Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[The Minsky Moment]

To get there: wouldn't Russian society as a whole need to change? Become far less corrupt for one.

Ukraine had its own corruption problems; that doesn't seem to have prevented their armed forces from performing well above expectations.  The problem goes deeper than just graft.

[The Minsky Moment]

Can they ever get fully to the NATO level without reforming the entire society?  No, but they don't have to.  NATO looks really good right now, but to me it also looks very brittle.  It looks like a HOI player that got really good division templates, but can only produce enough of them to protect 1/3 of the front line.

Russia appears to be in the same position, but with really bad templates.  They have 150,000 committed in Ukraine and that appears to be the maximum deployable without mass mobilization., given the resort to pulling Wagner mercs out of Africa and recruiting Syrian and Chechen gangsters,

If the US intervenedwith the 3 armored brigade combat teams deployed in Europe right now, supported by NATO air wings, I doubt it would take that long to drive the Russians out of Ukraine.

[The Minsky Moment]

Put another way, 2022 Russia != 1984 USSR.  Manpower is not a strength for Russia, it is a weakness that has been exposed by the Kharkiv counteroffensive.  Russia didn't have enough troops to hold the sector when they attempted to concentrate around Izium; now they are being forced to rob Peter to pay Paul, and move troops supporting the sputtering Donetsk-Luhansk offensive to rescue their northern front from collapse. 

[DGuller]

Obviously if Russia and NATO fight a conventional war, both sides will need to mobilize, and the quality of mobilized troops is not going to be that great.  However, I get a feeling that a poorly trained mobilized Russian soldier will still have a rusting T-72 to sit in and an AK rifle to shoot with.  The poorly trained mobilized NATO soldier will be facing that pile of rust holding his dick, because all 400 of the remaining anti-tank rounds have already been expended by the 100 guys lucky enough to get any.

[Legbiter]

Obviously if Russia and NATO fight a conventional war, both sides will need to mobilize, and the quality of mobilized troops is not going to be that great.  However, I get a feeling that a poorly trained mobilized Russian soldier will still have a rusting T-72 to sit in and an AK rifle to shoot with.  The poorly trained mobilized NATO soldier will be facing that pile of rust holding his dick, because all 400 of the remaining anti-tank rounds have already been expended by the 100 guys lucky enough to get any.

Estonia could solo Russia at this point in time. 

[Habbaku]

Obviously if Russia and NATO fight a conventional war, both sides will need to mobilize, and the quality of mobilized troops is not going to be that great.  However, I get a feeling that a poorly trained mobilized Russian soldier will still have a rusting T-72 to sit in and an AK rifle to shoot with.  The poorly trained mobilized NATO soldier will be facing that pile of rust holding his dick, because all 400 of the remaining anti-tank rounds have already been expended by the 100 guys lucky enough to get any.

Based on pictures/video I've seen, the AK cannot be guaranteed. They seem to be issuing old Mosin-Nagants to some.

[DGuller]

Obviously if Russia and NATO fight a conventional war, both sides will need to mobilize, and the quality of mobilized troops is not going to be that great.  However, I get a feeling that a poorly trained mobilized Russian soldier will still have a rusting T-72 to sit in and an AK rifle to shoot with.  The poorly trained mobilized NATO soldier will be facing that pile of rust holding his dick, because all 400 of the remaining anti-tank rounds have already been expended by the 100 guys lucky enough to get any.

Based on pictures/video I've seen, the AK cannot be guaranteed. They seem to be issuing old Mosin-Nagants to some.

The ones with Mosin-Nagants and WW2 helmets are from the "breakaway republics".  They're not sent into combat to shoot, they're sent to be shot.

[Barrister]

Obviously if Russia and NATO fight a conventional war, both sides will need to mobilize, and the quality of mobilized troops is not going to be that great.  However, I get a feeling that a poorly trained mobilized Russian soldier will still have a rusting T-72 to sit in and an AK rifle to shoot with.  The poorly trained mobilized NATO soldier will be facing that pile of rust holding his dick, because all 400 of the remaining anti-tank rounds have already been expended by the 100 guys lucky enough to get any.

Based on pictures/video I've seen, the AK cannot be guaranteed. They seem to be issuing old Mosin-Nagants to some.

The ones with Mosin-Nagants and WW2 helmets are from the "breakaway republics".  They're not sent into combat to shoot, they're sent to be shot.

