Observations on Russia's Current Military Readiness

[MineralMan]

Even in the Cold War Era Soviet Union, the cost of maintaining a large military was difficult for the Soviet Union. While it had impressive equipment and armaments, it was difficult for that nation's economy to bear the enormous costs of maintaining all of that and to keep adequate funding for personnel and logistics in a vast military spread across a huge nation.

In those days, I was working in military intelligence, and evidence of those maintenance deficits was obvious to everyone doing analysis of intelligence. Keeping state-of-the-art aircraft and other technology combat-ready is a very, very difficult and expensive thing. The Soviet Union was struggling with that.

I'm no longer working in that field. However, today, Russia's economy is much depleted. That is, no doubt, amplifying the difficulty of keeping military assets in top condition. Further, Russia's reliance on poorly-trained conscript soldiers means that morale, which has always been low in that military, is even worse now. More importantly, though, it is one thing to have equipment in the inventory of your order of battle. It is quite another to have it combat ready at all times.

So, in Ukraine, we have Russian soldiers abandoning poorly-maintained trucks, tanks, etc. We have Russian soldiers, apparently, surrendering and walking away in numbers that might surprise people. Even more notably, we are not seeing Russian planes establishing an overwhelmingly powerful control of Ukrainian airspace. Why? Because every flight puts planes at risk of mechanical malfunctions that must be repaired before the next flight. Maintenance was a problem in the cold war days for the Soviet Air Force. I expect that the situation is much worse now.

What does that all mean? That I don't know. But, those things are in plentiful evidence as Russia attempts to take control of Ukraine. I am not the only one noticing this, either. It is part of the calculus being considered in making decisions about how to respond

[MarineCombatEngineer]

1. My experience working with Russian soldiers in the mid 90's

was that they were undisciplined drunkards who would sell their equipment for drinking money, their equipment was in poor shape and their NCO's were very brutal towards the conscripts.

My thought was that, without their nukes, they were basically a 3rd world power.

[MineralMan]

4. Exactly.

[Ocelot II]

2. Along the same lines:

https://upload.democraticunderground.com/100216432797#post14

[MineralMan]

6. Yes. Thanks for that link. I hadn't seen that post.

[JHB]

3. Not a paper tiger, but perhaps a bear made of cardboard.

[MineralMan]

8. Nicely said!

[Walleye]

5. Interesting. Sounds like Putin is partly delusional and partly bluffing

[MineralMan]

7. Well, he certainly seems delusional.

As for bluffing, that seems to be the order of the day. However, Russia still has its nukes. What condition they are in, I do not know. What their readiness level is I also don't know. But nuclear armaments under the control of a delusional leader are always a matter of high concern, it seems to me.

[Walleye]

9. It seems to me that only a suicidal person considers using nuclear weapons.

So I wonder has he literally decided to die on this hill

[MineralMan]

10. I can't even guess at Putin's thought processes.

I'm sure there are people who are trying to do that, though.

[Walleye]

11. It is scary, at least in Cold War one we knew what they were trying to accomplish

[MineralMan]

14. Yes. However, there are people who do know what we don't.

I presume that President Biden has them available and is listening.

[Walleye]

15. Yes. So we can worry but we have to have a little faith too

[MineralMan]

16. Exactly. There's plenty of reason to worry.

Not much that we can do, individually, to affect those things, though.

[dalton99a]

12. Which explains "My invasion may be going kinda slow, but anyone interferes.. I have NUCLEAR WEAPONS!

[MineralMan]

13. Yes, exactly. That he has already mentioned that

is evidence that things are not going well with his invasion.

That could be aggravated by people (Generals) telling Putin what he wants to hear. His level of frustration is probably growing. What that means, though, I can't even begin to predict. I suspect, though, that few people know him well enough to make a solid prediction. He seems to be someone who isolates himself from the opinions of others.