The lesson here goes back to the Gulf War. Lots of standoff weaponry. You see how the West points out Russian losses. They didn't have a sustained air campaign first like the US does it. They softened up the enemy before they go in. How long did the US keep bombing Iraq until they sent in the troops? A month? By then there wasn't a lot left that would resist. Interesting question is how the West doesn't get directly involved in Ukraine because that would open themselves to be targets. Would the US get involved directly with Taiwan? Again lots of standoff weaponry. I hope those reports that China can soon produce hypersonic technology cheaply are true because China is going to need them to fend off the US and their allies.
Russia is on a clock against foreign intervention. China is too. So the air campaign has to be done fast with SEAD being the priority over CAS and interdiction.
Russia knew going in it had to stop foreign intervention at all costs. The 2 ways are to move fast and slow other side down. Fast is obvious but slowing down intervention was relatively well done on their part because it takes interesting account publix opinion and decisionmaking too. The key to slowing down foreign intervention is to inject uncertainty into their OODA loop and frustrate them at every step.
1. Public paratrooper and missile attacks on airports to prevent transports from arriving and dropping off "peacekeepers" or politicians
2. Preemptively alerting of strategic forces to make people doubt the worth of intervention
3. Having prepared actions to take in response to sanctions to cause maximum confusion and damage
4. Political statements to threaten escalation - even if not true, they must be responded to as a decision to make while costless for Russia
5. Releasing facts to further justify their own escalation to create foreign ambivalence towards the outcome.
Their mistakes:
1. There were reasons to not cut comms and power day 1 but those reasons wore off after first 3-5 days.
2. Trusting the Euro even a tiny bit and choosing to denominate China-Russia earnings in Euros, showing a strategic miscalculation
3. Not having CIPS, MIR and UnionPay completely rolled out beforehand.
This led to far greater damage on their economy than needed.
