Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Tamas]

So while I agree on the need for strong, steady support - the only slight point I wonder about is whether Russia's war industry is actually better suited for the war Russia is trying to fight (grinding, attritional etc) than Western equipment for Ukraine? Edit: Particularly if, as I say, we're not willing to give the equipment that would enable Ukraine to fight a "Western-style"/21st century war or are putting such restrictions on their use of our supplies.

The lesson of the two World Wars - and indirectly the Cold War as well - is that the military capacity of a country ultimately derives from its overall economic strength. The US has negligible military production in the late 30s outside of ship construction, but it able to convert civilian industry to military production very quickly.  Looking at through that lens, Russia is roughly on the level of fascist Italy on the eve of WW2, with a top heavy military production complex sitting on top of a weakish economic base. My conclusion is that attritional warfare is problematic to both sides, but in somewhat different ways.

If Russia is Italy, then Ukraine is I suppose Ethiopia?

Greece.

[crazy canuck]

That works too. 

[Josquius]

Remember Russia isn't actually doing such a good job industrially outside of shells and drones.
It has no shortage of shells but it's in a critical state for artillery barrels - you can only get so many shots out of one before it starts warping and becomes less accurate steadily to the point of uselessness.
On vehicles too, it has reached the bottom of its stocks, and is turning to golf buggy assaults and all sorts of nonsense - the trouble here on the Ukrainian side is figuring out the role of vehicles on modern battlefields. They don't last long.

[The Brain]

I agree with both of you, but my lens is that Russia is also fighting a hybrid war against the West - by attacking institutions, public sentiment, and political processes. This is making it harder for the West to provide the kind of "firm, strong, and STEADY Western support" that's required for victory, and so far the West is not doing that great a job responding to that IMO.

We may have the better war industries and better technologies, and our potential if realized may be orders of magnitude greater than the 3rd-rate Russians. But if we don't deploy those industries and technologies to the war at hand, and if we leave our potential unrealized we can still sleepwalk our way to defeat.

When it comes to propaganda, influence operations, and hybrid warfare it seems to me the West has basically ceded the field.

Yeah. Western hybrid warfare against Russia appears to be very very weak. The West should be retaliating overwhelmingly against Russia but appears to just sit and take it.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Remember Russia isn't actually doing such a good job industrially outside of shells and drones.
It has no shortage of shells but it's in a critical state for artillery barrels - you can only get so many shots out of one before it starts warping and becomes less accurate steadily to the point of uselessness.
On vehicles too, it has reached the bottom of its stocks, and is turning to golf buggy assaults and all sorts of nonsense - the trouble here on the Ukrainian side is figuring out the role of vehicles on modern battlefields. They don't last long.

Thing is that don't have to do well, they just have to do better than the Ukrainians and good enough to cow western weakwilled and spineless politicians into not acting until they potentially get replaced with collaborators.