[Zhang Fei]

[The Russian military is an over-rated, ill-prepared, maladjusted joke. It has some big toys, but on an operations level, they pretty much suck. But, historically, they have always been that way. It is how their armed forces have been constructed for generations. Unlike the US military, which operates under a delegated authority (i.e., everyone knows the mission and its objective, and are committed to carrying it out; thus, local control of an operation is at the company and battalion level; and all NCOs have the authority to carry out the mission even if all their officers are out of the fight).]

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That’s because Russians are warriors and Americans are soldiers. A warrior is a king-in-waiting whereas a soldier is just a cog in a machine. You don’t want to delegate too much authority to an army of warriors that might end up usurping your throne. Whereas an army of soldiers who just do what they’re told instead of having any thought to using their weapons to remove you from the picture - let them have all the authority they require.

[ought-six]

“That’s because Russians are warriors and Americans are soldiers.”

If Russians are warriors, they are a very poor example of them. Warriors excel at fighting as individuals, or with a small cadre; Russians utterly suck at that. It’s just not part of the Russian DNA, as it has been bred out of them over centuries of being told and shown they are noting but an expendable commodity to their rulers. Russians tend to see themselves not as individuals, but as a collective, exploitable and expendable. And they accepted that fate. Warriors would NEVER do that.

[ought-six]

Moreover, a warrior would never submit to the intolerable and demeaning subjugation of communism. But Russians did, in the millions and millions.