The_Capt

“More than two-thirds of the Russian tanks that Ukraine’s military has destroyed in recent months have been taken out using first-person-view (FPV) drones, a NATO official told Foreign Policy, an increasing sign of Kyiv’s reliance on the unpiloted aircraft as it awaits more artillery ammunition from the United States and other Western countries. “
https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/04/09/drones-russia-tanks-ukraine-war-fpv-artillery/#:~:text=More than two-thirds of,ammunition from the United States
 


https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2024/04/24/why-is-russia-losing-the-fpv-drone-war/?sh=4f97658572dc
 
https://en.defence-ua.com/analysis/detailed_fpv_drone_usage_statistics_show_russias_starting_to_outpace_ukraine-9361.html
At some point we have to simply admit that this is not social media bias.  These are some big numbers being tossed around that match what we are seeing.  So either this is a really big misread or something else is going on.
 
 

I really need to see some evidence of infantry saying they “prefer artillery to tank fire.”  That sounds very anecdotal.  Given the levels of artillery fire in some sectors I would argue far more infantry have never even seen a tank in this war but just about everyone has come under artillery fire.  Artillery fire does not give you as much warning as Hollywood would portray.  Single salvos do give a second or two but the ripping sound gets lost pretty fast when a continuous bombardment kicks in.  Artillery also has a grinding effect over hours, days weeks.  You lose sleep, never given time to recover…it is what they mean by shell shock.
I have never been under tank fire.  I am sure it is terrifying and has a very personal feel.  But so does any direct fire (which I have familiarity with).  Someone trying to kill you with an HMG is not particularly easier.  I am sure a 30mm coming at me would give the same effect.  But right now Russian soldiers are terrified of FPVs and it would appear that UA armor are feeling the same way:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/29/europe/ukraine-war-us-tanks-intl/index.html
Finally, FPVs don’t need speed, they have persistence.  They are already on top of targets, all the time. They keep piling on until an area is denied.  But hey, this thing may be leaning but perhaps we simply need to wait and see. I suspect 2024 will be the year of the FPV and unmanned, in many ways it already it is. But what will 2025 hold?  Hopefully and end to this thing but we may see more developments.  I am not betting beer money on heavy mech making a come back but let’s wait and see.
Edit: just found this one, there is a lot out there on this.  Pretty good basic explainer. https://www.reuters.com/graphics/UKRAINE-CRISIS/DRONES/dwpkeyjwkpm/
 
 

??  Which one?  The first was over 100 pages long before annexes.
I want it put in a wine cellar so that I may drink quality in peace before I fade into the dark.
Come back in a decade or two.  The problem with generations older than us is that they are trying very hard to forget/erase their mistakes. And the one behind us have not made any that they can see yet.  We do not have either luxury.

Unsurprising.  For the record I am a Gen X, caught between two overly entitled and self-righteous generations - one we are putting into homes, the other through university.
We have tolerated breaches of "non-aggression and potential genocide" before (see Rawanda, Yugoslavia, Syria and Sudan), so before one climbs on the soapbox, check your history books. 
You are free to hold onto your position all you like, but do not come in here and "missionary" someone who has been playing these games a lot longer and a lot closer to the heat that you ever will.  I am as free as you are to cast cautious eyes on Ukraine for every reason we did not pull them into NATO before 2022.  On this thread alone I have seen: antisemitism, xenophobic anti-immigration, continual western shaming, possible violations of LOAC, reckless targeting and reports of corruption. 
Ukraine is a nation worth fighting for and supporting, but high minded principles will only carry so far.  Our interest align..to a point. And always keep an eye on partners and never pretend that they are just like us in every way.

