According to the top NATO general, Christopher Cavoli, the military bloc should have no illusions about Russia’s military strength, as the Russian armed forces are training, improving and applying the experience of war.
Cavoli called on NATO to prepare quickly for this threat, as Russia will be an adversary with serious military capabilities and “clear intentions.”
Wait a minute, wasn’t NATO’s strategy supposed to be gradually exhausting Russia?
Exhausting all of your stores of modern weapon systems does not make you stronger.
I’m all for preparation as stated in the article but claiming Russia will be stronger after losing thousands of tanks and hundreds of thousands of soldiers is dubious at best.
Why do we even need generals. The top minds of warfare are all posting in this comment section.
Surely they know better.
So much for the “boil the frog“ and “run Russia down“ narratives. The better metaphor would be a gain of function laboratory for a virus.
The West needs to seriously ramp it up. Once the US elections are over, we need to make a new serious attempt to end this thing in favor of Ukraine.
War makes armies bigger, contrary to how it sounds, take a look at the Iran-Iraq war for example, it lasted for almost a decade and both sides suffered terrible losses but at the end Iraq emerged with one of the largest armies in the world and threatened the entire MIddle East.
Yes but what are you gonna do about it? we are tired of these useless statements we need action…
At an extreme cost to their economy
It’s really an economic question like would a post war government continue to focus their energy on military development or would they focus on civilian infrastructure, civilian projects, civilian economy. in the case that they were to focus on military then probably there’s an interest in continuing conflict because conflict creates a purpose for military.
Sure, they will do lessons learned (and are doing that already), but the issue is that they are killing their experienced officers/NCOs/Enlisted. Especially the good NCOs and junior officers are critical. Other example, they’ve pretty much killed some of their “elite” troops such as VDV and rebuilding that will take a long time. Essentially VDV and Marines (or whats left) etc are now used as normal ground troops
On the other side, Russia burned thru almost all of the weapons, ammunitions and vehicles they still had in stock from Soviet times.
The quality of the battle hardened troops may be better after the war, but Russia will most likely struggle with the quantity for quite some time.
It will be a challenge to replace even a fraction of the tanks, IFVs, SPGs, trucks etc. they have lost. Especially considering the damage the sanctions have done to their economy. (And hopefully the sanctions will continue after the war in Ukraine ended, one way or the other.)
Ukrainian here
Main threat to NATO is division and politics.
This basically is the main issue in Ukraine as well.
Doesn’t matter how good your army is when there’s politics involved, propaganda, division and that sort of stuff.
Russia not only is improving in all areas military but gaining more hardcore support from Iran, China, and NK. It’s also building a stronger alliance with Turkey. While the West is looking and NATO without US support and constantly discusses how “escalation is bad”.
Don’t forget that Russia recently raised interest rates to 21%, or that their actual inflation rate is estimated to be around 27% by economists at John Hopkins.
Not only that, but they’ve burnt through a majority of their pre-war reserves of weapons, to give an example, Covert Cabal estimated their MLRS to be down to around 23% of what they were before the war, and much of those remaining ones are pretty much junk.
While we definitely need to be doing more to help Ukraine, the idea that Russia is some implacable juggernaut that can endlessly absorb any loss is laughable.
Keep dripping help to Ukraine, instead of providing all needed amounts in one moment. Allowing russians to adapt and learn how to deal with western weapons is the best tactic ever. Great work escalation managers /s
Take this with a grain of salt. Generals fight for resource allocation and the best way to do that in the military is to build up the danger of your rival. US generals have been doing this for decades. It’s how you get massive military budgets when your rival doesn’t even have basic equipment.
One thing makes me wonder…if their war stopped they’d have thousands of hardened criminals roaming the streets. The ones they recruited from prisons. Scary.
Well a strong army is only useful if you are going and you are able to use it. Will they push their veterans through an another war after an perhaps inconclusive or failed war ;
Sure, they’ll be stronger once they stop dying.
And instead of helping Ukraine to win quick in 2022, they are delaying and stretching everything, giving Russia plenty of time to adapt and rebuild.
Obvious
Are we talking about the „3 days special operation turns into 3 years with no success“ army? Well. Yeah.
With what soldiers? People don’t have kids and thy can’t afford to keep requiring every guy that turns 18. There is a thing that’s called lost generation for a reason. These statements are so stupid.
“We let russia do what they want and it’s helping them” no shit, the west is weak
Someone’s afraid of running out of money for new toys.
It makes sense. Before the war, Russian equipments and vehicles were outdated and in short supply. They also had old generals with outdated fighting strategies, who got killed early in the war. After the war is over, Russia will have more experience and better equipment and strategies.
Wow. I guess Ukraine didn’t cause 600,000 casualties after all. Made up numbers.
When we sent weapons and money to Ukraine, we were told that it weakens Russia and is necessary for our security. And now their army has become stronger. Either the NATO general doesn’t know what he’s saying, or our decision-making politicians are idiots.
Moldova is 100% the next target as soon as the current conflict ends.
Don’t believe this Putin’s propaganda! Just scroll this sub back 1-2 years, read the posts and comments of local experts and you will find out that the Russian army will soon simply cease to exist due to huge losses in Ukraine.
30 comments
According to the top NATO general, Christopher Cavoli, the military bloc should have no illusions about Russia’s military strength, as the Russian armed forces are training, improving and applying the experience of war.
