Head of Ukraine’s national foreign intelligence service – “We have studied…the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy. We are aware of Russia’s long-term plans…at least until 2030.”
  • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    5 months ago

    Unfortunate slight difference, The US was unwilling to go full scorched earth, the potential effect of the US bomber fleet using just conventional munitions was described as having the potential to do almost as much devastation as a nuclear strike, despite the warcrimes the US still held back. I doubt Putin would bat an eye at such a policy we’re simply fortunate the russian military simply isn’t capable of that kind of attack.

    • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      4·
      5 months ago

      The US was unwilling to go full scorched earth, the potential effect of the US bomber fleet using just conventional munitions was described as having the potential to do almost as much devastation as a nuclear strike, despite the warcrimes the US still held back.

      Look I want to live in a universe with a version of the US without Henry Kissinger too, but this just doesn’t seem like an honest view of the history here.

      I don’t understand in what sense the U.S. held back from bombing. Fuck, one of the major criticisms of U.S. military strategy in the Vietnam war was the idea that if they just bombed them hard enough, over and over and over again carpet bombing with B-52s loaded to the brim with conventional bombs, than that would magically win the war all by itself.

      Along the way, Rolling Thunder also fell prey to the same dysfunctional managerial attitudes as did the rest of the American military effort in Southeast Asia. The process of the campaign became an end unto itself, with sortie generation as the standard by which progress was measured.[129] Sortie rates and the number of bombs dropped, however, equaled efficiency, not effectiveness.[130]

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rolling_Thunder

      https://renewvn.org/the-most-bombed-place-on-earth/

      https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/2eae918ca40a4bd7a55390bba4735cdb#%3A~%3Atext=Between+1965+and+1975%2C+the%2Caerial+bombardment+in+human+history.

      https://www.maginternational.org/what-we-do/where-we-work/laos/

      To be clear, I don’t think this makes the illegal Russian invasion and war in Ukraine okay. I am against the war and support arming Ukrainians, fuck Putin, but I think it is important to be realistic about things as we discuss this. I am not even sure the Russian military could even approach a conventional bombing campaign on the same scale, I certainly don’t think they could do it without getting absolutely chewed up by AA since most of the munitions would have to be likely delivered by ground attack aircraft like the su-25 or even more vulnerable strategic bombers.

      A bombing campaign of that size is essentially impossible to do in a near peer conflict like the war in Ukraine which is an environment where both sides have extensive missiles armaments, radar and electronic warfare capabilities.