Ukraine is now drafting old men.

Ukraine doesn’t have 350 million citizens and the world’s 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 7th largest air forces, ten times more aircraft carriers than the next country, the worlds most effective military training, and a total military budget of more than the next 15 or 20 countries. If we sent troops to Ukraine, Russia would be out within weeks, and we’d have less casualties than Iraq and Afghanistan, assuming Putin didn’t start nuking.

They probably said the same in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. "Merely weeks until victory." And as percentage of GDP, military spending was even higher back then: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/USA/uni...

You just have to cut the Russian supply lines, the situations are completely different.

Just bomb the Ho Chi Minh trail through Cambodia, then the North will capitulate.

In your comparison, is Viet Cong Ukraine or Russia??

Erm, probably neither? I don’t know a ton about pro-Russian partisan guerrilla actions.

"If we sent troops to Ukraine, Russia would be out within weeks, and we’d have less casualties than Iraq and Afghanistan, assuming Putin didn’t start nuking."

Big assumption. Other options are also North Korea sending troops. Or Iran. Or while the US engages there, China uses the opportunity to take Taiwan. Geopolitics is complicated. No one wants a nuclear war, but at some point there is no more rationality, when a side feels pushed over the limit.

the US can fight three peer wars at the same time. that's their military doctrine.

I really do not want to see how all of this plays out, but I believe China has also quite some manpower and their military capabilities are not exactly known. The outcome will likely depend, how the rest of the world reacts. And if there are nukes.

*could. It seems to have lost the appetite recently, and bankrupted itself with the twenty year war on terror against itself, which it lost.

>US can fight three peer

That's never been doctorine for the simple reason US hasn't had (near) peer rivals until PRC in last 30 years. Peak hyperpower US 90s doctorine was calibrated for 2 "major" wars, when major is with adversaries who were frankly all medium powers (IRAQ tier). Then in 00s-10s it shifted to 1 "major" war, 1 holding war, i.e. actively fight 1 major war, fix another major war in place so resources can shift to second war after active war. Now half the think tank writing is questioning if US can win in PRC backyard, where PRC is characterized either as near peer, pacing power, or peer. US doctorine right now is maybe can deter PRC until post 2030s "decade of concern" but right now US IndoPac posture in PRC backyard a tossup.

I think they now have 3 carrier groups out in the world at the same time. each of these is basically enough to best a foreign military excluding nukes.

Gulf war against 90s Iraq with 20m people and ~800 1960s missiles (scud Bs) required 5 carrier groups + regional air basing for air campaign, completely compromised Anti Air (by french who designed Iraq IADS and gave schematics to US). Relative to modern Iran with 80m people and 4x more missiles with 2000s rocketry tech, much more favourable geography (facing water), 1990s Iraq/Gulf War would not even measure up as a medium power / major war. One (1) carrier with 150/270 (short term surge) sorties per day is not remotely enough against a medium power. Can US surge 6-7 carriers + forward deploy air force with advanced notice to tackle Iran, yeah, but it wouldn't leave much left for anything else. CVN69 isn't exactly defeating the houthis right now. That's the numbers behind why US doctorine downgraded to 1 major war + 1 holding war (with medium/small adverary), while near/peer war with PRC is currently a toss up.

I haven't checked their current age limit but I bet it makes me feel old.

Age limit is unchanged. You can only serve between ages of 18 and 60.

There’s a few anomalies where old dudes are sticking around voluntarily.

Also worth noting that a lot of the videos posted claiming to be “people being drafted” are actually videos of the police just arresting criminals…

If Ukraine needs to draft people at all, they should just surrender. If they can't maintain the manpower they need just with volounteers, then clearly the population has "voted" that they'd rather not fight.