No. of Recommendations: 11
That's exactly backwards. There are more Russians than Ukrainians, and Putin has zero qualms about throwing more people away.
This is not a war that's going to be won by having the bigger army; else, Putin would have already won. Ukraine's got more than enough people to hold their position, as long as they have the material and equipment and munitions to back that up. Meanwhile, Russia's economy isn't nearly big enough to handle the resources that it has to keep throwing into the war. They're not going to run out of dudes, but they will eventually run out of money and materiel.
I'll ask again: Are you willing to commit NATO to the fight? Otherwise the "combined power" statement means very little.
We've already committed NATO to the fight - those are all of our tanks and bullets and guns that Ukraine is using. Did you think "military" means only "soldiers" in this day and age? The military power of NATO also (and arguably primarily) consists of the massive economic and industrial prowess that it can apply to supplying weapons, munitions, and technology to the battlefield. Russia can't compete with that. If Ukraine was on its own, Russia would have conquered them in the space of months - because they've had the combined might of all of NATO backing them up, they've fought Russia to a standstill for more than three years. So when you write:
The reason they still have an Air Force at all is because of us.
...yes, exactly! That's the point! This is real life, and Ukraine doesn't have to "win fair" by doing everything with only their own resources. Ukraine's Air Force doesn't "not count" just because it was given to them by us. Putin can't sulk and say that it's not fair that the West is helping Ukraine, that he could have beaten Ukraine if the West hadn't cheated and helped them.
Ukraine still has an Air Force, and it doesn't matter that it's because of us. And that's what I was talking about above - not only do they have an Air Force because of us, they will never not have an Air Force no matter what Russia does - because their Air Force is coming from outside the country, from NATO, and no matter what Russia does within the territorial confines of Ukraine they can't stop the planes from being made and supplied from NATO factories.
Your statement is false in that Putin doesn't need to conquer the entire country to "win". A "win" is keeping what he has. He's well on the path to doing that.
No, he's not. He can't keep what he has unless he keeps massive amounts of military resources committed to the field, which resources are continuously being destroyed. Ukraine can replenish their military resources with ease, because they're backed up by a collective industrial economy that's about 40x larger than Russia.
You and 1pg seem to be under the impression that the Russians are going to sit around and allow an Iraq-style insurgency to spring up.
What are you talking about? There's no future tense here - there's no "allow," and it's not going to be an Iraq-style counter. Neither of us is referring to a domestic insurgency in the future - we're talking about the existing armed resistance to Russian occupation, which in this case consists of an actual military fighting force. Russia can't hold their territory unless they continuously fight Ukrainian Army. The Ukrainian Army is the Wolverines - not some future resistance force, the resistance force that Russia has been unable to defeat or even move very far for three years now.
Russia's been fighting for three years and they haven't even got to the point in the process where they have to deal with an insurgency. They're still unable to beat the actual army.
