That would be a possibility if we didn’t know exactly how bad is Ukraine with manpower right now, and that it’s so bad in part due to their failed major offensives, done in exactly the Russian way.
They are, right now, pulling “replaceable” personnel from things like AD to infantry.
They are being overwhelmed. In that exact dirty wasteful way Westerners in the Interwebs are laughing about, because they are not going to be drafted to a frontline to show how it’s done right.
Ukraine loses the war if no Western country commits its troops directly.
I think everyone is just hoping Russia runs out of money and political willingness to continue the war. Or if Putin dies (he seems fine, but he’s no spring chicken), good chance that ends the war.
Ukraine never had a hope of winning the war conventionally. The real question is what will be left when it’s over. Being the choke point for Russian military ambition is still a shit fucking deal.
I hope they get just as much help rebuilding after as they have gotten fighting our war. America, naturally, has a mixed record there. When someone is no longer useful to us, we tend to forget.
Any army that treats their troops as “cannon fodder” deserves not only all the casualties they rack up, but the long term social, political, and economic hardship that is pretty much a guaranteed result of such a policy.
The constant rounding up & minimal training of “cannon fodder” is expensive both in the short and long term. Better to protect well trained resources and have them continue to gain experience by using more advanced weaponry that minimizes risk to them.
Ukraine is supposed to have allies which are capable of, as you said, fighting wars without the concept of cannon fodder.
They should show class then.
However, as you might have noticed, the Russia-Ukraine war started, well, with “elite”, better trained troops fighting each other. And later devolved into what there is now.
Not just that, WWII started with “professional”, “elite”, better trained troops, but you know how it was fought. And before WWII all the sides too were theoretizing about new, swift, well-organized, mobile warfare. Guderian, Liddell Hart, Tukhachevsky and who not. And they were right, but only in adding a less bloody layer, so to say, that gets eroded before things are done the old-fashioned way.
So it could just be that this - it being possible to fight a big war with an equal adversary without eventually devolving into WWII-style warfare, - is another Western myth invented to support some kind of exceptionalism.
Pretty easy to invent various myths about wars between equals when you are not ever going to fight an equal adversary, only a much weaker one.
I hope you don’t think wars in Iraq in 1991 or in 2003 or bombings of Yugoslavia are indicative of anything.
That would be a possibility if we didn’t know exactly how bad is Ukraine with manpower right now, and that it’s so bad in part due to their failed major offensives, done in exactly the Russian way.
They are, right now, pulling “replaceable” personnel from things like AD to infantry.
They are being overwhelmed. In that exact dirty wasteful way Westerners in the Interwebs are laughing about, because they are not going to be drafted to a frontline to show how it’s done right.
Ukraine loses the war if no Western country commits its troops directly.
I think everyone is just hoping Russia runs out of money and political willingness to continue the war. Or if Putin dies (he seems fine, but he’s no spring chicken), good chance that ends the war.
Ukraine never had a hope of winning the war conventionally. The real question is what will be left when it’s over. Being the choke point for Russian military ambition is still a shit fucking deal.
I hope they get just as much help rebuilding after as they have gotten fighting our war. America, naturally, has a mixed record there. When someone is no longer useful to us, we tend to forget.
You can bet western countries already have troops and advisors helping in Ukraine.
I was talking about mass. Cannon fodder. That thing Ukraine is running out of, and that Western countries are not supplying.
Any army that treats their troops as “cannon fodder” deserves not only all the casualties they rack up, but the long term social, political, and economic hardship that is pretty much a guaranteed result of such a policy.
The constant rounding up & minimal training of “cannon fodder” is expensive both in the short and long term. Better to protect well trained resources and have them continue to gain experience by using more advanced weaponry that minimizes risk to them.
Ukraine is supposed to have allies which are capable of, as you said, fighting wars without the concept of cannon fodder.
They should show class then.
However, as you might have noticed, the Russia-Ukraine war started, well, with “elite”, better trained troops fighting each other. And later devolved into what there is now.
Not just that, WWII started with “professional”, “elite”, better trained troops, but you know how it was fought. And before WWII all the sides too were theoretizing about new, swift, well-organized, mobile warfare. Guderian, Liddell Hart, Tukhachevsky and who not. And they were right, but only in adding a less bloody layer, so to say, that gets eroded before things are done the old-fashioned way.
So it could just be that this - it being possible to fight a big war with an equal adversary without eventually devolving into WWII-style warfare, - is another Western myth invented to support some kind of exceptionalism.
Pretty easy to invent various myths about wars between equals when you are not ever going to fight an equal adversary, only a much weaker one.
I hope you don’t think wars in Iraq in 1991 or in 2003 or bombings of Yugoslavia are indicative of anything.