“More than two-thirds of the Russian tanks that Ukraine’s military has destroyed in recent months have been taken out using first-person-view (FPV) drones, a NATO official told Foreign Policy, an increasing sign of Kyiv’s reliance on the unpiloted aircraft as it awaits more artillery ammunition from the United States and other Western countries. “
https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/04/09/drones-russia-tanks-ukraine-war-fpv-artillery/#:~:text=More than two-thirds of,ammunition from the United States
 


https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2024/04/24/why-is-russia-losing-the-fpv-drone-war/?sh=4f97658572dc
 
https://en.defence-ua.com/analysis/detailed_fpv_drone_usage_statistics_show_russias_starting_to_outpace_ukraine-9361.html
At some point we have to simply admit that this is not social media bias.  These are some big numbers being tossed around that match what we are seeing.  So either this is a really big misread or something else is going on.
 
 

Here is the thing though, it was noted well before the 2024 FPV scourge that tanks were becoming unsuitable for their primary role.  The evidence is all over Ukraine.  We noted the lack of performance from armor going back to 2022.  In reality it was a combination of factors - ISR, Artillery, ATGMs, mines and UAS.  Once AirPower was essentially denied and the Wild West below 2000 feet broke out, the tank became hunted out of its ability to be a pillar within a combined arms context.  
We have seen far too much evidence to support this, and not just edited war porn.  RUSI and CSIS reports have noted a lot of strange behaviours on both sides with respect to armor.  The easy button excuse has been “well that is Soviet legacy - they don’t know how to do combined arms”.  That does not even make sense as the Soviets knew combined arms very well.  They just went about it differently. Further it stretches credibility to argue that both sides after two years have somehow been unable to solve for Cbt Team/Battlegroup operations.  Something else is clearly going on.  We have seen reports of Russian concentration being picked up and hammered well before they can even get into direct fire ranges.  Both sides are keeping tanks well back for indirect roles, or sending them forward in ones and twos for sniping. They are doing this not because they have forgotten how to put 12 tanks together, they have done it because putting 12 tanks in the same grid square is asking for 12 tanks to be detected and die.
Now FPVs have arrived in scope and scale and are making things worse.  It has been noted many these crazy little bastards are crippling and mauling at scales that rivalled artillery support - in fact one could make a coherent argument they kept the UA in the game during the Ammunition Famine of  winter spring ‘24.  What your video is showing is not that a T64 got hit by a couple FPVs and survived, it is showing that this strikes were recorded by another drone.  That T64 was fixed by ISR likely well before those FPVs showed up.  So while it shrugged off the two FPVs, it would not shrug off the artillery, ATGMs or more FPVs coming their way because they were spotted and tracked by ISR the whole time.
Finally, and again…this is not all about UAS.  If all we had to worry about were UAS in all there shapes and sizes it would be bad enough.  This is a confluence of C4ISR, PGM and Unmanned - combined with extant forms of fires.  We are living in a Fires dominate age, which like the last one led to Defensive primacy. I personally think we are in Denial primacy but can see Defensive from here. The entire package, particularly C4ISR are what are changing the entire game.  C4ISR means manoeuvre is detected well out and engaged starting at around 20kms and progressively worse as one gets closer to a front line. Concentrating is toxic under these conditions and other sides have seen this. Battalion concentrations without air superiority, ISR superiority and some sort of non-existent shielding are dying before they can cross the start line. 
So here we are, the first day of the rest of lives.  Manoeuvre and mass are broken.  ISR, precision and denial broke them. The real question is, “can it be unbroken in this war?”  Or do we have to wait until the next one?

Or I am trying find a useful role for hardware we already spent billions on? The damned things are bought and paid for.  Pretty sad when one has to do both sides of an argument though.
A mid-range integrated indirect fires platform has some real promise at least in the short term.  There are the logistical considerations but the payoff of more rapid precision fires might be worth it…might.  I suspect it will get squeezed out eventually but watching both the Russians and Ukrainians in this war, it is a concept I would take for a spin.