Apparently they're just out-and-out press-ganging any vaguely military-age males they can find in the DNR/LPR.

[Habbaku]

I was wondering why they weren't issued AKs. Surely the Russian armories can't be lacking even half-functional rifles?

[The Minsky Moment]

How many thousands of AGMs does the US have in its inventory?

[Jacob]

Obviously if Russia and NATO fight a conventional war, both sides will need to mobilize, and the quality of mobilized troops is not going to be that great.  However, I get a feeling that a poorly trained mobilized Russian soldier will still have a rusting T-72 to sit in and an AK rifle to shoot with.  The poorly trained mobilized NATO soldier will be facing that pile of rust holding his dick, because all 400 of the remaining anti-tank rounds have already been expended by the 100 guys lucky enough to get any.

Is your contention that if Russia right now went all out, full mobilization with what it's got it'd beat NATO because NATO doesn't have enough gear?

That seems... a  little too pessimistic to me, to be honest.

Or is your contention that if we make no changes and Russia rebuilds its industry and rearms, then this hypothetically resurgent Russia could roll NATO?

Because while theoretically possible I suppose, I think that depends on too many assumptions - namely 1) That Russian can rebuild its industry and rearm effectively at the required scale; and 2) That NATO does nothing to up-arm in response.

[DGuller]

Obviously if Russia and NATO fight a conventional war, both sides will need to mobilize, and the quality of mobilized troops is not going to be that great.  However, I get a feeling that a poorly trained mobilized Russian soldier will still have a rusting T-72 to sit in and an AK rifle to shoot with.  The poorly trained mobilized NATO soldier will be facing that pile of rust holding his dick, because all 400 of the remaining anti-tank rounds have already been expended by the 100 guys lucky enough to get any.

Is your contention that if Russia right now went all out, full mobilization with what it's got it'd beat NATO because NATO doesn't have enough gear?

That seems... a  little too pessimistic to me, to be honest.

Or is your contention that if we make no changes and Russia rebuilds its industry and rearms, then this hypothetically resurgent Russia could roll NATO?

Because while theoretically possible I suppose, I think that depends on too many assumptions - namely 1) That Russian can rebuild its industry and rearm effectively at the required scale; and 2) That NATO does nothing to up-arm in response.

My concern is the bolded.  And it's all hypothetical, that's what I stated in the first post of this tangent.  My concern is that Russia learns some lessons, whereas NATO wouldn't even realize they had lessons to learn.

[PDH]

I see NATO as learning from this war, and that is moving toward larger stocks of weapons such as Javelins and MANPADS to not only have for the troops, but also to give away when asked nicely.

Now, if NATO can get Germany to buy spare parts that would be a plus.

[Jacob]

My concern is the bolded.  And it's all hypothetical, that's what I stated in the first post of this tangent.  My concern is that Russia learns some lessons, whereas NATO wouldn't even realize they had lessons to learn.

Okay, fair enough thanks for clarifying.

For my part, I'm confident that NATO is eagerly soaking in a wide variety of lessons.

Poland and the Baltics are clearly paying a lot of attention. Finland and Sweden will be new members of NATO for reasons related to learning lessons. Germany has committed I forget how many hundreds of millions of Euros to revamp their military. Seems to me Eastern European countries in general are taking notes. The UK is most definitely paying attention as well. And my impression of the rest of Europe - social media influence operations notwithstanding - is taking this very seriously as well.

This applies both to the military establishments (which are excited to be highly relevant and get to apply their skills), to the populations (who are having WWII cultural memories invoked at a very high intensity), and to the politicians (who respond to the populations, and see real changes in political alignments that they respond to as well - see f.x. the improved fortunes of the Greens in Germany as a result of their robust response to the war).

So on the European side, I think it highly unlikely that NATO will revert to how it was pre-war.

As for the US, it's come off to a really strong start. I think there is a risk that Trumpists will undermine and piss away some of the improvements, but it's not a given. America tends to be fairly well focused if there's a strong external enemy and Russia's doing a good job filling that role right now.

[Jacob]

That said... I suppose there is a possible scenario where Russia goes "oopsies, my bad... let's be friends again" and over time NATO gets lulled into a false sense of security while Russia rearms with intensity.

Personally I think it's a bit unlikely, starting with Russia saying "oopsies, my bad... let's be friends again."