Posted on 05/12/2022 12:35:24 PM PDT by Widget Jr
For decades, Russia has been the world's second most powerful military. Today, it is the second most powerful military inside Ukraine.
How in the world did a nation with such a significant military overmatch get into a quagmire against a much weaker power?
Just what is wrong with the Russian military?
There are points where there is room for disagreement, such as the real nature of the Russian army's miles long convoys and fuel shortages.
The big picture presented on the corruption and incompetence matches what the Russian army has demonstrated.
"Today, it is the second most powerful military inside Ukraine."
Its pretty bad when a bunch of YouTube animators understand warfare better than a real army.
I’m not sure they’ve been number two for quite some time.
A lot of nukes but they don’t have much of a reputation beyond ruthlessness.
Sub zero morale ...I could have saved putin a lot of trouble he will never win this war even with nukes.
Russia: Always horrible at offense and at defense, but at least willing to throw millions of conscripts if it’s defense.
Years of corruption.
How do we know the stories reported are true?
I have the impression that they expected Ukraine to quickly surrender or at least agree that Russia could have some of their territory. The problems with their logistics and troops that are not motivated would have never have been revealed. They were not prepared for a protracted conflict. In a way it was an intelligence failure.
I am a firm believer that Putin did not send his best soldiers and equipment into the fight. They may have sewed some insignia of such on their uniforms, but they are not trained operators and have old crap for equipment.
Paranoia about the US and NATO made the decision to hold back easy on Putin’s part
The Ghost of Keev broke them in the first week.
Simple, the msm says dance to whatever naritive they report. If you don’t, you are a terrorist, extremist or what ever *ist they lable you with. In this case it’s putinist. It’s not that complicated.
Nope, they never were. It's becoming increasingly obvious this was a lie spread by the Military Industrial Complex to enrich themselves by stealing from the American taxpayer. Just look at how they lied to Congress, over and over again, about the preparedness of the Afghan army, where billions (and billions) of dollars literally produced nothing.
Since Desert Storm many of us have said Russian-made military equipment is third-world at best. You simply cannot have a military comparable to that of the U.S. with a budget smaller than the state of California. It's just not possible, and the same goes for China.
They had two desires that conflicted on one hand they wanted their military to take over the world, on the other they wanted to stay in power themselves. Most of the world the military is the "reset" button. When things go very bad the military steps in and puts things back on track. Sure you may have a guy in a funny uniform running things but they are generally not interested in starving you to death to try to advance some cockamamie theory about the New Soviet Man.
So they built up their military in public but in private they made sure the State Security kept a close eye on the military especially the upper level officers.
You may be the General but your political officer could over rule your orders and may just shoot you out of hand.
Since they had conscription they did not need to attract people to join the military, they did so at gun point, stayed in at gun point and sold everything out of the back of their trucks just to stay fed and clothed.
The closest the Russian military was to being fully supplied was when the US was doing it during WWII. In retrospect that probably was a mistake.
The real question is how good are their nukes? Not sure I want to find out.
Quit smoking crack.
Well, it wasn’t just the nukes. It was also the pure size of their military, unmatched by any country in the world except for the United States, and they even bested us in quite a few categories. It also rested on their technological level, which was behind the US in most areas, but still ahead of many other countries, for example, in their ability to manufacture competitive combat aircraft and nuclear submarines.
Even after the Ukraine debacle, they’re still probably far ahead of China, and China would be our nearest competitor besides Russia. Now if all the European countries combined their forces and actually maintained a military at a level commensurate with their own defense needs instead of relying on us to plug the gaps, then they would probably surpass both Russia and China at this point.
Because if the stories were NOT true, Russia would control Kiev/Ukraine and Zalensky would be dead
They are in the process of enforcing the terms of the Minsk agreement and there is nothing the US can do about it. And they’re doing it without carpet-bombing from 20,000 feet for weeks on end, which is typically what the US does.
Many of us exceptional Americans form our opinions using a weird blend of fake news and black and white John Wayne movies.
I'm sure their nuclear arsenal is the real threat, but I would suspect those capabilities have also been exaggerated. That's likely the real reason Pooty-Poot doesn't want NATO on his doorstep -- an effective missile defense system would likely neuter him entirely.
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