The Russians keep their cards close to their chests as to the war. I suspect the Special Operation was fairly much a show of force to get Ukraine to immediately capitulate to their demands.
That obviously didn’t happen. What is also obvious is that Russia did not have at it’s hands an extremely powerful and threatening offensive military jumping at the bit to conquer Finland, Sweden, Poland, Ukraine, Germany, the Czech Republic, etc., ad nauseum. Can we agree on that?
So what’s with America through NATO making a steady push up to Russia’s door as if they did and lying to everyone saying that they were?
It seems to me EVERYBODY misjudged the Russians’ internal problems.
Given the choice of a complex conspiracy or incompetence / greed being the cause of a problem, it’ll actually be incompetence / greed 99 out of 100 times.
But in the end they can't hide their retreats. They can't hide their inability, since declaring their intent last August, to take Bakhmut. Can you imagine the U.S. just unable to take an objective right in front of it for 6 months? Just stuck? We LIVE for the enemy to fix in place!
What is also obvious is that Russia did not have at it’s hands an extremely powerful and threatening offensive military jumping at the bit to conquer Finland, Sweden, Poland, Ukraine, Germany, the Czech Republic, etc., ad nauseum. Can we agree on that?
I agree they would have been smoked trying to take on NATO. But I think they also badly miscalculated their own power, and that can lead miscalculations about the ability to threaten, resist, and win in a conflict.
The concern for NATO from Russia was posed in the chance of a 'little green men' invasion of a Baltic republic with the declared goal of protecting the ethnic Russians therein. Freezing forces in place, and daring NATO to not accept the fait accompli.
Myself, while considering it the most likely flashpoint of a Russia/NATO conflict, didn't think it was more likely than not. And I think the progress of this conflict means that NATO PGMs would erase the Russian invaders in such a fictional Baltic scenario.
So what’s with America through NATO making a steady push up to Russia’s door as if they did and lying to everyone saying that they were?
Neocons gonna neocon. I don't let my hatred for their foreign policy overshadow my assessment of the relatively dismal state of the Russian military. I'm a military brat that came of age with my family deployed to West Germany, then the frontier of the Empire. I remember how eye opening the Gulf War was to all of us regarding the military gap at the end of the Reagan era.