|
NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source. |
United States43596 Posts
On February 21 2026 06:54 Velr wrote:
Aren't you disregarding that Russia also lost most of their elite units and is therefore now using badly trained soldiers?
I mean... Yeah, if the war would stop for 3 years, I have no doubt that Russia would have taken some lessons to heart and be way better at "waring" but thats not the world we live in?
It’s probably polarized. Their meat wave fodder is badly trained but I’d assume their drone warfare and ewar units are probably top tier. Same with active kill chains. No western army has been engaged in a nation scale live fire training exercise for years.
It’d be silly to imagine that untested theorycraft and practice drills could match non stop execution with methods tested against a very capable adversary with lessons taught by death.
|
Finland961 Posts
The absolute best way for a military to learn how to fight a war is to fight a war. Some of these lessons might not be valid for every single war to be fought in the near future, of course. But the Russian military has adapted a lot from the early days of 2022. As we enter the fifth year, a lot has changed, and despite the horrific casualty figures, they've made changes to their tactical and operational levels. Not necessarily a complete doctrine change, but definitely adjusting to the way the war is being fought.
|
On February 21 2026 07:36 Gahlo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2026 06:54 Velr wrote:
Aren't you disregarding that Russia also lost most of their elite units and is therefore now using badly trained soldiers?
I mean... Yeah, if the war would stop for 3 years, I have no doubt that Russia would have taken some lessons to heart and be way better at "waring" but thats not the world we live in? Not to mention their stock of materiel is severely diminished.
I am assuming that a war fought will look something like the Ukrainian one. The quality of your front line assault soldiers matter little in this static type of war, they are going to die regardless. It is the artillery, drone operators, planners, behind the lines spec ops etc that are having an impact.
If they instead want another fast war with moving columns against a lesser opponent they are much worse off than at the start of the current war. They have less people trained on how to operate in a totally superior setting or in maneuver warfare because it doesn't work in this war.
Most of their military has transitioned from a mechanized assault force to a drone force. If the drone part is useful they are good by now, else they would have lost the war.
The other points raised regarding corruption etc are true. I am not debating that Russia doesn't have large systemic issues. They and Ukraine are simply the only two nations that has fought a near peer modern war of a specific kind. Assuming they are worse at that type of war than nations that are experimenting with various concepts and slowly training personnel seems strange to me. IF the war is instead fought in a different manner, such as NATO air superiority doctrine then their knowledge isn't as relevant but still applicable.
I also raised a short time line and warned about demographic collapse long term for Russia. I am not optimistic about their long term trends. They simply are one of two large nations having fought a near peer (outside civil wars) recently and thus can be assumed to have a somewhat competent military until that knowledge is rotated out as training fails.
edit. You also have to account for the internal policing policies working against the military. Telegram is a known tool of the military. The government restricts it before a replacement is in place. This is just one example of the government making the military job harder, the entire Ukraine war is of that type. It was a bad war to start, it wasn't planned properly etc etc. Even if you have a good military, they cannot win that handicapped (and Russia had a decent military at the start that was financed as a good one without corruption).
|
On February 21 2026 08:41 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2026 05:48 Simberto wrote:Thinking back I was more pessimistic on Ukrainian chances at the start as well. I have been proven wrong multiple times on this topic. Mostly by not understanding how weak and corrupt Russia is, there is always another level below the one I thought they were at. They are getting their military industry to the place it needs to be but can only run that for 1-2 more years at most. Absolutely. Before this war, I thought of Russia as basically the Soviet Union. The WW2 red army. Endless soldiers, endless tanks. Capable of basically marching across europe if it weren't for the threat of nuclear war. And i think i was not alone. The worst thing Russia lost in this war might have been that perception of being a first-rate army. In 1940 Germany was able to put 6 million men in uniform fairly easily too. There was a very large young male generation due to changing family dynamics and large agricultural surpluses. They were still regularly having 10 child families back then. Today's Germany looks very different. I’m sure as a German you can see the change within your own nation. Russia has been subject to the same changes. The demographic weirdness of early industrialization is unlikely to ever be repeated.
Sure, in retrospect that is totally obvious that 2020s Russia is not the 1940s soviet union. I just didn't think about that stuff in 2021.
|
The danger of this war, has since the beginning been a false peace, I you give Russia 15-20 years and try again, it's the whole world that is in danger.
It takes time to brew the conditions for a world war, but it eventually happens if they try hard enough.
|
I do feel like Putin is quite a big factor in this though, and Putin doesn't have 15-20 years. I don't get the sense that once Putin is gone everything will continue as is in the same way that I feel it with for example Trump and republicans.
|
United States43596 Posts
Putin's replacement will have a key option that Putin doesn't have, they can blame it all on Putin. But the greater the sacrifice imposed on the Russian people the harder it will be for them to change course and declare that it was all for nothing.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
