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No one here is being hawk who "wants to lunge headlong into a nuclear war." You seem to have this view of us having to walk on eggshells or else Russia goes crazy and starts launching nukes. Have you ever considered that maybe the Russians should be the ones who have to consider how the U.S...

Well I would have to completely disagree with that. We don't need to threaten outright destruction of Russia (which in return would mean outright destruction of the West, or the U.S. at least). I am unsure about targeting Putin. I think letting Putin know his military forces will suffer severe...

In a similar vain, a very good movie on how the Germans were on the Eastern Front is the 1985 Soviet anti-war film, "Come and See" (maybe the greatest war film of all time). It inspired Steven Spielberg in how he made "Saving Private Ryan" and while not graphic, it is truly horrific. It shows...

I don't think one "can" actually "win" a nuclear war. "Erode" American power I think is an understatement.

Putin likely decided now is the time due to perception of Western weakness, a very wrong belief in pro-Russian sentiment among the Ukrainian people, and the fact that Ukraine is a massive strategic prize needed for Russia, both for Russian security and to start really rebuilding the...

He just made a losing attempt at a land grab, with his forces being driven back. He does not have the manpower or the logistics to hold Ukraine even if he could militarily defeat it, which he is not doing, let alone try pushing into a NATO country. Russia's military is rail-dependent. Beyond...

What you are missing, IMO, is in thinking that Europe, America, and Russia would all get destroyed in some insane nuclear exchange if we fight back against Russian aggression. You think the Russians are stupid or nuts? They are not going to attack in the first place if they believe NATO will...

I am curious, but how would a "real hot war" with Russia occur? I do not understand so many people making out as if Russia is this big, capable military power where we'd have "war" between NATO and Russia. A hot war with NATO would mean the Russian military getting destroyed, IMO. They do not...

Why do you assume we are on the road to nuclear war with Russia?

The thing with the Einsatzgruppen is they were die-hards, adherent to an ideology that said that the Jews are an evil people, responsible for all manner of wars and crimes throughout history, and thus had to be eliminated, along with believing that said Jews were also subhuman and that all of...

Yeah, I'd leave nuke plants off-limits, especially Russian nuke plants because if they run them as bad as they due their military, then attacking them might be the equivalent of detonating a tactical nuke. I have no idea, but wouldn't surprise me if their nuke plants have substandard parts, lack...

Personally, I am skeptical about just how strong the Chinese economy really is for its currency to challenge the U.S. dollar. But also, I doubt that most free countries are concerned with the U.S. being able to economically wreak havoc with the economies of other countries like Russia, no more...

Well the U.S. and NATO overall could respond by launching conventional attacks to completely annihilate Russian forces in Ukraine.

One thing the article doesn't mention that I've read is that the Russian military's design also doesn't provide large enough numbers of trucks for logistics. So even if they had enough logistics and maintenance personnel, they don't have the vehicles to do it with. I don't know how many here...

Not a Naval aviator, but a few things to keep in mind: 1) You can still make lots of money after being an aviator 2) You have to consider how much you enjoy the money-earning job. If the money is great but the job is terrible due to stress and time commitment and/or you just not caring about...

By "Rÿche song," you mean a music group? (that is what I get by Googling). I agree we are not a colonial empire, but I'd say we are still a form of empire, in that we have a super powerful military and have bases for it all over the planet, we are the main military force for upholding the free...

I'd say the United States is an empire. A different kind of empire, but still an empire.

I am hoping it is done smartly by the West as we don't want Russia to become another version of post-WWI Germany.

We can't have a discussion just because I am not in the Navy?

Well, where to begin. For starters, you mentioned about all the tanks and trucks and so forth we sent the Soviets. I pointed out that that didn't kick in until really about 1943, not before Pearl Harbor. As I pointed out, the U.S. wasn't going to send any major hardware to the Soviets that it...

I had linked to a journalist in a prior post who had written some about this, that in Russia, the military is held in a low position. They make sure to put inept officers in charge because to have a capable military would be dangerous to the regime. And they do not want any major military...

Another thing supplied was an extreme cold weather lubricant, which was manufactured in New Jersey. Only the U.S. had the know-how to manufacture it, but it allowed the Soviets to operate their equipment in the extreme cold.

Oh I agree that the Germans were crap at logistics, but otherwise, I would have to disagree. For one, this applies both ways, i.e. the only reason the Western Allied nations did as well as they did was due to the Soviets fighting the vast brunt of the German war machine. Neither side would have...

They wasted millions of lives because Stalin had shot and arrested so many of the skilled and intelligent military officers and generals. He basically decapitated the Soviet military. As the war went on, they became more skilled and by the end of the war, they had quite a lot of skilled generals...

