YouTube has brought me some fascinating briefings on the Russian military and what might happen in a Ukraine invasion. Let me quickly summarize some things that I learned. The Russian Air Force looks good on paper but is vastly inferior to the US Air Force, US Navy air arm, and the U.S. Marine Corps air arm. Once anti-aircraft systems were disabled and a few air battles fought, the US would have air superiority in Ukraine. This could lead to the devastation of Russian ground forces. The Russian army is the equal of the US Army with poorer logistics, helicopter transportation, etc. The Russian Navy is inferior to the US Navy. The Russian Naval Infantry is inferior to the US Marine Corps. The two country's nuclear arsenals are equal.
Two good war games were presented. Neither considered a major US air
presence. Elena made the comment here:
"We would find ourselves in a shooting war with Russia."
It is hard to gauge the political will
of the US going forward. We might see limited air operations. It is hard to
imagine massive air operations that would be needed to deliver "a
knock-out blow" to Russian ground forces.
Here are some great links as follows:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNIU6TRsRzk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9c_HhpvBpg
There is a warning that the invasion would lead to Russia's economy
suffering a 30% contraction. The excellent point was also made that China
opposes such an invasion by Russia. No mention was made about the possibility
of some insurgent group destroying a lot of the pipeline that takes natural gas
from Russia to Germany passing through Ukraine. The US needs to be working
overtime to find Germany an alternate source of natural gas. In none of the
contingency plans was any mention of nuclear weapons being employed.
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