4 ms·

>I have a feeling that a lot of people in the pentagon that have been concerned about Russia becoming a near peer to the US are now sighing in relief. I doubt

by reddog 5y ago

>I have a feeling that a lot of people in the pentagon that have been concerned about Russia becoming a near peer to the US are now sighing in relief. I doubt anyone in the pentagon was woried about Russia becoming an near peer in conventional arms. The US economy is 14 times the size of the Russian economy. The US spends about $800 billion on its military each year, the Russians spend about $60 billion.

dogma1138 5y ago
The effective purchasing power of $60B in Russia is far greater than of that amount in the US and by many estimations their actual spending is much higher. The fear of near peer came from their reforms following 2008 where they decided to modernize their army especially their infantry adopt modern combined arms and maneuver warfare and basically mimic the US individual squad battlefield doctrine. They shifted on paper form a conscripted army to a professional one and have revamp their NCO core. And their relative success in Syria did make it seem like they were making a lot of progress now it’s clear that what ever progress they have made was either all a smoke screen or limited to such a small number of units that it doesn’t make an impact on the battlefield. This war has shown that even what the west feared the most the so called elite airborne troops which were always a key part of Russias military doctrine aren’t effective at all at taking and holding military objectives. Russian armor seems to also be extremely vulnerable to western ATGMs so the fear of Russian APS systems has also now proven to be completely unfounded and Arena/Afganit seems to either be non existent in the field or utterly and completely useless especially when compared to western battle proven APS systems like Trophy/Windbreaker which have seen great success against Russian modern ATGMs. Basically they aren’t even a paper tiger at this point they are a wet tissue. We have now hard indisputable proof that they aren’t capable of anything more than leveling cities from 100 miles away which they won’t be able to do due to NATOs total air superiority or bringing a nuclear annihilation which hopefully they aren’t mad enough to do.
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  How is it possible to draw such conclusions on day three of a war? This article makes it seem like Russia is winning and will soon be in Kiev. I've not seen anything saying the Russians are suffering massive losses, but rather that they are limiting their offense to minimize civilian casualties, have been rebuffed in some places, and are closing in on the enemy capitol. Did anyone publish, prior to the invasion, a timeline of how they expected it to go that had Russia far ahead of where they are on day three? If so, can you link it? If not, how do we know they are behind schedule?
  - dogma1138 5y ago
    It’s not a question if they can take Ukraine but at what cost. They are behind schedule they couldn’t maintain objectives they captured and are still fighting over the same cities. They have given up on many objectives in south Ukraine and failed to secure a land bridge to Crimea. They have already given up on taking many primary objectives and are now bypassing them and pretty much concentrating nearly everything on Kyiv. The Pentagon, UK MoD and plenty of other entities have been publishing daily analysis. The fact that they lost so many assets and haven’t been able to establish air superiority (despite Ukraine having pretty much no Airforce and very limited AA) is a also clear indication of their current capabilities also. And I find it laughable to claim that they are limiting offenses on civilian targets when they are using MLRS and cluster munitions on cities and have been since the war began.
    - ALittleLight 5y ago
      Behind what schedule? In my previous comment I asked for a schedule posted before the invasion. Has the Pentagon or MoD published such a timetable for how they expected it to go? What assets have they lost and what are reasonable expectations for losses? The kind of stuff I'm seeing here seems like half an analysis. "Russia has done X" okay, but what should we be expecting? How do we know if X is good or bad? I just haven't seen it. How much was this expected to cost Russia?

by reddog 5y ago

dogma1138 5y ago

The effective purchasing power of $60B in Russia is far greater than of that amount in the US and by many estimations their actual spending is much higher. The fear of near peer came from their reforms following 2008 where they decided to modernize their army especially their infantry adopt modern combined arms and maneuver warfare and basically mimic the US individual squad battlefield doctrine. They shifted on paper form a conscripted army to a professional one and have revamp their NCO core. And their relative success in Syria did make it seem like they were making a lot of progress now it’s clear that what ever progress they have made was either all a smoke screen or limited to such a small number of units that it doesn’t make an impact on the battlefield. This war has shown that even what the west feared the most the so called elite airborne troops which were always a key part of Russias military doctrine aren’t effective at all at taking and holding military objectives. Russian armor seems to also be extremely vulnerable to western ATGMs so the fear of Russian APS systems has also now proven to be completely unfounded and Arena/Afganit seems to either be non existent in the field or utterly and completely useless especially when compared to western battle proven APS systems like Trophy/Windbreaker which have seen great success against Russian modern ATGMs. Basically they aren’t even a paper tiger at this point they are a wet tissue. We have now hard indisputable proof that they aren’t capable of anything more than leveling cities from 100 miles away which they won’t be able to do due to NATOs total air superiority or bringing a nuclear annihilation which hopefully they aren’t mad enough to do.

ALittleLight 5y ago
How is it possible to draw such conclusions on day three of a war? This article makes it seem like Russia is winning and will soon be in Kiev. I've not seen anything saying the Russians are suffering massive losses, but rather that they are limiting their offense to minimize civilian casualties, have been rebuffed in some places, and are closing in on the enemy capitol. Did anyone publish, prior to the invasion, a timeline of how they expected it to go that had Russia far ahead of where they are on day three? If so, can you link it? If not, how do we know they are behind schedule?
- dogma1138 5y ago
  It’s not a question if they can take Ukraine but at what cost. They are behind schedule they couldn’t maintain objectives they captured and are still fighting over the same cities. They have given up on many objectives in south Ukraine and failed to secure a land bridge to Crimea. They have already given up on taking many primary objectives and are now bypassing them and pretty much concentrating nearly everything on Kyiv. The Pentagon, UK MoD and plenty of other entities have been publishing daily analysis. The fact that they lost so many assets and haven’t been able to establish air superiority (despite Ukraine having pretty much no Airforce and very limited AA) is a also clear indication of their current capabilities also. And I find it laughable to claim that they are limiting offenses on civilian targets when they are using MLRS and cluster munitions on cities and have been since the war began.
  - ALittleLight 5y ago
    Behind what schedule? In my previous comment I asked for a schedule posted before the invasion. Has the Pentagon or MoD published such a timetable for how they expected it to go? What assets have they lost and what are reasonable expectations for losses? The kind of stuff I'm seeing here seems like half an analysis. "Russia has done X" okay, but what should we be expecting? How do we know if X is good or bad? I just haven't seen it. How much was this expected to cost Russia?