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Nope, the USSR's efforts were also the result of US's industrial and financial output. Here's an essay to get you started: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/15

Nope, the USSR's efforts were also the result of US's industrial and financial output. Here's an essay to get you started: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1505247886908424195.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1505247886908424195.html

mizzao 2y ago
> Why Russia can't win against the West Is this still true in light of the recent Ukraine events? Russia certainly isn't losing if no one's going to stand up to it.
- afavour 2y ago
  Sort of an interesting argument, I suppose. Militarily Russia is heavily outclassed by the West. But perhaps that’s why they’re engaging in information warfare: western populations are weary of war and with sufficient prodding Russia can keep the major western powers away from their conflict. I feel like I’m playing Civilization again.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    > western populations are weary of war are they? for the most part, Americans haven't really noticed apart from family and friends of service members. There's been no rationing of goods, there's been no campaigns to buy war bonds, there's essentially been no burden on the citizens. In fact, we've had multiple tax cuts and gains in the financial markets. The sheep have been well fed.
    - afavour 2y ago
      I suppose I’m speaking theoretically here. But American populations tired of Afghanistan and Iraq. The war in Ukraine does not involve US boots on the ground and thus is a very different proposition.
      - dylan604 2y ago
        I'm actually happy to hear that you claim people were tired of it, but I just had no direct experience with people discussing how they should end. It just was never discussed in any conversations this statistic of one person experienced. Now, something like current election campaign, it is discussed non-stop. It's not like there were protests like in Vietnam to end the war. So maybe my sensitivity settings were set to the extreme??
    - mrguyorama 2y ago
      >there's essentially been no burden on the citizens. Unless you watch Fox News, in which case we are "wasting" hundreds of billions on Ukraine while Americans starve!!!! What's that? A bill to feed starving Americans? Why that's socialism, which is communism! 70 million Americans voted for Trump in 2020. It doesn't matter that some of them don't live in the same reality as the rest of us, because they have isolated themselves so aggressively that they will never be snapped out of it, and millions of other people are enabling their insanity for political gain. Check out Ryan McBeth on youtube for someone with experience refuting and examining Russian disinfo campaigns, and weep in fear as statements that could be trivially debunked with a look at a single wikipedia page, or like, a book of what different weapons systems look like, and realize in horror that the millions of people falling for this shit aren't just "media illiterate", but rather are so deep in the kool-aid that they explicitly trust information MORE if it has been labeled as "fake news". It's insane. We aren't handling it. The truth is literally a less effective propaganda weapon than people silo'ing themselves so thoroughly that they have CHOSEN to watch Russian propaganda outlets like RT as "news"
      - arandomusername 2y ago
        Their problem is using their tax money for a foreign country, instead of a: lowering taxes b: using it for US citizens. Your framing is disingenous. If you believe that 70 million Americans live in a different reality and have isolated themselves, well, perhaps it is you who fails to emphasize why one may have different political standing than you? The reality is, that people have different priorities when voting. If you want to talk about propaganda weapon, the strongest in the US is the Israeli one. Both candidates take huge amounts of $$$ from Israeli donors. Both candidates simp for Israel.
  - Beijinger 2y ago
    Is it? The Russian jam GPS that it is useless, but their own (much newer) system can't be jammed easily. I just read an article about it. Europe has nearly no military equipment left. Russia is loosing more tanks and artillery in a month than some big countries in the EU have. The S400 is considered superior to the Patriot system. They have hypersonic missiles. And now a battle hardened army. Don't forget, western systems are heavily overpriced. I think we pay 10 times the amount for a shell than Russia does. It will take years, possibly decades, to build up military industrial capacity. Germany has ammunition for 1 day of war. Trick question: With what will they fight on the second day? Also, dont forget: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_(short_story) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_(short_story) Germany had the best tanks in WW2. But Russia hat many T34. In insane numbers.
    - tim333 2y ago
      Russia is having quite a struggle against Ukraine with like a quarter of its population and mostly old western weapons that were on the way out. NATO with stealth fighters and the like would be quite different game. I remember the US military vs Iraq with mostly Russian gear was almost embarrassingly one sided.
      - JacobThreeThree 2y ago
        All the air defense and much of the artillery aid has been state of the art. Ukraine benefits from the massive surveillance and targeting capabilities from air and space - also state of the art. The long range missiles given have been current generation. Not to mention that cutting-edge drone based warfare has quickly become Ukraine's most effective staple. Sure, some of the tanks and IFVs are older, but overall it's not really fair to say Ukraine is mostly using old weapons or that it's fighting Russia alone. The total financial value of external aid to Ukraine per year has been rivaling Russia's total annual defense budget.
