Ukraine plinking a Russian GPS-jammer with a GPS-guided bomb. Ukrainian drones blowing up Russian drone-jammers. Ukraine’s cruise missiles striking Russian air-defense sites whose missions include, you guessed it, shooting down cruise missiles.
Russia’s 23-month wider war on Ukraine has seen a lot of ironic, darkly-hilarious clashes. The latest was also one of the quickest between setup and punchline.
On Tuesday morning, Russian media announced the deployment, to Ukraine, of Russian forces’ latest high-tech counterbattery radar. A few hours later in southern Ukraine, the Ukrainians blew it up … with artillery rockets.
The irony deepens. In theory, a Russian Yastreb-AV radar would help to protect Russian troops from Ukraine’s American-made High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems launchers—its HIMARS. Now guess what the Ukrainians used to destroy that first Yastreb-AV.
That’s right: HIMARS.
You can deduct two things from this:
-Russia is not as big of a threat as propaganda depicts it
-Spending trillions in “defense” is useless
Huh? But the equipment that was developed by those trillions of dollars proved to be super effective. The HIMARS missiles can even handle jamming by a much less funded army.
You are spot on on point 1 though.
Super effective to destroy another useless trillion dollar military assets. Imagine spending trillions on something which main purpose isn’t to dig a hole in the ground.
I agree with that. But that is not a conclusion that should be drawn from the article. Hence my reaction. If anything, the article shows a prime example for why we should spend all those trillions.
They seem to be saying that Russia also has a massive military budget, but ours is way way bigger. The money we spend actually is worth it. We have the best military in the world by every metric you can come up with.
If even a small fraction of Russia’s nuclear arsenal is functional then they are still incredibly dangerous
Agreed, but it’s 50/50 as to whom. They can’t even afford to turn the keys at this point, lest that unmaintained shit blow up before it leaves Russian airspace – or, more likely, doesn’t even get off its Russian launchpad.
If he could have, he would have, but Putin knows if he even tries he unleashes full MAD.
I’m not saying he won’t or never would, just saying that for all the threats and saber-rattling, he’ll only do it when he himself is already damned.
If they use nuclear weapons, it will end in one of two ways.
Escalation to full scale nuclear exchange. Putin dies or has to live in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust.
The rest of the world saying “that’s enough”. Nobody in power wants using nukes to be normalized. It’s so profoundly destabilizing to the status quo that everyone sees it as a threat given it will inevitably lead to escalation. Every intelligence agency in the world will be making phone calls, offering sweet deals, and promising support to unhappy, powerful people in Russia to deal with the “Putin” problem. Ideological enemies will work together to eliminate this threat to their stability.
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Scary thoughts. I don’t even think scientists realized the full extent of the device potential. Much less someone like Truman without an extensive science background. Even though they talked about the destructive potential, actually grasping it as a reality wasn’t comprehensible.
Option 3: Russia is converted into parking lot via a joint operation using conventional weaponry. Siberia is declared west Alaska.
Who knew that skimming money off the top at every level will leave you with nothing but a shell of a military?
Let’s spend trillions on offense for Ukraine instead! Help them take back Crimea and make Russia afraid to go on conquest again.
Right now, Ukraine is doing all the heavy lifting for the West. Every bit of the cash spent in that direction is very wisely invested, and a fraction of the cost to everyone else if (god forbid) Ukraine fails.
If we (the West) don’t spend now to help Ukraine, what will we eventually spend to help Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, and all the other lands Putin longs to annex and rob?
Right now, Ukraine is pretty much all that’s standing in the way of Putin’s visions of Russkiy Mir, and deserves everything the rest of us can dedicate to the cause: in the face of an expansionist dictator, the cause of Ukraine IS the cause of the world.