Russian Way is imperceptible to most Western experts because they never lived in USSR. They don’t know how corrupt & in shambles the system actually was. As a result “Russia is very strong and powerful” is a stereotype that just refuses to die.
A look at the battlefield:
Russian army is undertrained, attacking civilians for shock & terror
Gains at the start of the war were made by using large quantity of weapons & people, but those were lacking in quality. And now the quantity is also lacking
Crimean bridge and air base attacks are a case of “Emperor has no clothes” regarding conventional Russian defence
A look at the internal situation in Russia:
Warlords (Prygozhin and Kadyrov) preparing to take over if Putin slips
FSB and MoD internal quarrels
absolutely massive emigration of young Russians (> 500 thousands already left)
children of Russian elites (IIRC Putin & Lavrov too) enjoying their carefree lives in EU and US
incompetence (which you highlighted) in aerospace / military sector:
failures of legacy products like Soyuz or Proton
uselessness of recently developed products (Armata)
ammunition stored in conditions that increase the probability of failure
inventory numbers exaggerated because corruption and black market sales
My opinion: Metaculus is better gauge of nuclear danger than the OP post, people did a good job there predicting that the the war will start in February 2022.
Max’s post is still too emotional and his probabilities are mostly influenced by that
Unfortunately, the weaknesses of modern Russia, especially with regard to conventional warfare, work to increase the chance of nuclear weapons use as an ultima ratio. And the scenario of triggering first against Ukraine almost automatically involves the following triggering against NATO.
Russian Way is imperceptible to most Western experts because they never lived in USSR. They don’t know how corrupt & in shambles the system actually was. As a result “Russia is very strong and powerful” is a stereotype that just refuses to die.
A look at the battlefield:
Russian army is undertrained, attacking civilians for shock & terror
Gains at the start of the war were made by using large quantity of weapons & people, but those were lacking in quality. And now the quantity is also lacking
Crimean bridge and air base attacks are a case of “Emperor has no clothes” regarding conventional Russian defence
A look at the internal situation in Russia:
Warlords (Prygozhin and Kadyrov) preparing to take over if Putin slips
FSB and MoD internal quarrels
absolutely massive emigration of young Russians (> 500 thousands already left)
children of Russian elites (IIRC Putin & Lavrov too) enjoying their carefree lives in EU and US
incompetence (which you highlighted) in aerospace / military sector:
failures of legacy products like Soyuz or Proton
uselessness of recently developed products (Armata)
ammunition stored in conditions that increase the probability of failure
inventory numbers exaggerated because corruption and black market sales
My opinion: Metaculus is better gauge of nuclear danger than the OP post, people did a good job there predicting that the the war will start in February 2022.
Max’s post is still too emotional and his probabilities are mostly influenced by that
Unfortunately, the weaknesses of modern Russia, especially with regard to conventional warfare, work to increase the chance of nuclear weapons use as an ultima ratio. And the scenario of triggering first against Ukraine almost automatically involves the following triggering against NATO.