Is anyone at all worried about Russia retaliating directly against America for all this success? The U.S. media loves gloating about this kind of stuff but it seems gratuitous at best.
It has become clear that Russia had no capacity to wage war in Ukraine and take on anyone else in a meaningful way. As long as pot boils, but doesn’t spill over the USA will be able to continue to slowly increase its support.
> As long as pot boils, but doesn’t spill over the USA will be able to continue to slowly increase its support.
Also noteworthy is the fact that the support from US in particular and NATO in general has been decades-old and potentially decommissioned hardware that was either mothballed or phased out, and the overall investment, with regards to each nation's budget, amounts to pocket change.
>Is anyone at all worried about Russia retaliating directly against America for all this success?
No.
Direct retaliation would mean the end of the Putin regime.
Total financial aid to Ukraine from the US over the last 21 months has amounted to $77 billion so far. About $30 billion or so more has been appropriated but has not been spent yet.
That is a lot of money, but the amount spent so far is only ~0.3% of the US's GDP and ~5.4% of its annual Federal Budget-- spread out over nearly 2 years.
With that, and contributions from other allies roughly doubling that total, Ukraine has fought Russia to a standstill and is very slowly gaining ground.
Any direct conventional retaliation against the United States would bring to bear a much, much, larger percentage of its resources and very likely result in the complete annihilation of any involved forces. Russian forces are very poorly equipped, trained, and led which means there have been single weeks (particularly the last several weeks) in the War in Ukraine where more Russian losses occurred than occurred in total over 20 years of US involvement in the Global War on Terror.
So that leaves a nuclear response.
A nuclear response would end in the annihilation of Russia itself. The Putin regime seems very interested in self-preservation.
That leaves indirect proxy responses. Historically, proxy wars against the United States have not ended well for either the proxy or the supporter of the proxy.
Even proxies who "win" are often damaged to the point of ruin, taking decades to recover.
Also very important is that the vast majority of military aid to Ukraine involves decades old technology the U.S. would never use.
If anything, some of these will end up saving the U.S. money because maintenance and eventual disposal would have been far more expensive than shipping it to Ukraine.
> Total financial aid to Ukraine from the US over the last 21 months has amounted to $77 billion so far.
To put that in more direct terms: that's $77 billion over 21 months, spread across around 168 million US taxpayers. That comes out to $21.83/month per taxpayer.
A great deal of what you said is true, and it changes nothing about the fact that a giving a single digit percentage of NATO's total annual defense spending to Ukraine has stopped Russia's advance and crippled their ability to wage modern war while leaving NATO's ability completely intact.
What would 10% do? 50%?
I don't know if Syria is a good example to give of arrogance leading to an impending downfall.
* A force of about 1,000 US personnel at al-Tanf garrison has supported anti-regime fighters and effectively denied half of the country to the Syrian regime and Russia. A similarly small Turkish force has done the same in the north.
* The only time Russian forces engaged with US forces they were soundly defeated, and that is being extremely polite.
* Israel flies over Syria with impunity. For over a decade, Israel, flying US aircraft, has bombed what they want, when they want, and has only lost a single fighter (one F-16, no fatalities) despite thousands of missiles being launched at them.
* The only time NATO and Russian aircraft engaged each other, the Russian aircraft was shot down. The Russian aircraft failed to detect the radar lock of the Turkish F-16 and then failed to detect the incoming missile, leading to its destruction. Then one of the rescue helicopters was destroyed. It should be noted that the Turkish F-16 is a much less capable aircraft than what would make up the bulk of the US force in a US-Russia conflict.
* The United States routinely operates two aircraft carriers in the region. The Russians cannot successfully deploy even one. Right now the Ford is there and the Eisenhower is on its way.
* Someone, either Syria or Iran, keeps shooting rockets and launching kamikaze drones at al-Tanf garrison and they all keep getting shot down. The only casualty so far has been a civilian contractor who had a heart attack while running to a shelter.
The US presence in Syria is so small that it doesn't even register in the national consciousness as being an ongoing event.
Also, the USS Carney-- a lone US destroyer, shot down 19 Yemeni (and therefore, Iranian) drones and cruise missiles last week over a nine hour period. Russian air defenses cannot reliably stop western cruise missiles. I work in synthetic aperture radar development and I can assure you that the USS Carney's radar systems are very good but are already a decade out of date and the new systems coming on line are much, much better than Carney's.
I don't think any of that is indicative of arrogance that may lead to a downfall.
Direct retaliation against the US by Russia would see air superiority gained by NATO within 24hrs, followed by decapitation strikes which would see Putin's kleptocracy systematically eliminated.
