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Things like Desert Storm involve 1,000s of casualties. It seems more likely that it wasn't an operational failure as such but more that the Russians didn't expe

by roenxi 2y ago

Things like Desert Storm involve 1,000s of casualties. It seems more likely that it wasn't an operational failure as such but more that the Russians didn't expect resistance and were aiming for a repeat of their Georgian invasion [0] with direct casualties around the low hundreds mark. It seems probable that the spirited resistance the Ukrainians offered and the level of western intervention that has been observed were what threw the Russians off and they are more strategic factors. When it became clear that there was going to be a real conflict they immediately started mobilising a much bigger force than they started with. There isn't really that much evidence of Russia's military power either way yet, the fog of war is too thick. There were catastrophic mistakes in their planning assumptions though. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War

wat10000 2y ago
The actual Desert Storm had about 1,000 casualties on the coalition side, of which about 350 were killed. Lots on the other side, of course. But Russia barely seems concerned about casualties on its own side, let alone among the enemy. Even if your theory is true, that they didn’t anticipate a “real conflict” and so didn’t bring the necessary forces, that’s still a catastrophic military failure that speaks poorly of their martial prowess. That stuff is part of military power too. A big army you can’t apply effectively doesn’t win any prizes.
- lostmsu 2y ago
  > Russia barely seems concerned about casualties on its own side I think this is because they boiled the frog slowly. They could not have started the draft right away.
foobarian 2y ago
I wonder if even the Georgia invasion would have been possible in modern times with everybody wielding a phone and connected to the internet. I feel like they used to get away with it a lot more easily when it was less visible. E.g. also all the other previous interventions in the eastern bloc.

by roenxi 2y ago

wat10000 2y ago

The actual Desert Storm had about 1,000 casualties on the coalition side, of which about 350 were killed. Lots on the other side, of course. But Russia barely seems concerned about casualties on its own side, let alone among the enemy. Even if your theory is true, that they didn’t anticipate a “real conflict” and so didn’t bring the necessary forces, that’s still a catastrophic military failure that speaks poorly of their martial prowess. That stuff is part of military power too. A big army you can’t apply effectively doesn’t win any prizes.

lostmsu 2y ago
> Russia barely seems concerned about casualties on its own side I think this is because they boiled the frog slowly. They could not have started the draft right away.

foobarian 2y ago

I wonder if even the Georgia invasion would have been possible in modern times with everybody wielding a phone and connected to the internet. I feel like they used to get away with it a lot more easily when it was less visible. E.g. also all the other previous interventions in the eastern bloc.