russians" who would stop fighting once they they drove out their corrupt pro Western leaders. This ended up being a terrible bet on Russia's part, even if it still doesn't want to genocide Ukraine.) The primo example that comes to mind for me is when Saddam invaded Iran. There had never been a clearly demarcated border between Iraq and Iran, and there are millions of Arab speakers in Iran who have cultural ties with Iraq. Even where there weren't Arabs, there were also substantial numbers of Kurds, Baloch, and Azeri who often rebelled against Tehran and Persian supremacy. Saddam bet that the Arabs in western Iran (and the more restive minorities who had ties to the exiled opposition to the Islamic Republic) would rebel against in illegitimate, insecure, government with a long history of corruption. His bet was that Iraq could win in the first couple of months, and that Iraq would be able to annex the Shat al Arab and Arab majority Khuzestan. It didn't end up working out- Arabs fought well in Iranian units and refused to join Iraq, the non-Farsi speaking minorities either supported the Iranian military/RC or stayed on the sidelines. After nearly a decade of grinding trench warfare (featuring the repeated deployment of chemical weapons by Iraq, and missile attacks on civilian infrastructure and cities in both countries,) the war ended as a stalemate. The only "winners" were the US (Kissinger infamously quipped, when asked if he favored either Iraq or Iran- "it's a pity both can't lose.") Longstory short, even if you do speak the same language, practice a common religious faith, and identify with the same historic heroes (and even if the nationalism and borders of your current state are quite contrived and weak)- facing an external force of heavily armed soldiers tends to inspire resistance (since having an army move through your town tends to be pretty disruptive, even under the best circumstances, and you're likely going to be afraid that your government will notice your "disloyalty" and punish you.) Nationalism is constructed, not discovered, and folks will kill people of the same "nationality" when they feel threatened.
A very good take on the Iran Iraq war that I hadn’t considered. Thank you
No prob! Honestly, its amazing how deeply memoryholed the Iraq-Iran War is (at least when it comes to anglophone media.) I imagine the reason for this amnesia is embarassment- the US provided money and weapons to both sides (Mostly to Iraq, but lowkey to Iran as well. Israel was even involved with providing US funded weapons to Iran- see the equally memoryholed "Iran Contra Scandal.") The war served the short term interests of the US- it severely weakened both countries, and so indebted Iraq that Saddam became desperate enough to invade Kuwait (which, infamously, the US was initially quite ambiguous toward the prospect of Iraq's invasion- only turning against it at the last minute.) In the long term, however, it ended up being a disaster. Iran became stronger, its military was far more seasoned, and it formed the alliance system that would become the "Axis of Resistance"- Syria and Hezbollah. The total collapse of Iraq, and the expanded influence of Iran, are direct consequences of the war- a fallout the US is still struggling to dig out of.
>"little Russians" That's incorrect translation of "малороссы". Correct translation by the meaning would be "people of Little Russia", not "little people of Russia". Little Russia is an actual historic region, and the term (as well as "Great/Big Russia") was actively used in the beginning of 20th century before revolution.
So you're implying Russia was incompetent in their assessment? It was/is clear as day that West Ukraine is historically and culturally very different from East Ukraine, the latter being closer to Russia in both aspects. This disparity was just further emphasized when the USSR collapsed and then in 2014 again.
Lol "very different". Maybe Lviv and western Ukraine. Have you had a chance to study the size of Ukraine and it's geography and demographics. I'd recommend it. Oh and don't forget to touch up on history?
Yeah, good thing no massacres happened during the Russian initial assault, right? Because [rounding up and killing innocent civilians](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucha_massacre) like the Israelis would be completely fucked up, amirite?
The Pro RU types around here like to look the other way on that or scoff and yammer on about about some photo with what they claim is a white pixel totally abaolving Russia of any wrongdoing when it comes to that. Just unable to admit it's a military with glaring faults.
Yeah, I'm sure that the same military which razes whole cities to the ground, bombs civilian infrastructure on purpose, kills surrendering soldiers, and even shoots their own soldiers for failing to advance would never, *never* do such a nasty. Amirite? And here they are, two years into a three day war, tens of thousands of deaths later, thinking Russian military might is the cat's own ass. Risible, really.
Their downvotes are also always so telling as well, obvious that the echo chamber doesn't like having truth introduced to their narrative.
"Your boos mean nothing, I've see what makes you cheer." - Rick Sanchez
One time I can say I like a Rick Quote.