        mellow-lake-day 2y ago
        The ATACMS missiles that Ukraine is getting are soon to be expired because they are reaching their end of life (of course they are still in production but it shows these are not the current generation) The current generation missiles "PrSMs" have not been given to Ukraine The M777 howitzers are from 40 years ago The stinger missiles have been used in the Afghanistan war Even the F-16 planes are from 30 years ago And Patriot air defense systems are several decades old So it is fair to say that Ukraine has been using mostly older weapons
Beijinger 2y ago
The posted article gives quite an impressive Soviet plane production. 50% of that of the US. It was Russia that won the war. https://youtu.be/DwKPFT-RioU?t=205 https://youtu.be/DwKPFT-RioU?t=205 And regarding the Ukraine war. Russia's industrial might is underestimated. And while it can not match that of the West, as a word of caution: China has more industrial capacity than the EU and US combined. Wars have the nasty habit of taking unexpected turns...
- phatfish 2y ago
  > Wars have the nasty habit of taking unexpected turns... Indeed, after the slaughter of WW2 you would expect Russians to be wary of starting wars by invading their neighbours.
  - mitthrowaway2 2y ago
    I suspect that due to the scale of destruction, WW2 left a deep psychological scar on the psyche of soviet countries, much deeper than anywhere else. And maybe that's why Russia has had such a militaristic and aggressively paranoid posture ever since.
    - mopsi 2y ago
      Over time, the scar transformed into a state religion in the USSR: obsessive celebration of all kinds of anniversaries, children tortured in schools with made up stories of heroism, huge monuments everywhere, TV and cinemas filled with endless stream of most inane morally black-and-white WWII movies like the worst cowboy flicks. Instead of Sunday church, I had to sit in school listening to senile veterans who had never seen frontline action (but had their chest full of anniversary medals) tell fairy tales how they single-handedly destroyed 50 Tiger tanks and 100 planes and then threw themselves in front of a machine gun nest to save their comrades, but stepped on a mine while doing so and lost both legs and crawled for a week back to their unit, successfully avoiding German patrols. By the 1970s, the WWII mythology (of which a lot was entirely made up) had formed the core of the identity of "Soviet people" and an excuse for everything. The narrative of "Soviet people as the victors of the WWII" acted as a God-given right to stomp over other nations, because after all, only a fascist would resist the glorious Soviet people. The way we see Zelenskyy, a Jewish comedian, branded as a Nazi, and the war against Ukraine propagandized as a "holy war against Nazism like our grandfathers fought", is an echo of that. Doesn't make any sense unless you are familiar with the warped Soviet WWII mythology. Aggressive militarism is common in post-war generations that grew up with the simplistic brainwashing. There was very little militarism in the generation that actually saw the war, because the Eastern front was morally an ambiguous place. One of my older relatives fought in the battle of Velikiye Luki. He always suspected that his unit had been placed on purpose into a very poor position to wipe them out with German hands for earlier insubordination. The unit got hit hard, he got wounded and was taken prisoner by Germans. Weeks or months later Soviets overran German positions and he was reunited. As a punishment for being taken prisoner, he was moved to a penal battalion, because not fighting until your death was officially declared treason. Penal battalion was a lighter punishment. Those who had panicked were executed. Penal battalions were "dumb meat" used to dig or dismantle fortifications under enemy fire, and attack in first waves to identify machine gun nests and minefields. If they didn't attack with enough enthusiasm, then the barrier troops placed behind them would open fire. (This practice lives on, as can be seen in Ukraine.) By some miracle, he survived it all. Most didn't. You can imagine how keen he was to put on his uniform, parade around on the V-E day celebrations and listen to speeches how "the Soviet people fought united like one man against Nazi invaders". But those who were born much later have no issues acting like this: https://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-129051800/stock-photo-orel-russia-may-9-2016%3A-celebration-of-71th-anniversary-of-the-victory-day-%28wwii%29-family-in-soviet-military-uniform-horizontal https://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-129051800/stock-photo-or... And not only do they cosplay in wartime uniforms, but they also the adopt the language of propagandized version of history that they've only witnessed from movies, and go around yelling how Russia is fighting Nazis again and "we won't stop before Berlin". In a way, that's even understandable. Pre-USSR history is beyond living memory, and USSR put a lot of effort into creating a cultural disconnect with pre-1917 Russia. Older history offers no strong identity, it's just too far away to be relevant, it's hard for modern urban population to identify with either the imperial nobility or with peasantry. Modern Russia offers no identity either beyond "superyacht for me and poverty for thee". So what's left? Only the militaristic propagandized USSR victory narrative that so many cling to, otherwise they'd have no identity at all, because that's the only meaningful thing in the past century of Russian history.

