Nicely done, particularly the rare insightfulness of how few forces Russia initially used compared to the b.s. propaganda most western sources claimed (200-250k troops, etc etc)
I would add that numbers beat technology. It is simply better to have tons of decently maintained T-72s than to have a much smaller number of Leopard-2 tanks, which is what will soon be the situation in the war. Of course, Russia has the T-90 and the T-14 Armata, but even if they didn't, they'd still be in a better position.
The same can be said about Russia's initial lack of JDAMs and other fancy tech. While they are now slowly starting to close the gap, the massive advantage in relatively "lower tech" over fewer but modern artillery systems with guided munitions is a clear advantage.
Makes you think if it wasn't better for Western airforces to bulk up on cheaper gen 4 fighter jets in far greater numbers than be saddled with far fewer numbers of expensive maintenance queens like the F-35.
RAND has an excellent paper out there looking at how far can quality truly make up for what you lack in quality. They mainly looked at air campaigns where quality can really shine through. And the conclusion was that with 9-to-1 difference in numbers, no amount of quality can make up for your deficiency in quantity.
I don't mean to be dismissive, but USA's main goal is not victory in Ukraine, but containment. USA wanted to stop Russian gas to EU, and after Nordstream 2 (as reported by Seymour Hersh), it's clear the West already accomplished its main goal. Moving forward, the West will focus on preventing future Russian shipping routes through Ukraine. A Chinese-Russian-Iran-Kazakhstan economic alliance may still reshape all of Central Asia, but its timeline has obviously been delayed. In short, USA won the economic war, but Russia will win on the battlefield--its aim has always been Donbas--and Russia's next major operation will be how to manage trade with China and how to balance Chinese influence in Central Asia.
Europe may not stay passive and watch their industrial base and economy getting destroyed. Russia is the principal energy, material and commodity supplier to Europe and Europe cannot be competitive buying energy at 30% higher price.
So it remains to be seen whether it is a victory at all.
I wouldn't be so sure about the economic war over the longer term. The petro-dollar was thoroughly discredited by Western illegal asset seizure - probably the biggest strategic blunder in history.
Buddy you can't even remember Twitter's character limit while trying to 'own' Taurev. You might need to go back to 8th grade, seeing as that writing level is what you are supposedly experienced with.
But where is the evidence that Russia is indeed ramping up ammunition massively? Russia is really not transparent about this. You cannot find information for example, how much a certain company has increased ammunition production. It may be the case that Russian is ramping up production, but you cannot really prove it. Or it may be the case that Russian production cannot keep up with the amount of shells that are spent at the front.
Also one big problem of Russia is that it essentially dismantled a lot of the Soviet MIC. They still have a good MIC, but is nowhere near what the Soviets had before collapse.
The Soviet Union was a nation twice the size of the Russian Federation when it comes to population, and the military was accordingly also much larger. Of course factories had to close down as the military downsized. But the US by comparison grew in population, while the army still got smaller with the MIC getting proportionately even smaller.
And yes the Russians aren't exactly telling us their definitive production numbers, we can see that by the workers hired, the shifts run, the transports going in and out, that production has increased. And we see it on the battlefield too, where ATGMs for example are being launched with greater frequency.
Nuclear weapons are probably the main reason that mass has been generally deprecated from Western military philosophy. There was a collective assumption that direct peer conflict was over, and all future conflict would either be by proxy or with a massive power imbalance.
Then the parasitic controllers became so comfortable and complacent in their post-Soviet global dominance that they reached even further, believing that conflict would be purely financial, and everything else we call "war" would actually be more akin to policing or state terrorism with a severe power imbalance. Their military was then totally reconfigured around these objectives. It's no coincidence that their strategy in Ukraine has been to foment terrorism, apply economic sanctions, send a few "wonder weapons", and then commit terrorism against economic targets. Hammers and nails.
What to make of it I am uncertain, but I find it very interesting in the comparison of the national psyches of Russia and ZOG that the latter has spent the past twenty years insisting that its terroristic policing is war, while the former insists that its war is policing.
Are there any resources on the russian defense industry that you recommend? Russia keeping many of its large Soviet munitions factories running at a loss was not something I had heard before.
All the commentators I follow say the army the West spent eight years building in Ukraine to crush the Donbas was essentially destroyed by Summer '22.
I think the primary mistake by Russian leadership was to underestimate how ideologically commited NATO is to destroying Russia.