The US may have domestic issues, but they also have the largest, most capable armed forces that have ever existed in the entirety of human history. If they ever decide to go 'total war' then the target is, in the vernacular, fucked.
Yeah as we have seen in Syria, where Assad is still president, thanks to Russia. The US and its vassals (the bulk of NATO) actually lost the conflict in Syria (and Afghanistan).
Keep in mind that Russia is not alone. There is China, most of the middle eastern countries, many south American countries, some European countries that will stand on Russias side. NATO is a meaningless, empty shell. At his point, they can't even provide enough ammunition to Ukraine. Additional, NATO and the US do not have the military industrial capacity required for an all out war with the BRICS alliance. NATO doesn't have any military combat experience, which the Russians have now. Just think about the experience Russia and China have regarding drone and robotic warfare, neither US nor European armed forces have anything like this at this time.
Who produces all these drones? Right, China. It's all about resources and indrustrial capacity, Russia and China have both, which they can scale massively.
> as we have seen in Syria, where Assad is still president
You’re comparing a proxy war to hypothetical direct action.
> they can't even provide enough ammunition to Ukraine
This is nonsense. Can versus might decide not to, one. And are, moreover.
> Who produces all these drones? Right, China
Russia has no robotic warfare to speak of. Its top-of-the line kit is being reliably shot down by out-of-date NATO fare. (Their hypersonic were taken out by circa 1990 Patriot batteries.)
China has a serious drone repository, but it’s not in play. Instead we’re seeing Iranian drones fight Chinese consumer drones operated by Ukraine, as well as Ukraine’s own drone production ramp up and learn. NATO drones are way too advanced for this battle and not a significant part of what’s being provided to Kyiv.
> NATO drones are way too advanced for this battle and not a significant part of what’s being provided to Kyiv.
I would add that one of the key factors of Russia's complete collapse of its 3-day invasion of Ukraine was Ukraine fielding half dozen export market drones from Turkey built with components designed for the civilian market.
You've got more misinformation and errors there than I have time to correct, but to start with BRICS isn't an "alliance". There are no real security guarantees or mutual defense obligations, not even a written treaty. Of those five countries, Brazil, India, and South Africa have good relations with the USA and lack any real ability to project power much beyond their borders. They certainly won't go to war to protect Russia as they have nothing to gain and much to lose. They might sell some equipment to Russia in exchange for cash or oil but that's as far as they will go.
So many strongly worded accusations, but do we have reality behind them? Of course USA has problems, it's a big system, but how justified are the overall estimations in corruption, downfall, dying, arrogance? Besides, it's not the USA which we're talking about right now.
Are you saying direct retaliation wouldn't mean the end of the Putin regime? It would be better if you'd provide direct arguments pro or contra this position.
> anyone at all worried about Russia retaliating directly against America for all this success?
Cognisant of, yes. Worried, no. For the same reasons we aren’t sending a carrier strike group to bomb Crimea. To the extent there is a media circus in this fight, it’s around pandering to Russian escalation theatre.
I think they are more worried about drawing in the US and NATO, despite their chest puffing, than we are of them. I mean, they are barely passing by as it is.
I'm honestly not sure but I'm also not sure we have ever seen a nuclear power with its back against the wall to this degree have we? I'm not trying to make people worried it's just something I personally worry about.
> (...) I'm also not sure we have ever seen a nuclear power with its back against the wall to this degree have we?
What do you perceive as "this degree"?
I mean, Ukraine's endgame is to free its occupied territories from Russia's occupation. This means that Russia's worst-case outcome is doing yet another goodwill gesture, pack up and leave, and claim they succeeded in whatever was they claimed their goal was.
All the redline arguments regarding NATO expansion and bullshit about protecting Russian speaking segments of the population were already thoroughly discredited and abandoned, and more importantly Putin's regime didn't even objected to them.
In the meantime, Putin's regime seems to have its populace under tight control to the point they have pundits openly calling out in Russia's own mass media for the death of any Russian citizen not supporting Putin's regime without causing any backlash.
So where is this existential threat you're talking about?
All the harm that was lingering over Putin's regime was already done. Russia's economy is in shambles, Russia's diplomatic standing ceased to be, Russia switched from a world player to a vassal state of China and Iran, and is already being subservient to North Korea. Russia's arms industry also took a major reputation hit. Russia also lost Europe as a energy cliënt, which was basically it's diplomatic and economic support.
At this point the only options on Russia's table is to either continue following the sunk loss fallacy path, or cutting its losses. Which one is supposed to be the wall?
(Possible) undersea pipeline and undersea cable destruction.
Pushing the limit with attacks near the Polish or Romanian borders.