mizzao 2y ago

> Why Russia can't win against the West Is this still true in light of the recent Ukraine events? Russia certainly isn't losing if no one's going to stand up to it.

afavour 2y ago
Sort of an interesting argument, I suppose. Militarily Russia is heavily outclassed by the West. But perhaps that’s why they’re engaging in information warfare: western populations are weary of war and with sufficient prodding Russia can keep the major western powers away from their conflict. I feel like I’m playing Civilization again.
- dylan604 2y ago
  > western populations are weary of war are they? for the most part, Americans haven't really noticed apart from family and friends of service members. There's been no rationing of goods, there's been no campaigns to buy war bonds, there's essentially been no burden on the citizens. In fact, we've had multiple tax cuts and gains in the financial markets. The sheep have been well fed.
  - afavour 2y ago
    I suppose I’m speaking theoretically here. But American populations tired of Afghanistan and Iraq. The war in Ukraine does not involve US boots on the ground and thus is a very different proposition.
    - dylan604 2y ago
      I'm actually happy to hear that you claim people were tired of it, but I just had no direct experience with people discussing how they should end. It just was never discussed in any conversations this statistic of one person experienced. Now, something like current election campaign, it is discussed non-stop. It's not like there were protests like in Vietnam to end the war. So maybe my sensitivity settings were set to the extreme??
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    >there's essentially been no burden on the citizens. Unless you watch Fox News, in which case we are "wasting" hundreds of billions on Ukraine while Americans starve!!!! What's that? A bill to feed starving Americans? Why that's socialism, which is communism! 70 million Americans voted for Trump in 2020. It doesn't matter that some of them don't live in the same reality as the rest of us, because they have isolated themselves so aggressively that they will never be snapped out of it, and millions of other people are enabling their insanity for political gain. Check out Ryan McBeth on youtube for someone with experience refuting and examining Russian disinfo campaigns, and weep in fear as statements that could be trivially debunked with a look at a single wikipedia page, or like, a book of what different weapons systems look like, and realize in horror that the millions of people falling for this shit aren't just "media illiterate", but rather are so deep in the kool-aid that they explicitly trust information MORE if it has been labeled as "fake news". It's insane. We aren't handling it. The truth is literally a less effective propaganda weapon than people silo'ing themselves so thoroughly that they have CHOSEN to watch Russian propaganda outlets like RT as "news"
    - arandomusername 2y ago
      Their problem is using their tax money for a foreign country, instead of a: lowering taxes b: using it for US citizens. Your framing is disingenous. If you believe that 70 million Americans live in a different reality and have isolated themselves, well, perhaps it is you who fails to emphasize why one may have different political standing than you? The reality is, that people have different priorities when voting. If you want to talk about propaganda weapon, the strongest in the US is the Israeli one. Both candidates take huge amounts of $$$ from Israeli donors. Both candidates simp for Israel.
- Beijinger 2y ago
  Is it? The Russian jam GPS that it is useless, but their own (much newer) system can't be jammed easily. I just read an article about it. Europe has nearly no military equipment left. Russia is loosing more tanks and artillery in a month than some big countries in the EU have. The S400 is considered superior to the Patriot system. They have hypersonic missiles. And now a battle hardened army. Don't forget, western systems are heavily overpriced. I think we pay 10 times the amount for a shell than Russia does. It will take years, possibly decades, to build up military industrial capacity. Germany has ammunition for 1 day of war. Trick question: With what will they fight on the second day? Also, dont forget: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_(short_story) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_(short_story) Germany had the best tanks in WW2. But Russia hat many T34. In insane numbers.
  - tim333 2y ago
    Russia is having quite a struggle against Ukraine with like a quarter of its population and mostly old western weapons that were on the way out. NATO with stealth fighters and the like would be quite different game. I remember the US military vs Iraq with mostly Russian gear was almost embarrassingly one sided.
    - JacobThreeThree 2y ago
      All the air defense and much of the artillery aid has been state of the art. Ukraine benefits from the massive surveillance and targeting capabilities from air and space - also state of the art. The long range missiles given have been current generation. Not to mention that cutting-edge drone based warfare has quickly become Ukraine's most effective staple. Sure, some of the tanks and IFVs are older, but overall it's not really fair to say Ukraine is mostly using old weapons or that it's fighting Russia alone. The total financial value of external aid to Ukraine per year has been rivaling Russia's total annual defense budget.
      - mellow-lake-day 2y ago
        The ATACMS missiles that Ukraine is getting are soon to be expired because they are reaching their end of life (of course they are still in production but it shows these are not the current generation) The current generation missiles "PrSMs" have not been given to Ukraine The M777 howitzers are from 40 years ago The stinger missiles have been used in the Afghanistan war Even the F-16 planes are from 30 years ago And Patriot air defense systems are several decades old So it is fair to say that Ukraine has been using mostly older weapons