Nicely done, particularly the rare insightfulness of how few forces Russia initially used compared to the b.s. propaganda most western sources claimed (200-250k troops, etc etc)
And you whine about what? That Russia is incompetent to send more troops?
I would add that numbers beat technology. It is simply better to have tons of decently maintained T-72s than to have a much smaller number of Leopard-2 tanks, which is what will soon be the situation in the war. Of course, Russia has the T-90 and the T-14 Armata, but even if they didn't, they'd still be in a better position.
The same can be said about Russia's initial lack of JDAMs and other fancy tech. While they are now slowly starting to close the gap, the massive advantage in relatively "lower tech" over fewer but modern artillery systems with guided munitions is a clear advantage.
Makes you think if it wasn't better for Western airforces to bulk up on cheaper gen 4 fighter jets in far greater numbers than be saddled with far fewer numbers of expensive maintenance queens like the F-35.
RAND has an excellent paper out there looking at how far can quality truly make up for what you lack in quality. They mainly looked at air campaigns where quality can really shine through. And the conclusion was that with 9-to-1 difference in numbers, no amount of quality can make up for your deficiency in quantity.
I don't mean to be dismissive, but USA's main goal is not victory in Ukraine, but containment. USA wanted to stop Russian gas to EU, and after Nordstream 2 (as reported by Seymour Hersh), it's clear the West already accomplished its main goal. Moving forward, the West will focus on preventing future Russian shipping routes through Ukraine. A Chinese-Russian-Iran-Kazakhstan economic alliance may still reshape all of Central Asia, but its timeline has obviously been delayed. In short, USA won the economic war, but Russia will win on the battlefield--its aim has always been Donbas--and Russia's next major operation will be how to manage trade with China and how to balance Chinese influence in Central Asia.
Europe may not stay passive and watch their industrial base and economy getting destroyed. Russia is the principal energy, material and commodity supplier to Europe and Europe cannot be competitive buying energy at 30% higher price.
So it remains to be seen whether it is a victory at all.
I wouldn't be so sure about the economic war over the longer term. The petro-dollar was thoroughly discredited by Western illegal asset seizure - probably the biggest strategic blunder in history.
Excellent article, thank you.
This 8th-grade level dross is exactly what I expected from you, Taurevanime.
Stick to 180 characters. You're out of your depth here.
Buddy you can't even remember Twitter's character limit while trying to 'own' Taurev. You might need to go back to 8th grade, seeing as that writing level is what you are supposedly experienced with.
But where is the evidence that Russia is indeed ramping up ammunition massively? Russia is really not transparent about this. You cannot find information for example, how much a certain company has increased ammunition production. It may be the case that Russian is ramping up production, but you cannot really prove it. Or it may be the case that Russian production cannot keep up with the amount of shells that are spent at the front.
Also one big problem of Russia is that it essentially dismantled a lot of the Soviet MIC. They still have a good MIC, but is nowhere near what the Soviets had before collapse.
The Soviet Union was a nation twice the size of the Russian Federation when it comes to population, and the military was accordingly also much larger. Of course factories had to close down as the military downsized. But the US by comparison grew in population, while the army still got smaller with the MIC getting proportionately even smaller.
And yes the Russians aren't exactly telling us their definitive production numbers, we can see that by the workers hired, the shifts run, the transports going in and out, that production has increased. And we see it on the battlefield too, where ATGMs for example are being launched with greater frequency.
Nuclear weapons are probably the main reason that mass has been generally deprecated from Western military philosophy. There was a collective assumption that direct peer conflict was over, and all future conflict would either be by proxy or with a massive power imbalance.
Then the parasitic controllers became so comfortable and complacent in their post-Soviet global dominance that they reached even further, believing that conflict would be purely financial, and everything else we call "war" would actually be more akin to policing or state terrorism with a severe power imbalance. Their military was then totally reconfigured around these objectives. It's no coincidence that their strategy in Ukraine has been to foment terrorism, apply economic sanctions, send a few "wonder weapons", and then commit terrorism against economic targets. Hammers and nails.
What to make of it I am uncertain, but I find it very interesting in the comparison of the national psyches of Russia and ZOG that the latter has spent the past twenty years insisting that its terroristic policing is war, while the former insists that its war is policing.
Are there any resources on the russian defense industry that you recommend? Russia keeping many of its large Soviet munitions factories running at a loss was not something I had heard before.
Good resources are hard to come by, but basically look at the various mergers and bankruptcies in their defence industrial sector.
Even during this war last year a bunch of factories were left to close down due to debts accrued.