With Wagner, Chechen and now Gurkhas in or on the side of the Russians, ordinary loosely trained and ill equiped Ukrainian troops are no match for them. Even with Western supplied weapons, the training is equally inadequate. If they do not run, the reputation of their enemies will fuel fear in their faces. Of course, if fighting to the last man is in their minds, that is different. But that is just a mirage with deserters so rampant in the face of the Russian onslaught.
Some of Ukraine's recruits are mere civilians given hardly basic military training and are just cannon fodders to make up the numbers. The neo-Nazis may be good fighters, but their numbers are being decimated after more than 500 days of fighting and under heavy Russian bombing.
This war is not going to end tomorrow, looking at the escalation. It suits the Russian tactic of grinding down enemies, long known since the days of the Soviet Union, when Hitler and Napolean had the misfortune of having tasted the Soviet meat grinder.
The USA and the West are not conducive to fighting long wars, with Vietnam an example, against a poorly equiped, but relentless fearless enemy, the Vietcong, supported by Russia and China. Afghanistan may not have the same support as Vietnam, but still enough to get the USA mired in an unwinnable war in 'The Graveyard of Empires'. That poorly equiped farmers with small arms are able to chase out the highly touted and heavily equipped USA forces is testament to the calibre of the Taliban fighters.
Anonymous
The USA's upper hand lies in their airpower coupled with their carpet bombing in wars they fought over the decades. After dropping all those bombs would they have the courage to set foot on the ground.
ReplyDeleteToday, air power is not the sole monopoly of the USA. Russia has similar or even better equiped fighter jets and so does China. Moreover, drones and hypersonic missiles are taking over the function of bombings, and even smaller countries have that capability by engaging in drone warfare. Iran, Brazil and Turkey for example are in that category of countries having highly credible and capable drone manufacturing expertise.
In Vietnam, millions of tons of bombs were dropped on the North Vietnamese fighters. So much so that the Vietcongs came up with the counter of digging tunnels underground to thwart all that bombing. The Vietcongs, farmers, laundrymen and cooks (LOL), were so industrious they dug those tunnels just wide enough to allow smaller Asian bodies to crawl through, but prevented the bigger bodied USA soldiers to enter. So much so that USA soldiers could do little. They often got stucked and became sitting ducks for the Vietcongs inside those tunnels. They had no answer, other than lobbing bombs into those openings which did little harm, as tunnel openings to the surface are numerous and well hidden.
Moreover, fighting a war in the jungles of Vietnam was not in the USA's favour. That was why they resorted to using Agent Orange to get rid of vegetation and food, in the hope of turning the tide of war in their favour. More than 20 million gallons of Agent Orange were sprayed in Vietnam, causing harm to millions of innocent Vietnamese. They later found out that USA veterans who fought in Vietnam were also affected, with birth defects in their offsprings being prevalent. That was Karma, clear and simple. Of course they denied the connection, as otherwise they will have to bear responsibility for what is happening in Vietnam and facing hefty compensations.
Patriotism, sacrifice and tenacity by facing up to initial setbacks against air superiority and military hardware, and later against biological warfare as well, finally paid off for the North Vietnamese. The USA could not secure the ground, regardless of all the advantage they hold, with even half a million troops in Vietnam at one stage.
This is a lesson for them in Ukraine if they should decide to entangle themselves directly in the war. Vietnam was not even close to Russia in military strength and weaponry, although it had all the military support from Russia and China. That was decades ago. Today, Russia is much more advanced in all areas of weaponry and is fighting a war itself.
"More than 20 million gallons of Agent Orange were sprayed in Vietnam, causing harm to millions of innocent Vietnamese. They later found out that USA veterans who fought in Vietnam were also affected, with birth defects in their offsprings being prevalent. That was Karma, clear and simple. Of course they denied the connection, as otherwise they will have to bear responsibility for what is happening in Vietnam and facing hefty compensations."
ReplyDeleteAny connection to why 40% of American young are now LGBTQ?