Russia has spent four years in this, fighting a country a fraction of its size, getting set back by homemade drones, and will now seemingly only win by a slow, expensive attrition and get only a concession. Why is anybody supposed to be scared of them?
Firstly why wouldn't one be scared of an opponent that can just steadily press against me, winning a war by attrition?
Secondly, this is a naive mischaracterization of Ukraine, Russia, and the war itself.
Ukraine is a serious modern military power. One that very few countries could successfully invade. One with major support from other countries. Stormshadows, HIMARS, Javelins, NLAWs, Patriot systems are not home made drones.
That said, if Russia had managed to establish air superiority over Ukraine it would have probably won the war as fast as they intended to. But they didn't, and couldn't, because Ukraine isn't a guerilla outfit with home-made drones. They spent more than a decade preparing for this conflict.
It is also Ukraine, with defenders advantage, defending against a % of the Russian offense with their entire defensive capacity. Nearly 30% of Ukraine's GDP goes to defense currently. Russia's is somewhere closer to 7%.
Russia would probably like to do what they did to Chechnya when they got rolled out of there. Just sit back and shell the place. But because Ukraine's drones and long range artillery are a match or better than the Russians, they have to find other means.
> Firstly why wouldn't one be scared of an opponent that can just steadily press against me, winning a war by attrition?
Because if they can barely succeed that way against an enemy 1/3 of their size, they wouldn't be able to succeed that way against an enemy larger than them. And that's not even accounting for the fact that, after fighting a war of attrition, those people, those resources are dead and gone. Even if Russia wins, they don't have the manpower to do this again.
If they conquer Ukraine, they then have Ukraine's resources, technical capabilities, and a fresh group of young people to conscript into service.
We shouldn't be scared of Russia, per se, they would be easy to defeat if we bothered to try rather than if we tried to drag out this war as long as possible to try to weaken Russia. But if we let Russia win, they will rebuild far stronger and take over the next country, and grow stronger. And again, and again.
The only two armies skilled at modern drone warfare are Russia and Ukraine. An army without drone experience could get ripped to shreds facing either one.
Contrary to typical narratives my understanding is that the Russians are somewhat ahead on drones. They pioneered fibre optic drones and have more ability to mass produce them with Chinese support.
Ukraine has fought incredibly well and my hope is at some point Russia can't sustain its offensives due to domestic issues. Russia is very definitely straining.
But they shouldn't be underrated. In Ukraine they face a battled tested, fortified frontline and a society mobilized for war. Russia in turn has set itself for ongoing war. Europe is still in peacetime mode.
>An army without drone experience could get ripped to shreds facing either one.
there would be no trench warfare in a NATO-Russia war. we already saw what happens when Soviet/Russian tech meets F35 and B2 - Israel and US bombed the shit out of Iran with impunity, suffering no losses whatsoever.
Their attrition might be slow, but it's not that expensive. What is expensive are the aircraft/ships/missiles that Europe has too few of that they hope to stop a Russian invasion with if it came to it.
I don't think the size of the working stockpile matters. It's that they have enough. Even the successful detonation of one working nuke would be catastrophic.
Don't underestimate them just because they couldn't defeat Ukraine.
They have no regard for the lives of their own soldiers and will send wave after wave of meat towards the front, which is very hard to defend against. This is backed up by an incredible knowledge of drone warfare and most countries in the world would be unable to defend against them.
Remember that Russia is never as strong or as weak as they appear, and if they ally closely with China while Europe and the US is divided, it may mot be a good time for us in the West.