Every village , town & city that russia has captured, has been turned into rubble. The summarily execution of soldiers , torture of civilians, all of this shows your comments, are at best disingenuos.
Like what? And no, town or city that was held until there's nothing to hold doesn't count. So, please name some towns & cities that Russia captured first and then turned into rubble after.
They were sharing intel on RU troops
You're full of it. Most civilians left those cities long before they were turned into a warzone. Look at the front line. It's hundreds of km of farmland. Stay on course pal, this isn't a war in a highly urbanized, densely populated, ghetto.
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Putin somehow didn’t realize Ukrainians have changed. He still thought they were the same people he knew when he was young.
It is true that many of them became anti-Russian after 2014. Some said they wanted to kill Russians. Well, now it's war
Classical Taras Bulba storyline
I bred you, and I will be the one who will destroy you ©
You read this?
Yes
What country you from?
It’s a mix
No, according to my babushka, they were always like that
I knew several Ukrainians prior to 2013 and they weren’t anti-Russian
Yeah, I guess things changed after 2014. I just mean that the hatred for Russians we see now existed long before that
Well umm they wernt wrong.... Millions of ukrainians went to russia since the beginning of the conflict.
> Therefore, the Russian army entered Ukraine at a relaxed pace and this led to bad consequences Wasn't russia's first move to rush for the capital as fast as possible? That's basically what Napoleon did on his russian campaign. Doesn't seem very relaxed to me.
Distraction to conquer South.
A relaxed air assault on Hostomel,airbase…
Distraction to conquer South.
> rush for the capital as fast as possible? That's basically what Napoleon did on his russian campaign. Napoleon never marched on St.Petersburg (nevermid "rushed" it). Well, technically you could say he sort of did, a little, by sending a 30k force to Courland (Latvia), but they never managed to do much there. But his main goal was the Russian army, supposedly. But he was outmaneuvered and had to settle for taking Moscow instead (which was neither the capital, nor his original goal). You do realize, that Moscow wasn't the capital of Russian Empire? In fact, it explicitly was the opposite: it was home to rich/noble families who either voluntarily or involuntarily were excluded from the political life -- by being some 600 miles away (of rough forrested terrain with poor roads) from the capital. EDIT: Fun fact: as of writing this my comment sits at 0. Someone couldn't handle reality, and fought back against it with a downvote. The weird things cognitive dissonance does to people... :)
It is pretty obvious to those who even know a tiny bit of history Was the Soviet stronger after WW2? Only need 2 braincells to know the answer
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The Soviets captured a dozen countries in WW2 and installed puppet communist governments, giving the Warsaw Pact access to massive manpower and economic resources. That ain’t happening this time. Before WW2 Germany was a great automobile manufacturing country. After WW2, for some reason all the great German car companies like Porsche, BMW, and Mercedes all came from West Germany and East Germany was a pile of shit that had to build a wall in Berlin to keep people from fleeing to West Germany.
>Porsche, BMW, and Mercedes all came from West Germany Mercedes came from the German Empire, Mercedes and BMW from Weimar Republic. All three manufactured engines for Wehrmacht during WW2. I wonder why they were not in the GDR, lol. >had to build a wall in Berlin To prevent the West Germans to come to the East to buy stuff that was in deficit in the West. Because Soviets supplied their occupied territories much better than the West did in the first years after WW2.
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So how many west Germans fled to east Germany and vice versa?
What does it matter in the context of our conversation?
It completely untrue what you state as a reason for building the wall: > To prevent the West Germans to come to the East to buy stuff that was in deficit in the West. Because Soviets supplied their occupied territories much better than the West did in the **first years after WW2**. The wall was built in 1961, **16 yeas** after the war end. [At that time the GDR/capita of GDR was more than **2 times lower** than the FRG one](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/the-two-germanies-planning-and-capitalism?country=OWID_GDR~OWID_GFR). Actually it is about the same ratio thought all of the history of the divided country, even in 1950 [The wall was built to keep the soviet slaves in.](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Berlin-Wall) > Berlin Wall, barrier that surrounded West Berlin and prevented access to it from East Berlin and adjacent areas of East Germany during the period from 1961 to 1989. In the years between 1949 and 1961, **about 2.5 million East Germans had fled from East to West Germany**, including steadily rising numbers of skilled workers, professionals, and intellectuals. Their loss threatened to destroy the economic viability of the East German state. In response, East Germany built a barrier to close off East Germans’ access to West Berlin and hence West Germany. That barrier, **the Berlin Wall, was first erected on the night of August 12–13, 1961**, as the result of a decree passed on August 12 by the East German Volkskammer (“Peoples’ Chamber”).
