Replies

Ukraine ping

Minority Republican: [Jet fighters are nice. But that is not going to work for Ukraine in this war.

The Russians will just bomb all the bases that the Ukrainians have parked their jets.

Then what?

The Russians are destroying Ukraine’s infrastructure.

Drones are the way to go. You can mass produce the drones cheaply. And it’s easier to hide the drones so the Russians can’t bomb them.

The Ukrainians are bombing the oil refineries in Russia right now. That’s smart because they are trying to stop Putin from funding his war machine. You do that by taking out his oil infrastructure.]

Planes aren’t buildings. They can be moved around. Decoys soak up a significant amount of ordnance. Runways are easily repaired. Most Russian missiles and drones are shot down.

The US bombed Serbia without eliminating its air force. During Desert Storm, the US bombed Iraq without eliminating its air force. (Iraq’s problem was an inability to get fresh supplies. Ukraine doesn’t have that problem). It dropped more bombs on Iraq than Russia has dropped on Ukraine during its entire war so far. Russia doesn’t have the capacity to come close to matching the US performance during Desert Storm, incomplete as it was.

A big part of Russia’s problem is money. The US spent $60b for ~1 month of war. Adjusted for inflation, that’s $150b. That paid for operating ~1500 warplanes in the theater, 100K sorties. Whereas Russia’s incremental war expense for Ukraine is not even $60b, with the lion’s share of that soaked up in salary expense. Combat pay of $24K per year for 1m troops in-country vs peacetime pay of about $4K - good for morale, but one reason Russia is fielding golf carts and motorcycles in place of armored fighting vehicles. And it is why Russia’s air force sortie rate per month in Ukraine is well under 1,000, two orders of magnitude smaller than Desert Storm.