socaltownie said:
Cal88 said:
sycasey said:
tequila4kapp said:
Cal88 said:
The Russians have lost tens of thousands of troops, and added hundreds of thousands who are now trained in 21st century warfare. They produce 4 million shells/yr and produce/refurbish 2,000 tanks/yr. Most of the perception of Russian incompetence boils down to western cultural hubris.
NATO's military strength is rooted in its air force, which is largely ineffective against Russia's air defenses.
It is curious to explain Russia's failure to beat Ukraine in 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months, 3 years by saying its a repeat of WW1 ... but then also extoll the virtues of Russia's 21st century warfare capabilities. It is one or the other, not both.
The goalposts will keep moving until we acknowledge Russia's greatness.
Not sure about the goalposts, but the frontlines in Ukraine are certainly moving right now.
Russia is (1) not a military pushover, and (2) has escalatory dominance in a land war at its borders. Those are the facts, and acknowledging them do not make one a Russian shill, this assessment and the ones above are rational takes based on the realities on the ground.
I don't think that is as much of a slam dunk as you do.
1) Russia LOST the afghan war (we did too) in taking on a truly impoverished country on its border. Arguably its failure brought down the Soviet system. They don't ALWAYS win and many of the real inefficiencies in their system are again repeating themselves.
Afghanistan aka "the graveyard of empires", term coined by the British who also failed at that attempt, is classic guerrilla warfare with the insurgents having the advantage of a rugged mountainous terrain in a large country. The Soviets' main weapon, air power, was negated by the US flooding the Taliban forces with Stingers.
Afghanistan however is not one third Russian and on Russia's open steppe western border, within drone firing range of Moscow. This is where the comparison with Ukraine falls flat.
Also, Russia does not have a soviet system, you are showing your political naivete here, most of your positions on Russia and Ukraine come across as those from a typical Cold War mindset. Russia is no longer a communist country, the share of Russian government spending of their GDP is much lower than in France, Germany, Scandinavia or even Canada and Japan. It is actually the same as in the US (see link below). Income tax rates in Russia are 13%-15%.
https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/USA/FRA/JPN/GBR/SWE/ESP/ITA/ZAF/IND/RUSQuote:
2) Any analysis that is objective would find that russian gains are measured in yards per week and likely unsustainable expenditures. The figure that I love is that it would take Russia over 100 years to capture all of Ukraine at the current rate. 20% plus inflation isn't a good indicator of a healthy economy able to sustain the effort.
This is not a linear process, the Russians are waging a war of attrition meant to attrit Ukrainian military depth, a wartime philosophy reflected in Von Clausewitz' military treaties. They will move from a more static, artillery and air power based warfare that minimizes their own losses and emphacizes their strengths to larger sweeping movements once the Ukrainian dam breaks. This will happen when the Ukrainains will run out of weapons, run out of men, or run out of morale, whichever comes first.
At this rate, the breaking point looks like it's within 6mo to 2 years, the timing is hard to predict but the final outcome isn't.
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That is not to say that Russia's strength here is real. But there are REAL problems right now in Moscow - not the least of which is oil at $70 a barrel which is about 15 too low for Russia.
At the highest level it becomes what the definition of "victory" is (and I think even more important for the US - What definition of victory serves OUR interests. That is why I am just not a huge fan of the "peace at any costs because there are scenarios where that happens which are NOT in the US's interests.
Does having 1 million Ukrainian soldiers killed "serve our interests"?
You asked about the sources, Ukraine already has over 100,000 dismembered veterans. If you look at the ratio of dismembered soldiers to KIAs in WW1 and other conflicts, this would easily translate in 1 million Ukrainian KIAs. FWIW I used an estimate of 850,000 KIAs, significantly lower than Macgregor's 1.2 million. He attributes the surge to above 1 million as due to worsening conditions (untrained conscripts, acute artillery shortages, no air defense etc) for Ukraine in the recent stages of the war, coupled with poor, PR-driven tactics, as shown again lately with the reckless Kursk incusrion.
The point is, those soldiers have been dying for nothing, these deaths could have been avoided with the Minsk or Istanbul agreements, which would have preserved Ukraine as the largest country in Europe, and Ukraine would have been far better off with those, and of course far better off with a peace treaty now than later this year or the next with looming losses of Kharkov, Dnipro or even Odessa down the line.
The war is not likely to last past 2026, the Russian economy can easily sustain its current rythm, with a current GDP growth of 4% and a debt to GDP ratio of less than 20%, the lowest among large developed nations.
