Posted on 03/17/2022 3:42:22 PM PDT by vmirog91
When I went through ROTC training we were were obviously taught to respect the numerical superiority of the Soviet bloc Armour units deployed across the Iron Curtain. But I remember some of our NCO instructors mentioned that Russian enlisted personnel lacked strong NCO guidance....that they were heavily dependent on top-down leadership. After all these years...this holds true today.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
The main point of your post is invalid, due to the false premise you use to support your main point.
Your assertion that The West sending weapons to Ukraine,so it can defend itself, is expanding the war.
False premise.
Who said they wanted to “flatten Ukraine?” You’ve been watching too many war movies
—
You know it pays to follow a thread rather than just jump in with accusations, Mr. Prince.
Please see post #3 for who said what. After that buzz off.
This account has been banned or suspended.
Okay
LOL!
You need work on your reading comprehension.
Nowhere did I assert that the West sending weapons to Ukraine is expanding the war.
Exactly
Absolutely true.
Ding ding ding…. We have a winner..
You did exactly that. Read your own post lol.
“War is politics by other means.”
Yup. I read von Clauewitz 50 years ago.
“We need to look that squarely in the face. This “the operation was a success, but the patient died” BS we got after Afghanistan, and Vietnam, keeps us from studying what happened, what went wrong, and giving considered thought to how to fix it. That is: how to win war, as a nation.”
Which kind of reinforces my point: We WON militarily, but politicians threw away the victory.
It’s kind of like a football game where Team A beats Team B. The game is over. Team A won. However, the college president (or team owner) of Team A decides that the QB wrote a mean tweet a week before the game, and to atone for that social faux pas, the college president (or team owner) declares to forfeit the victory.
If Putin wanted to take and hold the Ukraine he would have started with 48 hours of saturation bombing to soften them up before the first tank ever rolled across the border. Victory would have been swift.
Since Putin is executing a military operation with strategic objectives and is not warring on the Ukrainian population it makes for a harder slog. He’s trying not to destroy entire cities. The Russians have opened corridors for the public to evacuate. The footage I have seen of destruction looks minimal for war. Very minimal compared to Iraq and Syria.
In the end Russia will complete their mission, wring an agreement out of Zelensky and go home. Before or by that time the MSM will have freepers hysterical over China going into Taiwan. Everyone here will totally forget about the Ukraine.
"Not saying you’re wrong but how do you come by your opinion of the Russian Army? Tweets perhaps ? I would hope you would agree that the men and women who fought in the army of Stalingrad are not fighting today. After all they are kind of old for that.
One way to assess the tactics and performance of the armies involved is to look at current video and photographs taken during battle and after battles. That's traditional battle damage assessment. There are plenty of them to look at, and they provide insight into the nature of the fighting, and the performance of the armies.
You can tie those reports and images into actual map locations using google maps, or look at other people who have done the same thing. That lets you understand the locations and movements of the forces.
For some background you can watch things like this lecture given at West Point by a US military analyst who studied the fighting in Ukraine from 2014 to 2018 when he gave the lecture.
Due to the prevalence of cameras, and the use of social media by both sides you can see for yourself what has happened in a way that has not been possible in other wars. From an intelligence point of view both sides get a lot of real time data, and they use it.
The Russians have so far failed in their objectives, and are taking losses at a high rate against an adversary that was not generally considered to be a top tier military power.
In many cases their troops seem poorly trained and unable to respond effectively in combat where videos come out.
Both sides are using precision munitions and have drone based targeting. The result is carnage among those near trucks and in armored vehicles. That is something not seen in many previous conflicts except in the recent battle between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Russian armor heavy tactics are not well suited for the environment they are in.
It is nothing like that. If you want to use a game analogy, we voluntarily got into a football game without a game clock, or a mercy rule. You play until one side concedes. The team that quits first loses. Even if they are up 882-11. Pointing to the scoreboard as you trudge off the field after quitting, with the winners' victory cries ringing in your ears, is like pouting that you had more yards of offense after being outscored in a regulation game.
The US could have decided that warlordism is the best case scenario for Afghanistan, given the military the task of helping anti-Taliban warlords carve the country up into fiefdoms, and called it a day. The war would have continued, but the warlords would be fighting it. That was an outcome with a military solution -- if the warlords could stand on their own after we left, and they probably could have, certainly around 2003.
Instead we chose to try to turn Afghanistan into a secular, western society. There is no military solution for that sort of culture change. They best the military can do is create space for the civil government to try to impose the culture change. But that was always going to be a multi-generational project, and there was never any chance we were going to keep fighting that long. By trying to do so for twenty years all we did was weaken the would be warlords to the point that the Taliban coasted to victory when we left.
We have proven twice that going to war to support a corrupt, uncommitted, regime (not saying there were not good folks on our side in Vietnam and Afghanistan there were)against a fanatically dedicated insurgency, who are supported with men and material from sanctuaries across international borders, results in an endless war, and the loss of everything when we finally pull out.
We need to work out a solution. End the trans-border sanctuaries. Compel the leadership of our ally to operate honestly and effectively. Acknowledge that neither will happen and go into the war understanding that we are just fighting to buy time. Or even decide to not get into that sort of situation at all.
“We need to work out a solution. End the trans-border sanctuaries. Compel the leadership of our ally to operate honestly and effectively.”
What’s the color of the sky in your world? Whatever it is, it isn’t real.
I know it’s a fool’s errand to expect a coherent answer but here goes:
Show me where I assert that the West sending weapons to Ukraine is expanding the war.
“The instantaneous near universal condemnation and *demand for expansion of this war” is unprecedented.
No entity, US, NATO nor EU is calling for expansion or direct involvement in this illegal war.
You know this, so your expression that a “demand for expansion of the war”, has to mean sending weapons to Ukraine.
Simple deduction, since there is no demand for expansion of the war by authoritative entities.
I’ll await your words twisted in puzzles to explain.
You cannot show anywhere that I assert that sending weapons to Ukraine is expanding the war.
Instead you incorrectly infer something I never stated or intended by a faulty deduction based on a false premise: that because “No entity, US, NATO, EU is calling for expansion or direct involvement in this illegal war.” therefore my statement could only mean an assertion by me that sending weapons was a demand for expansion of this war.
Just because the US, NATO or the EU have not called for expansion intentionally ignores many other voices doing so. For example calls for a no fly zone from not just Zelensky but from many politicians US and international, media and individuals.
Also, at the time of my post, sending weapons to Ukraine was already well into happening. Therefore I was not referring to that.
Where did you get that sentence after my question “tweets perhaps?”
That of course colors the argument.
“This is the army of Stalingrad.”
I won’t even go into how ridiculous the thought that that was meant literally.
As re the rest of your discussion, it is informative but my point was :
Militaries, like nations, have longstanding traditions/characteristics. Of course they are not permanent as change is inevitable, sometimes quickly from intentional “transformation”(subversion in our case) and other times slowly by entropy.
Didya read all the way to the end of the paragraph of mine you quoted?
Or even decide to not get into that sort of situation at all.
I was responding to your post, #35, where you said it was proof that Russia couldn’t “flatten the Ukraine.” I’m sorry your reading comprehension isn’t up to snuff. BTW, I’m a woman, and I’m not buzzing off anywhere.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.