Ukraine, now a war of attrition and creating a hardened military

 ONE YEAR OF WAR AND NOW A HARDENED STANCE BY ALL

RUSSIA RE-MILITARIZING AND THE WEST STRUGGLING TO CONTINUE

In the days of the first gulf war and the invasion of Iraq, many U.S. military strategist welcomed the chance to test new equipment and strategies. While much of the narrative was that Iraq was the largest collection of armored equipment since WW2, the Iraqi strategies were out dated and ended in a quick defeat. Today's Ukraine conflict has offered the Russian military such an opportunity. It has produced a lot of advanced and untested equipment since it began its rearmament after the Ukrainian revolution of 2014. It actually began preparing for conflict as early as 2008 after speeches by western politicians pushing NATO expansion and demonizing of Russia.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, there was a period of serious disarmament in Russia. While it  was in the process of rejecting expansionist communism, it focused on transitioning into a market based economy. The United States had the opportunity of a "Peace dividend" to balance its budget and to focus on other priorities other than military supremacy. The United States actually received many of the Soviet era nuclear warheads and de commissioned them and used the by-products to power nuclear power in the United States, another peace dividend.

While Russia was dismissed as a military adversary, it seems that some believed it was now an opportunity, not for world peace and reconciliation, but for world political domination. This became clear in the early conflicts in the middle east, then the advent of terrorism in response and the escalation into regime change policy in many parts of the world. Russia meanwhile mostly only made complaints and advice against this early strategy. It all changed with talk of NATO expansion to the borders of Russia. It was a fulfilling of the fears of those in Russia who distrusted the idea of reconciliation with the west. It rekindled the fear of western aggression against their country. The interference in the Russian elections and the overthrow and regime change in Ukraine solidified all their fears.

This was followed by action rather than complaints, and Russia began preparing for the what many in Russia believed was a inevitable showdown with the west. 

While Russia had abandoned its policy of Communist  expansion, it did engage in suppressing regime change revolutions on its borders in Chechnya and Georgia, It also came to the rescue of the government of Syria when it was about to be toppled. Other than that it was not involved in  military operations since 1980's Afghanistan.

While Russia began modernizing its equipment for at least 15 years, it has not had the opportunity to test it effectiveness and its military had little experience in actual combat since WW2. It began this conflict believing that Ukraine would negotiate rather than go to all out war and did not have a real long range plan in place. That has now all changed.

It seems that Russia is now convinced that it is in a long term conflict for the actual existence of Russia. While many of our enlightened foreign policy experts still hope for regime change in Russia, believing that this confrontation is a product of Vladimir Putin and if he is removed Russia will collapse.  It is likely that Putin is one of the more pragmatic diplomats on the world stage, any change will not be for a less adversarial Russia.

While Russia is yet to really test many of their newest weapons, it has been perfecting its military strategies. For the present, it has settled on a war of attrition. A slow methodical decimation of the Ukraine military and the destruction of much of the equipment sent by the west. It has now brought 500,000 addition military to the western Russian border and has put its industries into wartime production mode. It seems that the Russia is preparing for an extended all out conflict with NATO.  They may now believe that there will not be any hope of a negotiated settlement.

The west on the other hand is continuing in its strategy of demonizing anything Russian, threatening to take out the leadership of Russia and escalate the sophistication of the weapons sent to Ukraine. A strategy that has been in place for a year and planned for 8 years, that has not produced the desired results. Western European economies are struggling to provide power to their residents and they seem to be running out of weapons. The choice is now, all out NATO intervention or compromise with Russia. A bitter pill for our arrogant genius foreign policy experts who viewed the submission of Russia as their hoped for crown accomplishment.