Comment by pydry
3 days ago
>Interesting. I drew the opposite conclusion. Using (mostly) just NATO's old equipment
Not true since 2023. Plenty of the high end stuff was sent - abrams, leopard 2s, patriots.
There's also a dire shortage of shells to send - the meat and potatoes of a war like this.
Some of the high end stuff (e.g. F-35s) were also arguably not sent because western military planners were afraid of them performing badly (F-16s performed very badly).
>fought basically to a standstill
That's how wars of attrition are. The front line is 1) static for months/year and a half. Then it moves 2) slowly. Then 3) fast. Then collapse.
It's between 2 and 3 now.
Unless a peace deal is secured (unlikely, there is no zone of possible agreement) a Ukrainian military collapse is coming and it will be a humiliation for western hegemony to see Russia sweep forward unchallenged on their front door.
Trump seems to know that it's coming and wants to wash his hands of it while European establishment are freaking out and doing stupid, rash and even Putinesque shit like canceling the Romanian election.
> Unless a peace deal is secured (unlikely, there is no zone of possible agreement) a Ukrainian military collapse is coming and it will be a humiliation for western hegemony to see Russia sweep forward unchallenged on their front door.
Not unless the Russian economy collapses first. Last I heard, industry leaders from key sectors like metallurgy were saying that with a 21% interest rate, the market economy is effectively dead because their margins are nowhere near sufficient to service such debts. They either need government handouts (a thinly veiled return to a planned economy, and we both know what that looked like) or face a complete crash and burn in the currently unfolding corporate debt crisis: https://static.themoscowtimes.com/image/1360/35/Screenshot20...
> Plenty of the high end stuff was sent - abrams, leopard 2s, patriots.
Reagan-era Leopard 2A4s are not "high end". The truly high end stuff has performend beyond expectations, particularly the Patriot missile defense system. Quite a few planes were lost, including two rare and prized radar planes, before Russians finally understood that unlike their overhyped "has no analogues in the world" wonder weapons, western tech actually meets and often exceeds offical specs.
> Some of the high end stuff (e.g. F-35s) were also arguably not sent because western military planners were afraid of them performing badly (F-16s performed very badly).
Quite the opposite story. The F-35 is treasured so much that no-one wants to risk it being lost, especially with the limited experience UAF has flying western planes. As to F-16s, a single pilot shooting down 6 cruise missiles while equipped with only 4 AA missiles was nothing short of spectacular, and according to seasoned F-16 pilots, shows that Ukrainian air force is developing rapidly: https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-record-f16-win-shows...
> Trump seems to know that it's coming and wants to wash his hands of it while European establishment are freaking out and doing stupid
Trump is doing (and seems, more effectively) what every single American president since at least GWB has attempted: to get Europe to increase military spending. If you think this predicts anything positive for you, better brace for a surprise.
>Not unless the Russian economy collapses first. Last I heard
Last I heard in 2022 the overwhelming consensus in 2022 was that it was supposed to collapse at the end of 2022. I think it's time to put this neocon fantasy to bed rather than keep making fresh wrong predictions based upon the same wrong dogma.