My main point is that the picture you paint NOW of the Russian Military would've been very different than the picture you would've painted BEFORE of the Russian Military. It's simply Monday morning quarterbacking.

Hmm. If only there had been a previous conflict that pitted Soviet/Russian war doctrine, training and front line combat equipment against the United State's lineup. That might have given us *some* clues. Or maybe we could have seen other examples of Russian hardware quality out there.

Has anything like that happened in the last 30 years? Anything at all?

The real strawman (along with a bunch of other fallacies) is that there's actually somebody in the country who ISN'T a fan of seeing Russians stacked up alongside the road as fast as the Ukrainians can body them up. That's a democrat party trope.

The strategic blunder the democrats would make is to flex all over Putin while ignoring - and if fact, continuing to empower - the real threat in China.