Ukraine in Full Retreat

With the Ukrainians in full retreat along a broad front I thought it would be good to reflect on how we Westerners are all bite and no bark. A friend on X, Armchair Warlord, put this up today:

So a large part of the stated justification for NATO supporting Ukraine is the supposed belief that "the West is next" - that Ukraine is merely the first domino to fall in a new Russian march to Berlin.

Ah! Domino theory. We're back in the 60s again, thats why Japan is barely holding out as all the Asian Tigers fell to Communism.

Over the last two years, Western nations - in particular European nations - have done little to nothing to actually prepare for war with Russia. By and large they have all happily handed over their existing, modest stocks of military equipment and ammunition to Ukraine with no serious replacement plans, let alone genuine rearmament plans. Just to provide an example: with the sole exception of Poland, I don't think any member of NATO - including the United States - has actually taken delivery of a single new tank on account of the war in the last two years.

For all of the UK's rhetoric they passed defense budgets that cut their miniscule army by another ten thousand troops. Really these people think we're idiots.

Military innovation in NATO has stagnated, with professional Western soldiers seeming to take little interest in battlefield developments. Ukrainian soldiers trained in Europe have complained that Western tactical methods are old-fashioned and unrealistic on the modern battlefield, even to the point of mockery. The "just go around the minefield" remark of a Bundeswehr instructor comes to mind.

The Russians minefield is only 1,300 km long.

On the personnel side of the house, only known military titans (sarcasm) Denmark, Lithuania and Latvia have bolstered conscription efforts. The British military has shrunk significantly, mirroring a similar decline in American force strength. None of this is treated as the dire emergency that it would be if NATO actually intended to be ready for war with the Russian Federation in 2025.

I have interviewed Postmodern Hopelite who said he would not want his sons to join the Army. He is a bird colonel. The fact is having talked to many veterans of the War on Terror, our governments have treated them terribly. Listen to the Commentary podcast sometime.. They are exactly the types of people I'm talking about. Happy to send boys off to die from red states, as long as they never have to sacrifice anything themselves.

So what are we to make of this? It's possible that NATO's brain trust is absolutely marinating in hubris ("the Russians suck, we can take them easily"), but in light of articles coming out that the Bundeswehr has no ammunition at all it's difficult to see Western arrogance stretching that far. I think it's far more likely that Western leaders - contrary to their public statements - do not believe Putin has any designs at all on NATO territory.

Why cant it be both? Hubris and reality.

And it's important to underline this last point. This isn't, "Putin has been deterred" because they're not deterring anyone. Once Ukraine falls over Europe is going to be a military basket case protected almost entirely by the dubious prospect of American nuclear attacks. It's "Putin isn't going to move regardless of the balance of forces."

I'm going to hit you with a fact thats going to piss off a lot of people.

Which then begs the question of why the hell, exactly, the collective leaders of the West have gone all in on a Russian-killing project in Ukraine when they seem to have a bone-deep confidence that Putin isn't actually a threat to them.

Racism. Clean cut good old fashioned Racism.

The only other time I have seen people behave about the Russians is when I have seen slave owning Confederacy whites talking about their black slaves. Since the Russians invaded Ukraine I have seen too many posts written on this website that could have been written by Leonardo Di Capprios character in Django Unchained.

This blind racial hatred of Russia has led to our clear underestimation of their capabilities and to frankly our losing the war.