Well a question though is did the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact possess the logistics to actually field 52,000 tanks in any real capacity. There's a HUGE amount of logistics to that. The Israelis when attacked in 1967 faced off against superior numbers of tanks and troops but still beat them...

Yet another Russian general has been killed, Lt. General Yakov Rezantsev. And a Ukrainian babushka whose village was shelled heavily, upon being occupied by Russian soldiers, went out and thanked the Russian soldiers for liberating them and invited them (eight guys) to have a special pie she...

I think it depends when talking about the Soviets. From what I've read, the Soviet military had more rigorous standards than does the current Russian military, and the thing is that with the Soviet Union, it wasn't just Russia, but Russia combined with the other nations that together made up the...

Interesting thread by a journalist in Russia about why the Russian military is so bad: Why the Russian Army Is So Weak

Just curious, but why are they using SUVs? Why not say Humvees?

Well apparently Ukrainian forces have already conducted some limited offensives, driving Russian forces back and even surrounding Russian forces near Kyiv. Word is about 10,000 Russian troops may be on the verge of being surrounded.

It seems one of Ukraine's biggest suppliers of military hardware has been Russia itself. The Ukrainian military has apparently captured more tanks from the Russians than it has lost. I don't know if the Ukrainian military has the logistics to keep these tanks operating though. They also...

Zelensky meanwhile continuing to ask for tanks and fighters and saying to NATO to please not ever again tell Ukraine that their forces do not meet NATO standards given how they have been performing. I see various "experts" in the West saying about how fighters and tanks wouldn't help the...

Popular history is not all about being sensational and doing so at the expense of scholarship. It is also about making digestible to the general public subjects where they need a decent basic understanding but do not have the time to delve into a professional's level of extreme detail and...

We use tons of Mazaks where I work (Japanese brand).

Yes, good point. I work in machining so good to see a person who knows about machine tools :)

Do you mean literally, historically, Russians have a tradition of pit one bear against multiple dogs and have them kill it?

Could also be logistics issues in terms of lack of spare parts and maintenance. Russia really hasn't fought a war against a trained combined-arms military force since WWII.

I don't know if I myself trust nuke plants after the lack of safety showed by the Japanese with the Fukushima plant. That is true, but then many experts also assumed the Russian military would run right over Ukraine. If the Ukrainians say they could use them, well I doubt they are being stupid...

Yeah but he didn't fly all the way from Europe and enter U.S. airspace undetected.

IMO there are a multitude of factors that brought down the Soviet Union. One was Ronald Reagan with his increasing American defense spending which the Soviets tried to keep up with and couldn't, there was the Soviets having invaded Afghanistan which was costing them a fortune and with no real...

IMO, there's more than just two options to stop Putin. There are various other conventional means that can be used to stop him.

He means because the M1 uses a gas-turbine engine, and those are fuel hogs. They don't idle like a diesel can, which can sip fuel while doing so. So a gas turbine running on diesel will still burn it far more quickly than a diesel will.

Yes, if advancing, more fuel hungry tanks might be problematic in Eastern European terrain if advancing into the enemy because you are lengthening the supply line, and even then that probably would depend some on the climate as well (solid ground in the summer versus Rasputitsa and then super...

I have read that “Паляниця” is a Ukrainian word that means a loaf of bread and apparently Russians can't pronounce it at all, so the Ukrainians are using it to identify Russian spies, saboteurs, etc...among them. Well with the Abrams tanks it would depend on the length of the supply lines they...

Thought this analysis was interesting. I also wholeheartedly agree that it is quite ironic (and IMO arrogant) for us to tell the Ukrainians that Mig-29s from Poland won't help them:

Just curious, what makes the Leo 2 superior to the Abrams for Russian tanks?

The U.S. pulled its last tanks out of Europe in 2013, but then Putin invaded Crimea, so the U.S. started Operation Atlantic Resolve which involves nine month rotations of a U.S. armored brigade to Europe and regular multinational training between U.S. forces and those of NATO countries such as...

I believe Putin has been politically intelligent, but political intelligence != military intelligence. IMO, a major difference between modern Russia and the Soviet Union was that the Soviet Union was not a straight dictatorship with one guy with absolute power in charge. It was authoritarian...

If Putin starts using tactical nukes and/or chemical weapons, then IMO the United States/NATO is going to have to lay down the law in some way and make him stop, because otherwise it shows too much fear to Putin and to our enemies that we will even let him get away with mass scale slaughter so...

Yes, the Russians used tanks, air planes, and artillery at Stalingrad. I agree on the drones but does the Russian military have such drones? I have read that it seems the Russians are trying to mass forces near the cities like Kyiv and Kharkov in an effort to then go in and take them, in which...