Comment by airstrike
Everyone also thought Russia had a strong military yet look how that worked out
Everyone also thought Russia had a strong military yet look how that worked out
$250B and depleted arsenals say otherwise. It's a proxy war. It's been a proxy war by design all along: https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_briefs/R...
Spending has nothing to do with military reality. Russia is a paper tiger. If the US really supported Ukraine in this war without worrying about crossing some imaginary Rubicon, the war would have been over a long time ago—except Russia might be tempted to use their nukes, so we can't do that.
The way to win against Russia is not via sanctions but rather via destabilizing the regime through guerrilla propaganda. The Russians, the Chinese, and the Soviets before them have always known this. The West is just too slow to catch on.
NATO is currently losing a conventional proxy war against it, that's how. Which only reinforces my point: there's zero reason to believe that either proxy or direct confrontation with China can be "won".