Of course “any military” actually means “any western military” here, continuing the proud cracker tradition of just ignoring anyone who was ever on the recieving end of those western militaries and their genocidal campaigns to crush all dissent.
But seriously though, it’s just fucking true.
I’m pretty sure the Vietnamese/Koreans/Iraqies/etc weren’t going “oh this war shit is so easy lol” while they were being carpetbombed back to the stoneage by the US and their lackeys.
Well they are specifically talking about defensive lines. It’s not like the Iraqis and Koreans were really on the offensive all that much.
Oh, what is it? I thought Russia was “still stuck in 1970’s mentality” and “hasn’t adapted to modern battlefield”?! Are you suggesting that the media and the “osint” were… Talking out of their ass?! I am shocked, shocked I tell you!
US managed to build up a lot of mythology around their military capabilities over the years, and actually putting that to a test was a huge blunder. Before the war started, most of the world was convinced that NATO military was superior to Russia in practically all the respects. They were supposed to have better training, better tactics, better tech, etc. Nobody seriously questioned that.
Then things got put to the test and turns out that Russian army is far more effective on the battlefield. All the NATO weapons proved to be ineffective, their tactics don’t work, and they’re not able to adapt the way Russia is. Drones are a perfect example of that. Russia started out lacking in this department, and now it managed to develop and put cheap and effective drones into production at scale.
This war exposed NATO as the emperor with no clothes.
One of the few good things about this. Seeing Leopards getting swatted and Javelins fail to make a difference, all while watching NATO deplete it’s stocks, has likely done a lot to hurt NATO’s intimidation factor.
Also, I don’t think anyone is going to miss that the US fragged Europe’s energy supply to make them dependent on US energy, or that the US is gutting the EU’s industrial sector. With BRICS gaining steam this was a bad time to play that hand (I hope).
NATO invincibility myth being shattered is really important because now everyone can see that NATO can be fought and it can be defeated. And completely agree that the relations between US and Europe are very likely to sour going forward. Once it starts sinking in that Europe got cynically used by US, there’s going to be a backlash.
don’t think anyone is going to miss that the US fragged Europe’s energy supply to make them dependent on US energy
Except for every lemmy lib, it seems. I doubt they are representative of the overall sentiments in Europe and certainly not the world, but I would argue they are representative of the liberal worldview, that seems fairly universal regardless of geography
i think the scales have tipped on some illusions about NATO technology & doctrine but to blow this up to “no clothes” veers into underestimation. NATO, for the deficiencies still has a shittload of military equipment and personnel
Sure, NATO still has a lot of equipment and personnel, but it’s no better than the equipment and personnel China and Russia have. Meanwhile, where we see NATO shitting the bed is the logistics side of things. The thing that turned out to be most important in this war is just being able to produce large volumes of ammunition. NATO is not capable of doing that at the moment.
Yeah, I don’t think anybody expected that drones would play such a huge role. It does make sense in hindsight though, surveillance is incredibly important for knowing what the enemy is doing, and for coordinating artillery fire. Meanwhile, cheap kamikaze drones are a really cost effective way to take out multi-million dollar tanks. What’s interesting is that it looks like Russia invested a lot more into electronic warfare prior to the conflict and they’re able to jam western drones and guided weapons.
I’m guessing that in the future, as jamming becomes more prevalent, we’ll see more push for development of autonomous weapons. And that’s a bit of a scary thought when you consider the implications.
I remember reading from 5 star reddit armchair generals that their militaries weren’t intended to be fighting guerilla warfare, which is why their oh-so-humanitarian-totally-never-target-civilians militaries struggled so much against guerilla fighters in their wars against Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan. They instead said that they were designed to obliterate traditional militaries in uniform such as those of their current state department designated enemies.
For all the “Russia’s a bunch of poor commies still using USSR era equipment”, sounds like NATO and its proxies had a wakeup call when this time they’re on the receiving end where they didn’t have superiority in firepower, on the ground and the air.
their militaries weren’t intended to be fighting guerilla warfare
Oh hey, I think I’ve actually seen one of those here on the Grad!
yea its almost like you are fighting a (former?) superpower and not goat herders and farmers.
Yes, of course one of the largest countries on the face of the earth fighting a country right next door to them is not the same kind of opponent as an impoverished nation being bullied by imperialists.
There was so much talk about Russia’s economy being smaller than Italy’s when this started. I guess when your country still builds stuff it changes the math a bit.
to The Economist
Challenge: The Economist proving Lenin wrong (difficulty: impossible)