Aggressive agitation / Agit-Prop efforts in the US. Likely pushing the MAGA GOP Republicans to obstruct obstruct obstruct, and doing things like not confirming high ranking generals.
Efforts via Wagner in Africa, and leaning on Middle Eastern powers to take action as things get hotter w/r/t Israel and Palestine. This has seen attacks on US bases in the Middle East, albeit without tremendous impacts.
Russia can't really take direction action since now Finland is NATO, and there are tons of NATO, to include US, UK, French, Canadian, et al, forces in Poland, the Baltics, and now Finland. Russia has, at best, token forces blocking most of those borders. They still have some gear in reserve in case NATO gets involved -- not a lot of call for AShMs in Ukraine, for example -- but even then there isn't much stopping NATO forces from driving straight into St. Pete's or Pskov.
>
March_f6 5 hours ago | parent | context | flag | on: Ukraine's American Missiles Wrecked 21 Russian Hel...
I'm honestly not sure but I'm also not sure we have ever seen a nuclear power with its back against the wall to this degree have we? I'm not trying to make people worried it's just something I personally worry about.
Nuclear powers (including Russia and the USSR) have lost wars before so I’m not sure how they are backed against a wall.
Second statement does not follow from the first. For all we know those tires are poorly maintained because they spend their limited resources on maintaining their nuclear arsenal.
Either way, you can’t call their bluff without risking nuclear annihilation. All it takes is a few dozen MIRV tipped IC/SL ballistic missiles to bypass anti missile systems and destroy a good chunk of the US population.
Sorry, which part of that 47 pages document debunkes my assertion? I thought you were gonna link me to a video of a Russia nuclear weapon detonating... oh wait that hasn't happened in 70 years...
No it doesn't. The entire document assumes that their nuclear weapons can actually detonated. Let me know if I've missed otherwise. I searched the document and couldn't find any discussion on this point.
Russia is another level compared to India and Pakistan in terms of corruption.
China, maybe. The difference is that Chinese nukes are relatively new. How old are Russia's nukes? 40 years old? 60? You do know that nukes are extremely finicky. Getting a nuke to detonate is a highly precise thing.
I'm okay with risks created by UXO from cluster submunitions in the precision targeting of Russian bases. Such high-risk systems can be used responsibility which is why for calls for outright bans are myopic.
Apparently Russia had 899 military helicopters prior to the start of the invasion, with 134 having been produced in 2021. They claimed they then produced 296 in 2022 after the war ramped up, but claims of substantially increased military production appear to be generally unreliable. Still, being able to take out 7% of annual production for even the most generous estimate in a single strike is nothing to scoff at. And up until July of this year, Russia had lost about 90 helicopters making this single strike a significant portion of their total losses thus far.
Even if the numbers lost aren't on their own crippling, this will also force Russia to either relocate its helicopter forces further from the front lines (reducing the overall utility of its helicopter fleet) or invest substantial resources into better defending its bases in the area (of course coming at the expense of defending other critical locations).
Conversely, the current estimate on total heli fleet losses (including the 21) is 131. This single strike represents a significant chunk of observed/estimated losses to date.
So as some other commentators have pointed out, 21 isn't 'staggering' in the scheme of plausible total fleet size (though we don't know what the mix of models destroyed was was - obviously Ka-52s losses are far more impactful than Mi-8 losses), but the size in a single strike will force adaption.
Finally in absolute terms - 21 is just a big deal period. 21 choppers is on the order of a US army aviation battalion. The most disastrous modern attack helicopter operation by the US Army (the attack on Karbala in 2003) deployed 31 AH-64s, suffered one shoot down, one downing due to equipment failure, and damage on all 29 other airframes (it took about a month for the formation to repair and reconstitute and be able to deploy again). Karbala forced changes to helicopter deployment by the US army, and we'll likely see similar forced adaption by the Russians here.
> we'll likely see similar forced adaption by the Russians here
The Russian army has been strikingly bad at learning. ATACMs’ range is known. That they were being delivered to Ukraine was known. Yet here are closely-spaced places and choppers within firing range.
Same for e.g. doing in-person meetings of senior leaders in Sevastopol, or recapitulating Bakhmut in Avidiivka.
The evidence doesn’t sustain this hypothesis. Within a single command line, lessons are learned. But the effectiveness of tactics moves across the battlefield after demonstrated success is nuts. And senior commanders are dying fast enough that we see reversion time and again.
Russia fights like Syria and other calcified dictatorships more than a modern army.
The important number is the number of Ka-52. Those have been causing trouble for Ukraine offensive since they can launch missiles from longer range. Estimates there are 200 of them. 21 is large percentage of those, and even more of those active in theatre.
