this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2024
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[–] TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee 109 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Really?

Last I checked, we haven't had almost 500k casualties and lost billions in military craft to old mothballed weapons we since moved on from.

[–] PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 78 points 6 months ago (3 children)

It's actually kinda incredible for Russia to have not realized that the US is literally just letting Ukraine integrate itself into NATO standards by training on and building up NATO standard equipment as it runs out of the shitty Soviet era alternatives

Meanwhile Moscow is instead developing a dependency on Iranian and Chinese made military hardware, stuff that neither is especially willing to part with given their own war plans.

The US could 1000% just barely provide enough aid to tactically let Russia chew its teeth out trying to break Ukraine, but it's sending what Ukraine needs to win whenever it can because the US sees Ukraine winning as more important than Russia losing at this point.

[–] BombOmOm@lemmy.world 53 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

US is literally just letting Ukraine integrate itself into NATO standards by training on and building up NATO standard equipment as it runs out of the shitty Soviet era alternatives

Not just Ukraine, either! All the NATO Eastern Bloc countries donated their Soviet equipment (and much more) and are actively rearming and retraining their own militaries on NATO standard equipment.

[–] fluxion@lemmy.world 45 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Unfortunately "barely enough" is closer to the mark. Ukraine should've had this funding last year and we should've been close to the next round at this point. If this is actually all America can muster when it is committed to "winning" then then thats a bit sad and scary considering the incompetent broke ass country we are trying to beat while having homecourt advantage.

The only thing that gives me solace is the thought that this is carefully architected to bleed out Russia and not actually a show of real force.

[–] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 25 points 6 months ago

You have to remember that half of the political parties in the US are owned by and promote Russian interests. That's the only reason it took 8 months to get this funding approved, and it was approved in spite of the former fuckwit president.

[–] rayyy@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

US is literally just letting Ukraine integrate itself into NATO standards by training on and building up NATO standard equipment

Excellent point. Due to the equipment Ukraine now has the west is at a point where they will stand to lose a lot of valuable technology if Russia wins making it necessary for western intervention if things go bad for Ukraine.

[–] Vilian@lemmy.ca 29 points 6 months ago (1 children)

exactly the fuckers say like usa is fighting there lol

[–] BigilusDickilus@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

At the risk of being jingoistic, this type of opponent is exactly what our military is designed to utterly destroy. If the US was an active participant it would have very quickly wiped the floor with the Russian army and would be dealng with Russian backed insurgents in the east.

Ukraine has been beating them with the stuff we routinely throw away (when the Republicans don't get in the way), I am convinced they have no non nuclear answer to our actual military.

[–] Omniraptor@lemm.ee 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

40 years ago maybe, but afaik after 20 years of Iraq and Afghanistan the us army has shifted quite far into focusing on counterinsurgency and away from fighting vs mass armor and artillery

[–] BigilusDickilus@lemmy.world 0 points 6 months ago

I mean, they've gotten way better at it, but most of their equipment and doctrine are still targeted at utterly destroying a near peer level threat. The f-22 wasn't designed to fight insurgents, nor is it suited to that task.

I would think that the USAF would happily establish and easily enforce a no fly zone over Ukraine and could probably pull it off within a few days of getting the order conservatively.

There was the story a few years ago when a well equipped and trained Wagner battalion "accidentally" picked a flight with a US army unit or base in Syria and got immediately demolished.

Writing this out definitely feels like braggadocio and it likely is. But I would think the Russians don't want to find out why we don't have universal healthcare first hand.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 0 points 6 months ago

The USA has plans, thousands of plans and how to modify them agains the russians (well the USSR), and that's as important as having the right tools/weapons.

[–] jeffw@lemmy.world 13 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Seems a little high. Russian casualties are probably closer to 350k according to Western estimates.

I wonder how many died though (edit: Ukraine claims 180k but their casualty estimates are reportedly high, so probably less than 180k dead)

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 14 points 6 months ago

By contrast, the United States lost fewer than 2,500 service members in the entire 20 years we were in Afghanistan.