It does honestly feel like people - on both sides of the war, I will freely admit - put way too much focus on individual events and are unable to see the bigger picture of logistics and equipment produced and so on.
So you end up with, just as a recent example, the Ukrainians going on and on about that Bradley vs tank incident and how “owned” Russia was or whatever (that is managed to keep going for like 5 minutes in constant Bradley fire? sounds like a pretty awesome example of how great Russian tanks are tbh), or that Russian plane full of Ukrainian POWs being shot down by a Patriot, or now this boat being sunk. But none of this actually matters. What’s really going on here is that the pro-Ukraine crowd is seeing these events and drawing absolutely massive conclusions from it. “Aha, see, we can now destroy all Russian tanks with just our infantry carriers! Aha, see, we can now shoot down every Russian plane with our air defense! Aha, see, we can now sink every boat in the Russian fleet!” Russia has thousands of tanks, its planes are routinely not shot down by Ukrainian air defense because of how depleted it is and the Russian countermeasures (flying low, etc), and honestly, sinking the Russian Black Sea fleet would be an L but it would be very far from war-ending, given that Ukraine has no navy for it to fight anyway and Russia obviously has inland missile launchers. But the pro-Russian side like Rybar tends to take these narratives and feels the need to address them because they’re just as caught up in these narratives as everybody else, when they could just ignore them and watch as they’re forgotten in a week.
Wars are determined by systemic issues and, most importantly, the capacity for the warring nations to overcome those issues. Neither side is permanently locked into its state of affairs (in most cases; e.g. WW2 Germany had problems the whole war with getting enough fuel due to simple geography). Not being able to see how a military could make up for its deficiencies is what lead to the Kharkov surprise for the pro-Russian side who didn’t understand that Russia went into the war with too few troops to man parts of the front and that Ukraine had been creating brigades in the rear while their frontline army was getting mauled over the spring and summer, and then the surprise of the failure of the counteroffensive for Ukraine, who didn’t understand that Russia had found a way to counter the Ukrainian offensive strategy and thought that the same trick was guaranteed to work twice.
In short, if you’re going to make an assumption that a military is unable to counter a new problem, you need a LOT of evidence for it - not just vibes about how you think the conflict is going to go. Never assume that a military is stagnant unless you have extremely good reasons to believe so. I personally don’t believe that the Ukrainian military is stagnant and totally doomed and they can still probably keep defending for at least the better part of a year and finding new strategies to counter Russia, but the ongoing lack of Western military reindustrialization is my ‘extremely good reason’ to believe that Ukraine will be unable to win unless there is a very sudden change in the economic strategy of the West away from neoliberalism and just-in-time manufacturing.
For sure, I made that mistake at the start of the war as well. It seemed like every skirmish was going to be relevant somehow. After a while I realized that it’s pretty safe to ignore most of the reporting about small positional changes and who captured what hill on a particular day.
And completely agree that at the end of the day it all comes down to the logistics. The military will adapt and evolve as it faces new problems. There are smart and determined people on both sides who are constantly working on ways to get upper hand. The industry problem on the other hand is much harder to solve. Russia has a huge advantage because they retained a lot of the Soviet industry that they’re now modernizing and expanding on. Russia also has a stronger education system that has more focus on trade jobs, which is key for having skilled workers to operate the factories. And of course, Russia is next to China and India giving them access to two large manufacturing powers. Even DPRK likely has a bigger industrial base than most of Europe.
Another big factor here is the economic war between Russia and the west. Since Ukraine is entirely dependent on the west for everything, what really matters is the economic war. The west realized this early on, and they thought they could choke off Russian economy via sanctions. This backfired spectacularly, and now it looks like it’s European economy that’s being destroyed instead.
While Europe keeps pumping money into Ukraine, there is serious civil unrest brewing internally. One huge factor is that energy prices went up because LNG is way more expensive than pipeline gas. Initially, European governments started giving out subsidies to keep the public happy. The idea was that they were just going to have to weather a few months and then Russia would collapse. That didn’t happen, and the subsidies are no longer sustainable. This is what’s driving all the farmer protests across Europe now. They simply can’t make ends meet with the new energy prices and no government support.
At the end of the day, the Kremlin is seeing the same info we are and much more that we aren’t. So any kind of certainty that they can’t adapt to problems is just silly.
