(11-29-2022 10:02 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(11-29-2022 08:55 PM)Todor Wrote:  I hate to tell people but Russia is one of the largest weapons and military gear exporters in the world. The idea that they will simply run out of weapons and have no ability to make more is total farce. It’s not based in reality.

The only useful reason for promoting this idea is to get people to go along with the US sending more money to Ukraine. “Russia is almost out of (fill in the blank military item) so now is no time to stop supplying Ukraine…

Russia isn’t running out. If they were, they be out already. Within weeks of the start of SMO the headlines were reporting Russia was out of things. That wasn’t true. It wasn’t true in April, May, June, or November.

They tell people that to keep the war support high and to keep the US money flowing to wherever it’s ending up.

They are clearly running out of smart weapons. Doesnt mean they are out.
Doesnt mean they will be out of them this week---but e would be freaking out if our inventory stocks were down to the level that the Russians are. That said---running out of smart weapons is totally different from running out of weapons.

And, away from the 'materiel' issue -- there are numerous reports of very deep and widespread opposition and antagonism generated by the (forced) mobilization.

When those poorly trained men start showing back up in body bags en masse, there will be a steep price to add on to the increasing opposition.

The last successful coup in the Russian homeland was sparked by massive deaths in a war, and general mutiny in the Russian armed services.

The last big crack in the Soviet facade was fueled directly by the public opposition to the price in Afghanistan. There are more than a few that say the collapse of the Soviet system, while fairly unavoidable, was rapidly accelerated by the public being fed up with military deaths in Afghanistan.

Yes, it is correct that 6000 nukes does not make them 'crippled'.

But the very high cost of the war in men and materiel is significantly downgrading the remnants of that conventional armed forces. And no -- it wont 'cripple' them, but the cost in men and materiel, coupled with an economic vise, and further coupled with a non-insignificant exodus of 'prime economic' people *out* of Russia practically guarantee that the Russian nation/state will not be able to throw a war of aggression for a very long time after this one is over.

And many economic/demographic models see a collapse of the Russia nation/state as a direct result of all those costs. And even if that happens at what they would take as a 20% full effect of the above, that still takes Russia off the table in a global bad guy sense -- something that the West has prayed for since 1917.

And I have zero problem with pursuing that outcome given the zero cost in Western armed force's boots and the almost zero effective cost of reduction of stocks of weapons and weapons systems that are approaching shelf-life 'death'.