Since I last wrote, Russia has made a lot more progress in the Donbas. Lyman taken. Depending on whose propaganda you read, also Sievierodonetsk. I've read credible reports that Ukrainian troops there have fallen back to Lysychansk, where the danger of encirclement by Russia is very high.
I agree that Russia's military is very corrupt. That was evidenced in particular by how poorly maintained their vehicles were heading towards Kyiv. Not just BTW, the German soldiers who marched on Stalingrad had similar problems.
The US military is also corrupt, just in different ways. We have ships with guns that cost $1,000,000 per shell. How about that $1 trillion+ F35 that still sucks?
The US has been in Ukraine for 8 years. We have trained (IIRC) 1-2 battalions per year in-country. We are still doing it now, but in Poland and the US at much lower rates. Between 2014 and 2022 the US sent between $4-6 billion in NATO weapons to Ukraine (numbers vary depending on the source).
Ukraine was NATO in all but name when the Russians invaded. So I think your claim that "The US will crush Russia" is unfounded.
How'd we do in Afghanistan, where we had a HUGE military advantage? We lost. How about Iraq with the same advantages? 8 years and how many civilians killed? Iraq on our side now?
We have pumped more weapons into Ukraine than any other country for the last 20 years. We've spent $56 billion on Ukraine alone since the invasion. Russia's entire military budget is about $60 bn/yr.
Russia is still advancing. Russia has not mobilized their army, they are only using their "free range" battle groups.
We've not had to fight against a similarly equipped army since Korea. That was a draw. Since then we've not had stunning victories unless you count Grenada.
In a non-nuclear battle Russia v. US, I think we'd win. Crush Russia? No way. We would take massive losses, including big parts of all Western European capitals of the countries who joined the US. Russia's hypersonic missiles are technology we don't have yet, and against which we have no defense. Even non-nuclear armed, I'd expect Russia to try to take out HQs of the major armies facing them.
If it becomes WWIII for real rather than proxy, things don't look great for us. China and India (and probably now Pakistan since we soft-couped Khan) are on Russia's side.
