“Why did our so called Intelligence Community NOT know/predict this lack of capability of the Russian Army.”
Remember how the Pentagon ordered a bazillion body bags for Desert Storm? And how the vaunted and Russian trained Iraqi Republican Guards were going to slaughter American troops?
And then we slaughtered them.
Ditto with the Russians. It’s one part overestimating the enemy and one part openly lying about the enemy in order to secure defense budget money.
Agreed
I read back in the ‘80s that all Pentagon evaluations of the (then) Soviet military assumed that Murphy’s Law did not operate there. Not out of prudence, but because the Pentagon had to paint a grim picture to get money out of Congress.