They need to frame this in the context of the propaganda they've been feeding people for the past two years about Russia being decimated on the battlefield. Otherwise, they just have to straight up come out and say they were lying this whole time.
no, they mean they did everything they could to destroy the country and its people and turn it into a gas station colony and would you look it, they're back after a few decades of krokodil.
of course, the russia that's back is a twisted shadow of its former self
By foul craft, Putin has crossed Orc with Goblin Men. He is breeding an army in the caverns of Kremlin. An army that can move in sunlight and cover great distance at speed.
To be fair, it's a proxy war between NATO and Russia, and a lot of people did think that NATO was stronger militarily and economically because they didn't understand the difference between financial and industrial economy.
No, no, you see it's totally realistic to expect a highly industrialized country with vast domestic natural resources and a land border with a friendly manufacturing powerhouse and 20+ years of being forced into self-sufficiency by ridiculous NATO sanction temper-tantrums to wither in the face of the military might of a neighboring country with a land border and decades of being gutted by western vulture capitalists and which has had its military training informed by fascists high on their own propaganda supply. That's just common sense.
did anyone think that Ukraine could really stop a country with a population and economy of Russia?
Libs apparently. After decades of getting brains washed with narratives about "Asiatic zerg hordes" suicidally rushing into machine guns killzones and "economy the size of Italy" vs what they know well is entire economic power of NATO.
Ukraine is backed by the worst empire in the world with the most expensive military-industrial complex on the planet, and it's also not like there haven't been recent cases of the weaker side winning a war. I don't think that either of the possibilities should have been dismissed as completely improbable.
Hometown of Williamsburg Va, college at William and Mary, and a Petagon reporter? The guy that wrote this has likely never spoken to a human being not directly affiliated with the US Military Industrial Complex.
While it would make military sense for a state like West Virginia or Arizona (next to very expensive but vital states, lots of space, far enough from coastal attack) to be the main base for any of these companies, the logistics planning of these companies are meticulously stretched out so that essentially every congressperson is at risk of losing votes if they vote for any sort of cuts to the MIC.
This is part of why things are so expensive. Northrop Grumman engineers on Long Island have to travel to Fairfax VA for meetings, and then go to Palmdale CA to see what they are building in person.
Sitting in the British Embassy, Radakin said it would probably take about a decade for Russia to seriously threaten NATO again. Despite Russia’s refreshed troop levels, its invasion of Ukraine will eventually collapse, though he would not guess at that timeline.
I also love how their conclusion basically contradicts the whole thesis of the article. They go on detailing how western analysts were basically wrong about everything, and how Russian production is ramping up. Then they throw in the cope that Russia can't keep this up forever, but they never discuss the key question of whether the west or Russia can keep it up longer.
"That Hitler guy threatened to bomb Israel so we stormed the beaches, marched to Berlin and Hitler killed himself because he was scared of the U S Marines and capitalism. I have a degree in World History from Prager University."