[ericmay]

I’d say western militaries will avoid extreme casualties if they can, but read a bit about the Second Battle of Faluja - the U.S. for example has no problem sending troops into hardcore combat.

In fact, I would argue that the U.S., U.K., Israel, and now Ukraine and Russia are the only countries today that have demonstrated the capability to engage in extremely fierce fighting.

We’ve also become a lot better at keeping troops alive, which I wouldn’t mistake for a reluctance to engage in heavy fighting.

It’s important to remember, and Russia in particular has learned this lesson again most recently, that you need to exercise your military to work out cobwebs and operational problems, and while you can conduct training exercises, nothing resembles the experience from fighting a war. The number of countries with this institutional knowledge and experience continues to dwindle.

[red-iron-pine]

> I’d say western militaries will avoid extreme casualties if they can, but read a bit about the Second Battle of Faluja - the U.S. for example has no problem sending troops into hardcore combat.

I took part in Op Phantom Fury in a support role -- that was 20 years ago next month. And while that was real, intense combat, and several units got mauled, the total casualties on the US side were ~700. That's big for Iraq, and at the time, staggering. I donated a pint and a half of O-, more than I probably should have, because there were a lot of wounded coming in.

At the time we estimated as high as 5000 enemy combatants, and there were ~3000 killed or captured.

But compared to modern peer-vs-peer fights, that's rookie numbers. The Russians were taking ~1500 casualties a day during hard frights in Bakhmut; the Ukranians less, but probably on par with Fallujah coalition casualties.

> In fact, I would argue that the U.S., U.K., Israel, and now Ukraine and Russia are the only countries today that have demonstrated the capability to engage in extremely fierce fighting.

The US (and to some degree NATO) has the capacity, but 20 years of middle east fighting that produced nothing of value have removed the tolerance for more unneeded military adventures. Plus Iraq/AFG didn't send home 10000+ casualties a month. Serious, hardcore combat with commensurate casualties would not sell with the US public, and a large part of Russian / Iranian / Israeli / Chinese, et al politics are based around that perception.

[ericmay]

They're rookie numbers compared to peer-to-peer combat which was last seen in World War II and arguably today in Ukraine, but my point was that the United States and at least some western countries are very much willing to engage in that intense form of combat that the OP suggested that they weren't willing to engage in. Not just the Second Battle of Faluja, but also various engagements in Afghanistan to root out the Taliban.

To your point, I don't disagree that serious, hardcore combat with huge casualties wouldn't set well with the American public, but I would suggest that you're basing that hypothesis on how we reacted to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and as such it's not really comparable because a war with, let's say China, is going to elicit a different response altogether.

Even so, we spent how long in Afghanistan? How long in Iraq? We were kicking in doors still even with a population that thought "what's the point of this?" for a decade +. Imagine if a real war kicks off - I'm not so sure we would be hesitant to fight if there were serious issues at stake.

Thanks for your service too. I was also in a support role during OIF. Thankfully it was rather uneventful for me personally.

[dgoldstein0]

Russia has the added, common problem for autocracies that they are heavily disincentivized from telling Putin the truth - it was far better to hide the problems, and be rewarded for doing a good job. At least until the war started.