It does honestly feel like people - on both sides of the war, I will freely admit - put way too much focus on individual events and are unable to see the bigger picture of logistics and equipment produced and so on.
So you end up with, just as a recent example, the Ukrainians going on and on about that Bradley vs tank incident and how “owned” Russia was or whatever (that is managed to keep going for like 5 minutes in constant Bradley fire? sounds like a pretty awesome example of how great Russian tanks are tbh), or that Russian plane full of Ukrainian POWs being shot down by a Patriot, or now this boat being sunk. But none of this actually matters. What’s really going on here is that the pro-Ukraine crowd is seeing these events and drawing absolutely massive conclusions from it. “Aha, see, we can now destroy all Russian tanks with just our infantry carriers! Aha, see, we can now shoot down every Russian plane with our air defense! Aha, see, we can now sink every boat in the Russian fleet!” Russia has thousands of tanks, its planes are routinely not shot down by Ukrainian air defense because of how depleted it is and the Russian countermeasures (flying low, etc), and honestly, sinking the Russian Black Sea fleet would be an L but it would be very far from war-ending, given that Ukraine has no navy for it to fight anyway and Russia obviously has inland missile launchers. But the pro-Russian side like Rybar tends to take these narratives and feels the need to address them because they’re just as caught up in these narratives as everybody else, when they could just ignore them and watch as they’re forgotten in a week.
Wars are determined by systemic issues and, most importantly, the capacity for the warring nations to overcome those issues. Neither side is permanently locked into its state of affairs (in most cases; e.g. WW2 Germany had problems the whole war with getting enough fuel due to simple geography). Not being able to see how a military could make up for its deficiencies is what lead to the Kharkov surprise for the pro-Russian side who didn’t understand that Russia went into the war with too few troops to man parts of the front and that Ukraine had been creating brigades in the rear while their frontline army was getting mauled over the spring and summer, and then the surprise of the failure of the counteroffensive for Ukraine, who didn’t understand that Russia had found a way to counter the Ukrainian offensive strategy and thought that the same trick was guaranteed to work twice.
In short, if you’re going to make an assumption that a military is unable to counter a new problem, you need a LOT of evidence for it - not just vibes about how you think the conflict is going to go. Never assume that a military is stagnant unless you have extremely good reasons to believe so. I personally don’t believe that the Ukrainian military is stagnant and totally doomed and they can still probably keep defending for at least the better part of a year and finding new strategies to counter Russia, but the ongoing lack of Western military reindustrialization is my ‘extremely good reason’ to believe that Ukraine will be unable to win unless there is a very sudden change in the economic strategy of the West away from neoliberalism and just-in-time manufacturing.
For sure, I made that mistake at the start of the war as well. It seemed like every skirmish was going to be relevant somehow. After a while I realized that it’s pretty safe to ignore most of the reporting about small positional changes and who captured what hill on a particular day.
And completely agree that at the end of the day it all comes down to the logistics. The military will adapt and evolve as it faces new problems. There are smart and determined people on both sides who are constantly working on ways to get upper hand. The industry problem on the other hand is much harder to solve. Russia has a huge advantage because they retained a lot of the Soviet industry that they’re now modernizing and expanding on. Russia also has a stronger education system that has more focus on trade jobs, which is key for having skilled workers to operate the factories. And of course, Russia is next to China and India giving them access to two large manufacturing powers. Even DPRK likely has a bigger industrial base than most of Europe.
Another big factor here is the economic war between Russia and the west. Since Ukraine is entirely dependent on the west for everything, what really matters is the economic war. The west realized this early on, and they thought they could choke off Russian economy via sanctions. This backfired spectacularly, and now it looks like it’s European economy that’s being destroyed instead.
While Europe keeps pumping money into Ukraine, there is serious civil unrest brewing internally. One huge factor is that energy prices went up because LNG is way more expensive than pipeline gas. Initially, European governments started giving out subsidies to keep the public happy. The idea was that they were just going to have to weather a few months and then Russia would collapse. That didn’t happen, and the subsidies are no longer sustainable. This is what’s driving all the farmer protests across Europe now. They simply can’t make ends meet with the new energy prices and no government support.
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At the end of the day, the Kremlin is seeing the same info we are and much more that we aren’t. So any kind of certainty that they can’t adapt to problems is just silly.