Good information, as usual, but somewhat missing the arguments I was making.
Perhaps I misconflated
the “Cold War” with the US-USSR Arms Race. The argument is that not only could the Soviets eventually not even keep up, but their attempts to do so effectively bankrupted the country and brought about its end.
WWII: i was referring to the War in Europe, not, of course, to what remained in the Pacific, which directly affected my future self, as my father many times told us he was set to be in the vanguard of the frontal assault on mainland (in his case, Kyushu) Japan.
The US narrative is that Reagan outspent the USSR and ran them into the ground, but I have seen other sources, including ex-Soviet ones that the entire system was becoming unsteady even before Reagan came along. The increase in defense spending on the US side didn't help and may have sped up the demise, but the USSR was headed for a fall anyway.
Japan was a more unified country to the end, but Germany held together and people kept contributing to the war effort right to the end. Germany was doing some pretty creative things to keep manufacturing war goods. They had factories set up in old mines and tunnels.
They clearly are continuing to bleed out Ru forces but….
a “stalemate” mantra works against Ukr politically for re-supply by the West. It also gives the West’s concessionists fuel to pressure Ukr for negotiated peace.
It might, but if Ukraine plans to drain Russia dry encouraging them to go on the offense, then take advantage of their thin lines when their forces are thinned out and take a fair bit of ground in a short time, they may think it's worth the risk. They probably also informed the top tiers of the governments in the west what their strategy is.
If it fails it could result in the people of western countries demanding that Ukraine cut its losses.
And we are still using the Purple Hearts that were minted in anticipation of an invasion of Japan.
Yes the US is. My father always figured the nuclear weapons saved his life. He was on a second combat deployment to Attu when the war ended. He would have been flying during the invasion of Japan and he figured his number was going to come up.
I have started to wonder if we are in "max facade" phase now for the Russian 'state'. "Look! Our economy is fine (at 15% interest,ruble still falling, etc.) We have many allies (getting poor shells albeit in quantity from NK, quickly mortgaging our future to China!) The West is losing focus!" (somewhat true but somewhat overstated. More aid will continue to flow, yes, even from the US IM(firm)O).
Did Russia lean on Iran to lean on Hamas to create the ultimate distraction, another war, right now because it is Russia’s last desperate ploy?
I don't pretend to know if the above is how things went down, but it is in shared interests of those parties that it would.
I do feel that if we hold firm, throw out the clown show in the US House in 2024, insist that Poland honor it's encouraging recent election, and continue to let weary Ukraine fight with our arms, the dictators facade (they are ALWAYS more sizzle than steak [pardon the Texanism]) will crumble, we will stride into a far better, more democratic, less fossilized future.
One point in favor of this argument: when the recent General Zaluzhny 'stalemate' statements were presented to the Kremlin, I thought they would crow. Instead, Peskov tersely denied there was any stalemate. They cannot even admit to a lack of progress without grave risk.
It is always darkest just before dawn. HODL in every sense now. For our future.
--Growler out
Putin has been desperately looking for a way out of this for over a year. He tried sabre rattling threatening NATO with "your next", but that didn't work to make the west hold back on arms deliveries. He's probably very happy with the leadership in the US House right now. Encouraging another war that the US has to pay attention to is also in the playbook.
Russia's recent attempts at offensives has been a very dumb move strategically. Even if they have secretly been growing the army, they don't have the capability to train them and human wave attacks are the only tactic they can employ that gets any success. Their attempted assaults have gained some ground, but they lost most of the vehicles dedicated to the assault. Long term that leaves them in a worse place.
Apparently, the war effort continues to improve for Russia. Many months ago they increased conscription ages. More recently noted in this thread, there is a renewed drive to dispatch the prison population. Now Russia is directly recruiting women (including female prisoners):
Russia boosts efforts to recruit female fighters – DW – 11/04/2023
I was wondering if Russia was going to start recruiting women. They were one of the few armies to put women in combat roles in WW II, but they have avoided women in the military since the USSR broke up.
Considering how misogynistic Russia is any women they recruit into combat roles are going to have a hard time with their own troops.
I wonder if it is the other way. I can't believe the west can't ramp up millions of simple artillery shells after a couple of years. If we got into an attritional war with China it seems pretty reasonable to expect that they could easily out produce the west in most areas. Our only hope would be to choke off their resources.
The west is ramping up production. The news has been filled with a lot of information about US production, and it is ramping up, but so is European and Australian production.
China has a lot of production capacity, but the country is reliant on overseas trade for a lot of its resources. In a war with the west, their ocean going supply lines will be cut almost immediately. They will become very dependent on resources from Russia. And Russia has a lot of the resources they need, but not all of them. An additional problem is there is no easy overland route to get oil from Russia to China.
That’s one take. Here’s another. Note that in the full article, he lays out a plan to WIN the war.
I'm skeptical achieving air superiority is achievable without NATO actively involved. In the last 4-5 months Ukraine has become very effective at counter battery from the number of Russian artillery pieces taken out.
