3 ms·

Unless Russia has armies, weapons and smart generals kept in secret you can write them off. If you can't deal with the likes of Ukraine, you can't wage real war

Unless Russia has armies, weapons and smart generals kept in secret you can write them off. If you can't deal with the likes of Ukraine, you can't wage real wars against capable adversaries. And China hasn't gone to war since the Korean. So there will be at least couple of years of painful learning period for them for the difference between theory and practice.

pptr 3y ago
We can barely produce enough weapons and ammunition for Ukraine. I don't think the west's production capacity is ready for a multi front war.
- jjk166 3y ago
  The weapons sent to Ukraine are generally out of date surplus, and the ammunition for those weapons are generally either out of production or nearly so. The west is no where near going into a wartime economy maximizing production of its latest military equipment, and that is by design. The west has been balancing support for Ukraine against not escalating tension with Russia, who regardless of their conventional military's capability are nevertheless sitting on the world's largest nuclear stockpile. This is a limited proxy conflict, and the west is behaving as such.
- fred_is_fred 3y ago
  A functional peacetime economy generally doesn't have weapons manufacturing capacity to fight a two front world-war.
- maximinus_thrax 3y ago
  > We can barely produce enough weapons and ammunition for Ukraine Ukraine is fighting a completely different war, with a completely different military doctrine, which requires different type of weapons and ammo. We're rarely sending what we are actually using. The US is not depleting its own ammo warchest to supply Ukraine. For example, the US is not big on artillery shells in general. We prefer rockets. If the US moves to a wartime economy, I bet it will have a production capacity never before seen in history.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    I'm not so sure about that. Manufacturing has been leaving the US for decades and the kind of capacity that was there at the end of WWII and the peak of the cold war was likely much higher compared to where things are today.
cafard 3y ago
No, actually, China did a limited incursion into Vietnam a couple of years after the US left. It didn't work out well for the Chinese.

pptr 3y ago

We can barely produce enough weapons and ammunition for Ukraine. I don't think the west's production capacity is ready for a multi front war.

jjk166 3y ago
The weapons sent to Ukraine are generally out of date surplus, and the ammunition for those weapons are generally either out of production or nearly so. The west is no where near going into a wartime economy maximizing production of its latest military equipment, and that is by design. The west has been balancing support for Ukraine against not escalating tension with Russia, who regardless of their conventional military's capability are nevertheless sitting on the world's largest nuclear stockpile. This is a limited proxy conflict, and the west is behaving as such.
fred_is_fred 3y ago
A functional peacetime economy generally doesn't have weapons manufacturing capacity to fight a two front world-war.
maximinus_thrax 3y ago
> We can barely produce enough weapons and ammunition for Ukraine Ukraine is fighting a completely different war, with a completely different military doctrine, which requires different type of weapons and ammo. We're rarely sending what we are actually using. The US is not depleting its own ammo warchest to supply Ukraine. For example, the US is not big on artillery shells in general. We prefer rockets. If the US moves to a wartime economy, I bet it will have a production capacity never before seen in history.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  I'm not so sure about that. Manufacturing has been leaving the US for decades and the kind of capacity that was there at the end of WWII and the peak of the cold war was likely much higher compared to where things are today.

cafard 3y ago

No, actually, China did a limited incursion into Vietnam a couple of years after the US left. It didn't work out well for the Chinese.