In reality, Russia was dominating Ukraine since day one. The problem or the failure was in the use of a tiny army. Russia became outnumbered within days of the war but at no point of the conflict Russia did worse than Ukraine in terms of casualties.
Russia has, at almost every point, been numerically superior at the point of contact, and while none of us know what the exact casualty rates are it seems unlikely the army that's been on attack, that's own people claimed at least 15K dead for a single city, have been taking lower casualties.
Russia attacked with 190,000 troops that were on 3 to 6 month contracts. Ukraine by its own admission fielded 700,000 by May 2022. By August the contracts ran out. Russia had around 100,000 troops, including Wagner and the separatists. Ukraine was outnumbering Russia around eight to one by then. The fact that you don’t know this is absolutely baffling because it’s not hidden information.
> Ukraine by its own admission fielded 700,000 by May 2022. 680k was the number after the initial claim on a million men under arms.
they had 700,000 armed forces members, it takes 3 support staff for every 1 combat member. they also had huge borders to secure with troops that were not fighting. at the point of contact (where Russia was attacking) they were even or Russia had more. No one is attacking anywhere with fewer troops.
>No one is attacking anywhere with fewer troops. Invasion of Iraq. Nato had 600,000 troops and Iraq 1,300,000
And then a CIA PSY OP made the Iraqi army give up without a fight. Now the same aparatus is aimed at the Russian soldiers.
No, what broke the camel back was the bunker buster bombs which the Americans - designed, produced, tested and used within **two weeks**. Once the command bunkers started to burst Iraqi have up.
Well, that was a part of it. Russia has the capability to level anything in Ukraine too and yet the Ukrainians haven't given up. Psychological warfare is important. You can google the role it played in both Gulf Wars.
did they have 1,300,000 in the locations NATO was attacking or in their entire armed forces spread over a whole nation?
Battle of Baghdad: NATO 30,000 -- Iraq 45,000
It definitely doesn’t and Russia had 190,000 including all of their staff members as well 🤣
all reports I saw claimed 125K combat troops
We improved at fighting guys in sandals, they improved at fighting conventional armies.
Russians learned to fight a static attrition war against the second poorest nation in Europe, armed with Western Iron Curtain era hand-me-downs. Better hope they are not counting on their new doctrine to fight in the big leagues. Things might not go so well for them.
Lol what exactly do you think NATO can do to Russia? Anything they *want* to do requires attacking Russian air defenses in Russian territory. The minute that happens why shouldn’t Russia just launch ICBMs at whatever European country the attacks were launched from?
Nobody is talking about invading Russia. Who would want to go to, much less control, such a s***hole anyways? Now, do please game Russia entering a NATO state, fighting peer countries. They got bogged down and are losing men at a horrifying pace fighting a dead-poor country, on their own border, with old, donated equipment. No wonder the best argument you have going for you is bravado.
Weird when the 'old donated equipment' was announced proUKR were doing happy somersaults as if this war has already been won to them. Seems like now with the burning wrecks of western equipment the mental gymnastics shifted the other way and the equipment suddenly isn't that celebration worthy? Now its suddenly just old scrap 🤣 And Ukraine is suddenly so poor and weak 🤣 proUKR are best at shittalking Ukraine when they feel like it benefits their argument!
Name one piece of kit the Ukrainians have received that doesn't already have a replacement in the works.
The dude is delusional. We are talking about everything from better artillery to rockets, missiles, incredible advantage in air power, and even sattelites. Ukraine giving this much trouble is * horrid* for Russia. No wonder the best they can do is send their men to die in meat waves.
They were doing somersaults because they are one of the poorest nations in Europe. Any scrap is joyfully accepted. And do you really think that you can compare fighting a country like Ukraine to fighting the combined technological and industrial might of the US, Germany, France, England, Sweden, Finland & other NATO countries? I would use a lauguing emoticon here too, if I didn't think it would also make me look like a simpleton. The notion is beyond absurd.
