Originally Posted by
ClaytonB
"The US could defeat Russia in a direct confrontation involving only conventional weapons!"
I keep hearing this claim either directly, or implied, and every time I hear it, it leaves me in a massive Picard-style facepalm. If you've never seen heavy-armor transports in person, consider the following video (it's 19 minutes long, just watch 30 seconds to get the idea):
Now, just use a little common sense and imagine how long it takes to load/unload just one of those trains. Just loading up a train like that would take days, and that's assuming everything goes perfectly smoothly (all equipment is already at the base, readied for transport, etc.) Unloading would, again, take days. The transport itself across the US could take several days. So, moving a massive contingent of armor across a continent which we fully control would take weeks. And that's assuming full control, perfect planning and execution, and ideal conditions.
Now, imagine Russia or China trying to transport their tanks (a similar number as being transported on these trains) onto any place on the US continent. How long do you think that would take? Not weeks, months. And we're assuming that the US is just "letting" them do it. If the US were to use direct military force to prevent this, well, it's pretty obvious that it would simply be impossible. It's much easier to sink an armor-transport vessel than it is to keep it afloat (or shoot down an aerial armor-transport, than to keep it aloft). And so on.
So, "who can defeat who" is relative to where this supposed fight is taking place, a point that is never mentioned by the leftist-warmongers (BTW, this used to be a paradox, like neoCONs). The US cannot defeat Russia in a direct confrontation, even if no nuclear weapons are used, on Russia's doorstep. Sorry to burst your little ego-bubble, but Russia actually does have F15s (equivalent) and nukes. If you're fighting Russia in Ukraine, you have to support the armor-logistics from your nearest bases which are ~10,000 miles away, while Russia is supporting its armor from hundreds or a couple thousand miles away. It's not even a competition. The US is in the reverse position as what I've described above, trying to land armor onto a hostile shore, while the Russian military can just take pot-shots at you and crater your transport aircraft, etc.
"Yeah, but NATO." Well, NATO has already shown its schizophrenic colors. So far, the pressure that Russia has put onto US/NATO has been indirect, like restricting energy exports. But if US/NATO go ahead and aggress across a bright-red-line that Russia has drawn, there can be no doubt that Russia is going to strike back in direct proportion, force-per-force. Once the body bags start going back to their respective home countries in the US/NATO alliance, the real cost of the war is suddenly going to become apparent to the political decision-makers in their respective countries. The theory is that US/NATO have calculated all the scenarios and will manage to keep it together. We'll see how reality plays out versus the war-game simulations.
Russian defense strategy is not very complicated, and their main doctrines are not secret. Russian tactical defense operates by shutting down air superiority with cutting-edge SAM capabilities (and backed up by competent satellite/air-force capabilities of their own), effectively creating a "no-fly zone" along their borders, in combination with heavy armor and artillery. Russia's military doctrine for home defense can be called "the ground game". While the US is just as competent with armor as the Russians, the problem is that the Russians are using their armor on their own border which is only hundreds of miles from their domestic network of bases, versus the US which is having to fly/drive this equipment 10s of thousand of miles, over transport methods which are slow and extremely vulnerable to being picked off. NATO is closer, but this only slightly reduces the Russian advantage on its borders, the main bulk of its defensive advantage remains.
This explains why Russia is so defensive about US/NATO's 2014 political coup in Ukraine, of which this present conflict is just the sequel chapter. US/NATO have no legitimate interest in Ukraine, whatsoever, not for business, not for politics, nothing. The only reason for US/NATO to be in Ukraine is precisely to undo Russia's defensive doctrine, explained above. If the US can establish bases in a country that is directly on Russia's border (and unimpeded by defensive territorial features), then it can set Russia up for a direct conventional weapons war where Moscow stands at real risk of losing, without resorting to nuclear war. This fact is the whole reason that Russia's diplomats have been literally begging US/NATO to sit down at the table and renegotiate nuclear disarmament, in order to ensure that scenarios like this simply cannot arise. As it currently stands, if US/NATO continue to escalate their aggression in Ukraine, this conflict will reach a point where Moscow has no reason not to escalate to nuclear scenarios. Once you get the crowbar into the door-frame and rip the front-door off the hinges, there is no reason for the homeowner to refrain from using a firearm. The idea that the homeowner is now just going to have a fistfight with you, is absolutely insane. In other words, the US/NATO politicians are gambling the future of their domestic populations for the sake of a dick-measuring contest. And it's not like there's some giant pile of gold in Moscow that they're trying to heist. This is all for ego, nothing else. Utter madness...
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