Also, even experience wouldn't necessarily be helpful against the U.S. army in direct combat if it came to that. People sometimes call the U.S. military pampered and oversupplied, but they might forget that, being so often deployed in major operations, it's, aside from being the world's best funded military, also probably one of the world's the most experienced militaries with troops and tactics tested in hard, practical, multifaceted combat.
But if they do win (for the record, I hope they don't), it won't be because they had superior technology. Or superior generals. It won't be because their cause was righteous.
They will have won because they kept piling on with more infantry beyond what anyone would have thought possible.
Denialism's a fucking superpower.
We don't lose lives, we spend money but not enough that we actually feel it, Russia need to concentrate so much on it their ability to act elsewhere is disminished (sure they launch all their triggers/ Houthi, Venezuela, Sub-saharian africa, but it's not 2016 anymore), ...
It's frankly horrible, but every time an ukrainian solider dies to kill two russian soldiers, western countries safety position improves. I'm not saying I agree with that, or think it's good, to be clear. But I think that the west never considered Ukraine in their sphere and the horrors that have happened since 2013 have invariably been in favor of "us" and not russia, and russia is so focused on playing the game the way it was played last century it feels like they missed it.
This is just weird, because Russia is a much weaker country than the US, and many European countries.
Economically, they are tiny. e.g. I just Googled and found this
https://twitter.com/BWJones/status/1568223569947275264?lang=...
It says Russia's economy is smaller than that of California, Texas, and New York. That sounds about right.
(and of course war is mainly an economic contest)
---
They are not a threat to the West. The West is a threat to Russia.
Russia is aggressive and violent because they're in a weak position. They were invaded by Napolean, by Germany in WW I, and by Hitler's Germany in WW II (notably, these are all western powers).
Russia lost ~27,000,000 people in World War II, while the US lost ~400,000.
In the meantime, the US has NEVER had a war on its soil.
---
The US would not accept missiles in Cuba in the 1960's. Would we accept Chinese missiles in Mexico in 2024?
It's not a surprise that they would not accept NATO weapons in Ukraine.
Obviously I'm not condoning the invasion, but I'd also say that old men in the US are playing with the lives of young Ukrainian men.
If the US wanted to end this war, we could do it today by actually winning it with our weapons. Instead we trickle out the bare minimum of weapons, ensuring the war grinds to a stalemate.
---
If I were Zelensky, I wouldn't make myself and my citizens dependent on powers who actually don't want to win the war.
I wouldn't want to be dependent on people like you, who just want to use the lives of my citizens for to gain an inch in an imaginary game that has little consequence for them.
Nothing stops Russia from ceasing warfare and signing a permanent peace (and trade!) agreement with the West. Obviously nobody is invading Russia nor does anyone in Europe have the slightest interest in it. In January 2022 they were still imagining Putin as a partner. They can barely bother to invest in their militaries or Ukraine's even now.
There would never be warfare again at that latitude from the Atlantic to the Pacific - and back again, all the way around the planet. Russians would be far better off, living in peace for generations to come. But Putin wants an empire.
Russians like to call Moscow the third Rome and their leaders don't care about losses.