Interesting survey. In military terms, Russia is absolutely a paper tiger relatively to what Russia claimed to be before the war. Economically though, Russia has proven much more resilient than people thought (national comprehensive strength still heavily damaged though)
Miscellaneous News
- Thread starter bd popeye
- Start date
solarz
Brigadier
Because China is supporting Russia economically but not militarily.
If going by some thinking going on in DC, extreme right wing/neocon believe that US can survive a nuclear exchange with either or both Russia and China. One US general once proclaim that I quote “ nuclear weapon is the greatest gift from God to America”.
There is no rational thinking with certain people. Their historical perspective is only going as far back as their 250 years past existence, projecting their own past actions onto others, that is the understanding American ruling class has on the rest of the world.
Russia’s weakness is precisely what is making the West ever more bold in moving against China. Like sharks, they sense blood and an opportunity to gain more power.
The war was the last of a series of mistakes from Russia born from hubris, all the way back to 2014 if not earlier. The decision to take Crimea without the Donbas and Luhansk back when they had the chance to do it much more easily, allowing the West to train and supply the Ukrainians for 8 years in the proxy conflict, and finally making poor tactical choices when the call to invade did come.
It’s all very much a wake up call for Russian leadership that used to think they are the greatest military power outside of the US. If they didn’t have that belief I think the decisions would’ve been very different. Yet another lesson in overestimating yourself and underestimating the opponent.
The poll only measures exposure to MSM narratives. Ukraine is a tough nut to crack by virtue of geography and size, both area and population. 1/3 the population and 1/8 the GDP is not all that small even 1v1, much less when sponsored by powerful neighbors to make up the 1/8 GDP part.
I don't think Russia itself ever claimed it had any insane capabilities. Its all projection from western chuds that played too much call of duty and watched too much of their own state media which is constantly playing up Russian threat by depicting Russia as capable of invading all of Europe in 1 week.
Saying that Putin not reaching Lviv in 3 days somehow represents that Russia was overrated means that your initial opinion of Russia was not founded on any sort of reality. Neither China or US would have been able to either, although because of massively greater gdp/industry, better air force and more precision weaponry, they could possibly get it done in a couple of months.
Overall, they perform more or less what you expect from an economy of that size. Basically tech/equipment wise they are an UK or Germany (which is obviously not world class but not omfg levels of bad), but because of having a large population, they're able to create larger armies than UK. They're also getting a boon from soviet stockpiles, same as Ukraine is doing.
Because losing a war is what US needs right now.
Though I'm no friend of America, so I think Pompeo's suggestion is excellent and they should get their invasion underway as quickly as possible. Preferably while preparing as little as possible.
He is barking now that he is a political nobody but as a secretary of the state he didn't dare to.
He ought to be grateful that Chinese sanctions made him lose all that weight. There should be fly-by-night ads about Chinese sanctions promising 50lbs lost in 6 months, results guaranteed!