Replies

ransomnote: "The disparity's in capacity are laughably obvious, even though we are bombarded with propaganda that portrays this war as a close call.
Here's a table showing which side has the advantage - I think the Ukraine has the geographic advantage in that it is fighting on it's own soil.
Other than that, nada."

Vlad the Invader's "special military operations" against Ukraine have indeed been "a close call", but nobody has ever claimed Ukrainians could match Russian manpower.
It has always been a case of three Russians or more to one Ukrainian.
What's made it "a close call" is Russia's willingness to sacrifice thousands of their own soldiers in suicidal "Meat Wave" assaults for the gain of just a few yards.
In such "Meat Wave" assaults, Russian losses are typically three or more to one Ukrainian.

ransomnote: "The Global power website ranks Russia and the Ukraine among all militarized nations overall, and on a piecemeal basis.
It counts able bodied (able to serve in military) and troop levels etc."

I don't think your numbers are any more reliable than these or these.

"...also does not release official figures on the size of its army. But the new Defence Minister, Rustem Umerov, told the Yalta European Strategy forum in September

that there are more than 800,000 in the Ukrainian armed forces."

The second link above puts Ukraine's reserves at 900,000.

Estimates of Russian troops in or around Ukraine range up to about 400,000.
Russian losses since February 2022 have averaged roughly 500 per day and lately are peaking at over 1,000 per day.
Ukrainian losses, especially when fighting on the defense, are less than one third of those numbers.

Finally, by all accounts I've seen, Ukrainian forces are growing more exhausted, but still are highly motivated and treated reasonably well.
By stark contrast, Russia's forces are portrayed as demoralized, poorly supplied and sometimes rebellious, especially when ordered into suicidal "Meat Wave" assaults on Ukrainian positions.

The real problem here is that while Western countries have supplied Ukraine with enough weapons, ammo, etc., to keep fighting, they (we) have not sent enough to actually win the war.

That is 100% typical of our own Democrats and has lead to debacles in the past like Vietnam and Afghanistan.

Your post is a bizarre concoction of propaganda.

This next part is your rapid departure from reality. But that is the nature of Ukrainian propaganda. Russians were losing 1 soldier to 7 Ukrainians killed and Denys Davydov’s group brags the opposite. The Ukrainians didn’t have enough bullets - Russians were firing many times the bullets fired per day by Ukrainians, and still, the Ukrainian propaganda says the opposite.
!!!!
“It has always been a case of three Russians or more to one Ukrainian.
What’s made it “a close call” is Russia’s willingness to sacrifice thousands of their own soldiers in suicidal “Meat Wave” assaults for the gain of just a few yards.
In such “Meat Wave” assaults, Russian losses are typically three or more to one Ukrainian.”
!!!!
It’s the Ukraine that was forcing their men forward into mind fields without sufficient air cover.

The US’gave enough money. The US gave far more to the Ukraine than to any other nation we’ve donated to in history, and this vast expenditure took place in less than 2 years, dwarfing the money we gave Afghanistan over 23 years.

Regarding our Vietnam difficulties, I have some historical perspective. It was not long after the Johnson victory over Goldwater. I was in my later 20s and spending some time with a mixed age group of news junkies ranging from mid 20s to mid 40s. There was a lot of arguing about how Congress should vote on the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. Older Democrats were arguing Congressional Dems should support Pres Johnson and vote for it. Some people knew freshly elected Dems who were against the war and wanted to vote against the
resolution. The older Dems said they should support the Pres or they would lose any chance of political favors on behalf of their districts. The younger Dems said these Congresspeople were elected by their constituents for their anti war views and should honor their voters’ wishes. I think there were 3 senators and 7 Congresspeople who voted against the resolution, and the war escalated.

The propaganda for the Vietnam War insisted on the “Domino Theory”, that if Vietnam fell to the Communists the countries of SE Asia would fall one by one to Communism like a row of dominoes. I was undecided so read the long article on the history of Vietnam in my Encyclopedia Britannica. I decided from that information that Vietnam had successfully kept China from controlling it for most of 700 years. In that same period there was often war between North and South Vietnam, and sometimes an independent Middle Kingdom which also was some times a part of the South or the North during that 700 year history. I discarded my fear of dominoes.

About that time I also recall seeing some information that caused me to conclude Kennedy was assassinated by Texans who wanted the war to grow to get big development contracts for a major Vietnam port handling war supplies, and other lucrative contracts, as well as other interested parties. I thought Johnson may have been aware of this, and his guilty conscience was one reason he pushed so hard for the Civil Rights Act.

A few years later I read that there were probably off shore oil deposits near Vietnam and also Lebanon. Possibly also reasons for some of the attention paid to these countries by political interests.

When the Tora Bora caves were being searched to find Osama bin Laden, I was shocked to learn the maps the CIA had made of those caves could NOT be found. I believe they were made/lost around the time of Bush 1’s CIA job or Presidency. Some military people I know believe bin Laden was allowed to escape so the US Military Industrial Complex (MIC1) could make lots of money on sales of war materiel. Now that our Medical Industrial Complex (MIC2) has milked most of the money from the Covid emergency, it appears political interest has moved back toward the interests of the MIC1 businesses.

Ukraine, very wisely, has also decided to start producing its own war materiel, especially the lower cost less highly technical ones like drones. It has also arranged for money and technical assistance from other European countries to help support this home grown military production. Lower cost items like night vision tools are also important military positives, and Ukraine is already doing a lot of damage with their lower cost methods. The cluster munitions give to Ukraine by the US are proving to be quite effective during the Russian “meat assaults.” We would have had to deactivate them soon ourselves for old age. Are we saying their full new price came out of the Ukraine budget, or was Ukraine charged the salvage cost and shipping? With careful budgeting and European support Ukraine can continue to fight quite well. Time will tell.