Cavoli called on NATO to prepare quickly for this threat, as Russia will be an adversary with serious military capabilities and “clear intentions.”
Wait a minute, wasn’t NATO’s strategy supposed to be gradually exhausting Russia?
Exhausting all of your stores of modern weapon systems does not make you stronger.
I’m all for preparation as stated in the article but claiming Russia will be stronger after losing thousands of tanks and hundreds of thousands of soldiers is dubious at best.
Why do we even need generals. The top minds of warfare are all posting in this comment section.
Surely they know better.
So much for the “boil the frog“ and “run Russia down“ narratives. The better metaphor would be a gain of function laboratory for a virus.
The West needs to seriously ramp it up. Once the US elections are over, we need to make a new serious attempt to end this thing in favor of Ukraine.
War makes armies bigger, contrary to how it sounds, take a look at the Iran-Iraq war for example, it lasted for almost a decade and both sides suffered terrible losses but at the end Iraq emerged with one of the largest armies in the world and threatened the entire MIddle East.
Yes but what are you gonna do about it? we are tired of these useless statements we need action…
At an extreme cost to their economy
It’s really an economic question like would a post war government continue to focus their energy on military development or would they focus on civilian infrastructure, civilian projects, civilian economy. in the case that they were to focus on military then probably there’s an interest in continuing conflict because conflict creates a purpose for military.
Sure, they will do lessons learned (and are doing that already), but the issue is that they are killing their experienced officers/NCOs/Enlisted. Especially the good NCOs and junior officers are critical. Other example, they’ve pretty much killed some of their “elite” troops such as VDV and rebuilding that will take a long time. Essentially VDV and Marines (or whats left) etc are now used as normal ground troops
[https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/09/russian-military-reconstitution-2030-pathways-and-prospects?lang=en](https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/09/russian-military-reconstitution-2030-pathways-and-prospects?lang=en)
[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60946340](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60946340)
On the other side, Russia burned thru almost all of the weapons, ammunitions and vehicles they still had in stock from Soviet times.
The quality of the battle hardened troops may be better after the war, but Russia will most likely struggle with the quantity for quite some time.
It will be a challenge to replace even a fraction of the tanks, IFVs, SPGs, trucks etc. they have lost. Especially considering the damage the sanctions have done to their economy. (And hopefully the sanctions will continue after the war in Ukraine ended, one way or the other.)
Ukrainian here
Main threat to NATO is division and politics.
This basically is the main issue in Ukraine as well.
Doesn’t matter how good your army is when there’s politics involved, propaganda, division and that sort of stuff.
Russia not only is improving in all areas military but gaining more hardcore support from Iran, China, and NK. It’s also building a stronger alliance with Turkey. While the West is looking and NATO without US support and constantly discusses how “escalation is bad”.
Don’t forget that Russia recently raised interest rates to 21%, or that their actual inflation rate is estimated to be around 27% by economists at John Hopkins.
Not only that, but they’ve burnt through a majority of their pre-war reserves of weapons, to give an example, Covert Cabal estimated their MLRS to be down to around 23% of what they were before the war, and much of those remaining ones are pretty much junk.
While we definitely need to be doing more to help Ukraine, the idea that Russia is some implacable juggernaut that can endlessly absorb any loss is laughable.
Keep dripping help to Ukraine, instead of providing all needed amounts in one moment. Allowing russians to adapt and learn how to deal with western weapons is the best tactic ever. Great work escalation managers /s
Take this with a grain of salt. Generals fight for resource allocation and the best way to do that in the military is to build up the danger of your rival. US generals have been doing this for decades. It’s how you get massive military budgets when your rival doesn’t even have basic equipment.
One thing makes me wonder…if their war stopped they’d have thousands of hardened criminals roaming the streets. The ones they recruited from prisons. Scary.
Well a strong army is only useful if you are going and you are able to use it. Will they push their veterans through an another war after an perhaps inconclusive or failed war ;
Sure, they’ll be stronger once they stop dying.
And instead of helping Ukraine to win quick in 2022, they are delaying and stretching everything, giving Russia plenty of time to adapt and rebuild.
Obvious
Are we talking about the „3 days special operation turns into 3 years with no success“ army? Well. Yeah.
With what soldiers? People don’t have kids and thy can’t afford to keep requiring every guy that turns 18. There is a thing that’s called lost generation for a reason. These statements are so stupid.
“We let russia do what they want and it’s helping them” no shit, the west is weak
Someone’s afraid of running out of money for new toys.
It makes sense. Before the war, Russian equipments and vehicles were outdated and in short supply. They also had old generals with outdated fighting strategies, who got killed early in the war. After the war is over, Russia will have more experience and better equipment and strategies.
Wow. I guess Ukraine didn’t cause 600,000 casualties after all. Made up numbers.
When we sent weapons and money to Ukraine, we were told that it weakens Russia and is necessary for our security. And now their army has become stronger. Either the NATO general doesn’t know what he’s saying, or our decision-making politicians are idiots.
Moldova is 100% the next target as soon as the current conflict ends.
Don’t believe this Putin’s propaganda! Just scroll this sub back 1-2 years, read the posts and comments of local experts and you will find out that the Russian army will soon simply cease to exist due to huge losses in Ukraine.
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