Beijinger 2y ago

The posted article gives quite an impressive Soviet plane production. 50% of that of the US. It was Russia that won the war. https://youtu.be/DwKPFT-RioU?t=205 https://youtu.be/DwKPFT-RioU?t=205 And regarding the Ukraine war. Russia's industrial might is underestimated. And while it can not match that of the West, as a word of caution: China has more industrial capacity than the EU and US combined. Wars have the nasty habit of taking unexpected turns...

phatfish 2y ago
> Wars have the nasty habit of taking unexpected turns... Indeed, after the slaughter of WW2 you would expect Russians to be wary of starting wars by invading their neighbours.
- mitthrowaway2 2y ago
  I suspect that due to the scale of destruction, WW2 left a deep psychological scar on the psyche of soviet countries, much deeper than anywhere else. And maybe that's why Russia has had such a militaristic and aggressively paranoid posture ever since.
  - mopsi 2y ago
    Over time, the scar transformed into a state religion in the USSR: obsessive celebration of all kinds of anniversaries, children tortured in schools with made up stories of heroism, huge monuments everywhere, TV and cinemas filled with endless stream of most inane morally black-and-white WWII movies like the worst cowboy flicks. Instead of Sunday church, I had to sit in school listening to senile veterans who had never seen frontline action (but had their chest full of anniversary medals) tell fairy tales how they single-handedly destroyed 50 Tiger tanks and 100 planes and then threw themselves in front of a machine gun nest to save their comrades, but stepped on a mine while doing so and lost both legs and crawled for a week back to their unit, successfully avoiding German patrols. By the 1970s, the WWII mythology (of which a lot was entirely made up) had formed the core of the identity of "Soviet people" and an excuse for everything. The narrative of "Soviet people as the victors of the WWII" acted as a God-given right to stomp over other nations, because after all, only a fascist would resist the glorious Soviet people. The way we see Zelenskyy, a Jewish comedian, branded as a Nazi, and the war against Ukraine propagandized as a "holy war against Nazism like our grandfathers fought", is an echo of that. Doesn't make any sense unless you are familiar with the warped Soviet WWII mythology. Aggressive militarism is common in post-war generations that grew up with the simplistic brainwashing. There was very little militarism in the generation that actually saw the war, because the Eastern front was morally an ambiguous place. One of my older relatives fought in the battle of Velikiye Luki. He always suspected that his unit had been placed on purpose into a very poor position to wipe them out with German hands for earlier insubordination. The unit got hit hard, he got wounded and was taken prisoner by Germans. Weeks or months later Soviets overran German positions and he was reunited. As a punishment for being taken prisoner, he was moved to a penal battalion, because not fighting until your death was officially declared treason. Penal battalion was a lighter punishment. Those who had panicked were executed. Penal battalions were "dumb meat" used to dig or dismantle fortifications under enemy fire, and attack in first waves to identify machine gun nests and minefields. If they didn't attack with enough enthusiasm, then the barrier troops placed behind them would open fire. (This practice lives on, as can be seen in Ukraine.) By some miracle, he survived it all. Most didn't. You can imagine how keen he was to put on his uniform, parade around on the V-E day celebrations and listen to speeches how "the Soviet people fought united like one man against Nazi invaders". But those who were born much later have no issues acting like this: https://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-129051800/stock-photo-orel-russia-may-9-2016%3A-celebration-of-71th-anniversary-of-the-victory-day-%28wwii%29-family-in-soviet-military-uniform-horizontal https://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-129051800/stock-photo-or... And not only do they cosplay in wartime uniforms, but they also the adopt the language of propagandized version of history that they've only witnessed from movies, and go around yelling how Russia is fighting Nazis again and "we won't stop before Berlin". In a way, that's even understandable. Pre-USSR history is beyond living memory, and USSR put a lot of effort into creating a cultural disconnect with pre-1917 Russia. Older history offers no strong identity, it's just too far away to be relevant, it's hard for modern urban population to identify with either the imperial nobility or with peasantry. Modern Russia offers no identity either beyond "superyacht for me and poverty for thee". So what's left? Only the militaristic propagandized USSR victory narrative that so many cling to, otherwise they'd have no identity at all, because that's the only meaningful thing in the past century of Russian history.