It is if American military exceptionalism is treated as an article of faith, which it was, so here we are.
Scaling up industrial production was never treated as a serious problem and still isnt because all you need, apparently, as OP said, is political will.
Putin made a bet on American and western hubris and it seems to have paid off.
I'm not sure the bet paid off much either - Russia is way down in money, human lives, global reputation, military equipment and so forth. And I doubt the war will develop much in Russia's favour going forward. You can get so far by say we're your friend, we won't attack to peaceful people and then hitting them when their guard is down but they wise up.
This was seemingly in an attempt to provide a diplomatic off ramp where everybody could pretend that they didnt back down in the face of a naked threat of force.
America and Ukraine both rejected the 3 point ultimatum though - basically saying "bring it on".
Since then the deal offered by Russia has worsened relative to Ukraine's steadily declining negotiating leverage.
>I'm not sure the bet paid off much either - Russia is way down in money, human lives
They have a casualty exchange ratio of 44:1 at this point. This is why Europe is in a bit of a collective panic and Trump is flailing around trying to make a deal.
None of that would be happening if the original plan of "levy a crushing defeat" was working out.
So yes, the bet is paying off.
>And I doubt the war will develop much in Russia's favour going forward
In that case events of the next year will probably shock you.
I'm not sure how you figure there was an 'original plan of "levy a crushing defeat"' - don't know how that would have worked with zero NATO troops and minimal assistance to Ukraine. I think it was more hoping Russia would behave like a normal civilised country and not murder their peaceful neighbours. That one obviously didn't pan out but you can't win them all.
>I think it was more hoping Russia would behave like a normal civilised country
Theyre acting like the countries who are currently supporting a Nazi-level genocide were trying to set up a string of offensive military bases along their most vulnerable border.
This is why they were only sanctioned by western countries. The global south that faced the full brunt of western colonialism is better able to appreciate how unpredictable and threatening we actually are.
Dude stop smoking Russia media's shit for breakfast!
Check how many tanks, IFV and fighter jets the European countries have, and how many we sent to Ukraine. We are talking about a few percent here !
> European capitals are stripped bare of air defense missiles
European capital, like the US, never relied on SAM for air defense. Instead the doctrine is air dominance both offensively or defensively and the VKS stands no chance against the combined airforce of all European countries (one could argue that they are no match against a single big European nation on their own).
In fact, in case of an air attack F35 operators would hunt VKS bombers over Russian soil so even the pathetic “standoff munitions only” tactics the VKS has been conducting for the past three years over Ukraine wouldn't work against European capitals.
> The global south that faced the full brunt of western colonialism
They are also well aware that Russia has always been a member of the “western colonialist club”, As the Chinese gently reminded them by starting to call Vladivostok Haishenwai again.
I was going to say that you're drinking Russia propaganda out of the fire hose then I saw that:
> They have a casualty exchange ratio of 44:1 at this point
What the heck are you talking about, even Russian MoD communication isn't as ridiculous.
How do you think a country of 32 million inhabitants count withstand for three years against a country of 150M with such a grotesque figure (that's the kind of ratio you'd only see in colonial wars in the XIXth century).
> So yes, the bet is paying off.
Putin has reinforced his internal power, so yes the bet is paying off, that was the only real goal from the start. After all war is just the continuation of internal politics through other means.
It's all a matter of investment in industrial capacities, especially for mundane early-twentieth century technology like 155mm shells.
It's not inevitable that North Korea is able to supply more shells than any individual NATO member, you know.