[A4ET8a8uTh0]

"We have all noticed that the Russian military appears far less capable than we thought it was; frankly it seems incapable of even some of the very basic tasks of modern industrial armies engaged in conventional military operations."

I wondered about that. For the record, I have zero evidence of this as reliable records are hard to find in that arena. Chechnya was Russia's bigger conflict and now, unlike Syria and few other spots, Russia's approach resembled anti-terrorist stance ( pop in for a quick action and hold a small group keeping tabs on things ).

The societies that seem to have a handle on this are ones that currently do not have peace ( say Ukraine or Israel, where both deal with an enemy threat on a regular basis ).

"Instead, the new incentive for most countries would be to build a military in a way that aims to minimize the political costs, rather than maximize combat power or even ‘security'."

I am willing to agree on this one. There is a clear weariness in US for giving military even more money. I am seeing something similar in the old country and that is despite Russian aggression aimed at Ukraine.

"Meanwhile, maximizing the army for repression means developing paramilitary internal police forces at scale (Rosgvardiya is an obvious example), which direct resources away from core conventional military; such security-oriented forces aren’t designed for a conventional war and perform poorly at it."

The argument seems valid, but I am not entirely convinced. Secret police is not new to Russia and if any country has their apparatus working, it likely is Russia. If that is the case, it makes it difficult for me to believe that they do not have a working system that recognizes and gives some leeway, like any wars before that, to people doing the actual fighting ( like.. you don't put a front soldier in Gulag just because he openly says Putin is a dick ). That said, the argument does provide an explanation for Russia's failure. I am just not sure I agree though.

"revanchist powers (Israel, Taiwan, Poland, Finland, Ukraine, etc.)"

I found the listing of Poland and Finland interesting, but I am not sure what argument for keeping them on that list is.

" Of course the big unanswered and at the moment unanswerable question is where countries like India or the People’s Republic of China fit."

I am not sure it is unanswerable. Some people have definitely taken a stab at it. Right now, the momentum seems to be generating a new axis with both India and China rising as new powers and flexing their individual muscles ( we hear a lot about China, but that seems like it is mostly, because it is US's current main concern ).

[perardi]

I am willing to agree on this one. There is a clear weariness in US for giving military even more money. I am seeing something similar in the old country and that is despite Russian aggression aimed at Ukraine.

Is there really? There’s some grumbling online, and the recent debt ceiling fight did involve a cap on spending. But they still increased spending, and it’s entirely possible and probable that cap is going to get uncapped in a supplemental, as Republican and Democrats in the Senate are still quite into spending on this.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/mcconnell-says-mil...

The US populace may get grumbly about spending on Ukraine, although realistically most people are just bored and have tuned out that news. But I think there’s about a 0% chance we won’t still increase military spending, especially given even more posturing and escalation about Taiwan.

[A4ET8a8uTh0]

You raise a valid point. There does seem to be an - not completely unexpected - disconnect between average US denizen and established powers ( in this case, an ancient senator ).

<< The US populace may get grumbly about spending on Ukraine, although realistically most people are just bored and have tuned out that news.

I chuckled, because I kinda see that. That said, that boredom will evaporate rather fast when that bored person is asked to pay even more, while given little to no support. And that ask is coming eventually.

US has been running on borrowed time for a while now. It managed to go into serious debt over Afghanistan and Iraq and still pretended it does not actually need to pay for it in terms of taxes. FED also obliged by keeping rates super low to keep the interest payments a non-issue. That is ending based on current trajectory.

As for tuning out, I think you are really onto something. I went out of my way to limit the amount of news I process.

[perardi]

You are vastly overestimating how much the average US citizen thinks about the military at all, except in the vaguest ways related to social signaling about their class.

We basically have a caste system for the military, so outside certain geographic regions and economic classes, military stuff happens [gestures vaguely] over there. People will posture about it, but nah, nobody will actually cut spending, as the military-industrial complex is everywhere, and “cutting military spending” actually becomes “we can’t shut down that base or stop making that engine part, because jobs”.

What will actually happen is superficial cuts to programs that don’t contribute meaningfully to the debt, but are nice culture war targets. Past that, we’ll engage in some gross race and class cuts to Medicaid. But we are not going to cut military spending, because, again, it’s a jobs program that’s protected by a vague sense of patriotic duty.

[anonymouskimmer]

Even on the right there are arguments against military funding boondoggles. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/boondoggles-where-did...

[colonCapitalDee]

The full quote is "they have real security threats from revanchist powers (Israel, Taiwan, Poland, Finland, Ukraine, etc.)". The listed countries aren't revanchist powers, they're under threat from revanchist powers.

[jandrese]

IMHO he is overlooking the most obvious answer to why the Russian military is performing poorly. The one that is backed by historical evidence: widespread corruption rotted the organization from the core. Putin is running his country like the world's largest petro-Mafia, with poor internal controls that allowed for a widespread looting of the state's assets. So when it is time for the institutions to do their job they find that they are a shell of their former self.

India also has major corruption problems that bode ill for it in future conflicts. China is a bit harder to read, sometimes it seems like the party is clamping down on it, but there is always the low level stories of how to deal with a system that is corrupt from top to bottom.

[UncleEntity]

I was watching one of the many videos on the Ukraine war the other day and they were postulating that the different groups were competing for war spoils so both don’t cooperate and actively try to get one of the other groups to weaken the defenses enough (while being destroyed) so they can just roll in and claim whatever is being fought over like a coal mine.

Makes sense as the video was about the Russians sending multiple waves of tanks into a kill zone with no change of tactics and getting completely wiped out every time.

[avgcorrection]

“Postulating” on the propaganda-ridden topic of a major European war isn’t worth much (approximately zero).

[avgcorrection]

Corrupt relative to what? Russia has always been considered corrupt.

- Soviet Union: per definition, at least for ideological reasons

- Post-Soviet Union: Yeltsin, the rise of the oligarchs

[jandrese]

Corrupt relative to democracies, or really just most other countries in the world.

And historically the Russian/Soviet army has always underperformed for its size, their notable successes have generally been due to being able to crush their opponent in sheer mass of conscripted bodies. Cases where having a lot of people don't help, like ships and aircraft, often end in embarrassing defeats against far smaller foes. A good case study here is the Battle of Tsushima.

[avgcorrection]

> Corrupt relative to democracies, or really just most other countries in the world.

I’ll reiterate. You described it as something that Putin caused (in part).

> The one that is backed by historical evidence: widespread corruption rotted the organization from the core. Putin is running his country like the world's largest petro-Mafia, with poor internal controls that allowed for a widespread looting of the state's assets.

But it has always been like that. At least since it was born from the Soviet Union.

But now you change your tune to to it being corrupt “relative to democracies”.

[jandrese]

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make? Putin is corrupt and as a result his military underperforms. Historically the Russian and Soviet systems were rife with both corruption and military losses. This was my original point.

Putin may have inherited a corrupt system, but he certainly didn't do anything to rectify the problem and most likely made it worse.

He is actually very lucky that the world has been relatively peaceful during his reign, it appears an ambitious Japan could have bitten off a chunk of Russia if they wanted to and his military would have been at a disadvantage trying to stop them. Putin also got very lucky that the rest of the world didn't get involved in the invasion of Crimea, but that seems to have made him cocky and now he's tipped his hand and blown his bluff.

[anonymouskimmer]

He mentioned that allowing corruption in a military is a way of preventing military-driven internal coups.