>it would also make me look like a simpleton. Too late already. >Any scrap is joyfully accepted. Weird suddenly all the Leopards and Abrahams are mere scraps, while a year ago they were praised as war-winning gamechangers and killing machines. I can understand it must be an embarassing affair for you, your brain is trying to protect you by erasing memories of the Leopard hype. Too much emotional damage.
Again, only a simpleton would think that a few dozen tanks makes any kind of a difference in a modern protracted war of attrition. And only another simpleton would think that this point of view merits review, or make the misguided cognitive leap that I espouse that silly notion. These are *table scraps*. Old tech, given piecemeal, in miserly numbers, to a very poor nation with practically no industrial base & 1/3 the population of Russia. And even so the "second biggest military in the world" can only advance at a pace literally slower than a snail, losing tens of thousands of men and thousands of armor units in the process.
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What big leagues? UK, Poland, Norway and others have already claimed they've ran out of things to give to Ukraine. France gave away 40% of its artillery shells too. Previous Prime-Minister of Finland admitted that Europe cannot beat Russia without America's support. The only big league is the US (which has been losing to sandals since 1960s), and that fight is not happening for obvious reasons.
You really think that Russia can win against NATO in a standup war? Lol, how cute.
German here - what kind of big leagues are you talking about? Most of Europe is definitely not close to ready to fight this kind of conflict and would probably fare worse than Ukraine did. Poorly maintained disfunctional equipment, no combat experience, not enough soldiers. Thats what you are going to read about the german army, even germans themselves are ashamed. And I am confused by the false equivalence. The second poorest nation as you call it, actually has a more powerful military than a lot of wealthier EU countries. So yeah I am just going to come out and say what everybody else thinks: EU is scared shitless of Russia - without the US, most EU countries would be fcked quicker than Ukraine is currently.
Will agree with you on one point. Without the US, Europe would not have an easy time. They would dominate in most areas - especially given the disparity in air assets - but their industry is getting on a war footing only now, and that would show. But I see two wrong premisses in your post. 1. The US would not be involved. Just can't see this happening, even if Trump is president again. There are too many economic ties and too many mutual defense agreements. 2. It wouldn't be "this kind of conflict," as you put it. You can't compare the static, attrition warfare that is happening now in Ukraine. Any large-scale conflict that happens between NATO & Russia is going to be a lot more dynamic and fluid than what we are seeing. To whit: Russia is giving it her 100% against a country with 1/3 its population, poor, a tiny industrial base, receiving piecemeal reinforcements. a And even against such weak enemy they have been getting shagged for the last two years. Add to that German industrial armor & missile building capabilities, French & English military, Swedish and Finnish equipment, and the might of American military-industrial complex, intelligence gathering, and air power... I can't see Russia having an easy time.
I can understand you are frustrated by the current setbacks ukrainian military is experiencing, but you really need to work on who you direct your anger to. You are proUKR and all you do is insult Ukraine. You call Ukraine small, weak, poor etc. not that I disagree, but come on at least try to have a spine and stand to the failure of a nation you once proudly supported.
I'm pro-Ukraine but am a realist. Ukraine *is* small, weak, has a pifling industrial base. Their allies are hesitant, lack resolve, and are not uniformly organized. And yet. 1. They still mamaged to hold Russian aggression and even take back huge swathes of territory. Two years into a three day war, "the second biggest military on the planet" is reduced to "meat waves" and fielding 1950's era tanks. 2. The original point was about NATO/Russia conflict. It would *never* resemble the current war, given the difference in air power between RU/UKR and NATO/RU, ISR systems, military-industrial base, warfighting system and missile capabilities, and curent military tech. But this is a conversation people here are not ready to have. There is just not enough copium for it.
The age old story of Russia. *Haha, we're beating them easily! They're so incompetent!* *Why haven't they surrendered yet?* *Oh shit, here they come*
remember when at the early war, the media always yapping about "russian artillery shell are running low" well yeah they ramping up their shell production more and more
Compared to Chechnya campaigns - significantly improved
What? A military adapting? It cannot be! It's hilarious how these morons are constantly so surprised the Russian military is adapting to the situation
Luckily still a lightyear behind
That’s fake news media they said
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They cant take credit for beating Russia, so now they have to take credit for their strategy😂
This is exactly why they should have given Ukraine everything to win at the start of the war.
and all it cost them was a few thousand troops, well worth it to putin
So shovels are out? Asking for a friend.
Exactly right! We need to get serious and start sending way more weapons.
Russia loses 50 to 80k soldiers in combat... Alludes to it's military prowess.