Very good points.  I can recall some of these debates as a young (and svelter) sprog back in the day.  Add to this, the Former Yugoslavia where tanks played a supporting mobile gun role at best. The answer was “Well those are not real wars.  In a real war you will see.”  Well I think can all agree that this is a “real” war.  Further it is a war on terrain tailor made for mechanized warfare.  Most of our western tanks were originally designed to fight other tanks on terrain nearly identical to what we see in Southern Ukraine - seriously, bust out Google Maps and take a look at the rolling open countryside.
Military folks are a pretty conservative bunch, led by the most conservative of them - old men.  So it is not surprising that we see a lot of caution and skepticism.  I think it is healthy to be honest.  But while I have written pages on where this thing looks like it may be going, I am straining to find a role for heavy going forward.  “Hard-points”, ok but that is still HE in the right location that is currently being delivered well by other systems.  “Breakout”, ok, but why not go lighter and faster? If I need a drone swarm to setup for breakout…why push heavy metal up?  Why not keep pushing with the swarm.  “Combined arms” sure, but I suspect that we are looking at the emergence of a new combined arms.  “It will rebalance.”  Ok, but that is really a ‘hope’ statement without any real evidence to back it up.
The battleship was pushed into a shore bombardment role and then eventually got broken up between aircraft, subs and missile cruisers. I suspect the tank is going to go through the same sort of evolution.  Yes, people have said the tank was obsolete before…but here is the thing, one day they will be right.  So is today that day?

The UA are running at about 1/3 RA losses but is this better equipment and training or worse Russian ISR?  The reasons are very complex and will take some time to sort out. I have been in the profession for 35 years and fully understand all the factors at play…but something is not right.  I have had that sense of growing unease for two years now.  I did not come to this deduction on Day 1 either.  It took months, the first year at least of watching this war closely to come to some of these hypothesis.  
The major problem is what was not happening but should be. It is far too easy to write off poor Russian tactics or Ukrainian adherence to Soviet doctrine - these narratives sound like western arrogance, which is unearned in a war like this one.  The West has not fought a war like this one since Korea, it is the height of arrogance to believe that we managed to keep doing everything right all these years later without a real test of our own doctrine.
So accepting that both Russia and Ukraine are behaving as they are for good reasons - some force generation driven, others force employment, we have to step back and ask ourselves “ok, what is really happening here?”
On break out and exploitation.  So at Kharkiv in Fall of ‘22 we saw maps and video graphics of the UA breakout and again it did not look right.  We did not see mech or heavy spearheads.  We saw them hold the shoulders while light and SOF did the exploit…why?  Was internal logistical limitations?  Or was it speed?  Again it was weird.  If we see an operational collapse at this point it will likely be an engineered collapse or corrosion.  My next question is that if one has to erode an entire enemy operational system to achieve breakout…what do I need mech for in the exploit?  I can do it with light, artillery, PGM and Unmanned.  The RA c-moves, even if they are heavy, will be detected well out, likely by space based/operational ISR and denial can be projected on those forces any number of ways.  Hardpoints maybe but isolated and cut off they pose limited threat.
Again we are at “what is the real value added of mech/armor”.  I do not think it is zero but it clearly is not as core as it once was - well except the RA who keep sending mech to die in company sizes to take 100m at a time.
To be honest, I am not even really concerned with this war, I am thinking about the next one.  Where is this trend going?  Some appear to think we will see re-equalization but I have some severe doubts.  The demon is out of the box. Too much money is going to be invested too fast after this war.  In the end I think Arquilla was right all along: Small many beat few large, finding beats flanking, swarming beats surging.
[ And my own axiom - Mass beats isolation, precision beats mass, mass precision beats everything.  Sorry, could not resist]

Again, here is the thing…maybe they were.  We never tested our c-ATGM doctrines beyond exercises in Europe…and shockingly the mighty tank (we had spent billions on) was still relevant.  Much like the lessons observed in the wars leading up to WW1 we basically ignored stuff that did not fit our model.  If that model was never truly tested, and it wasn’t, then one cannot simply say “ well tanks were relevant because we kept using them”.  I mean, sure, human history of warfare is not full of examples of us hanging onto military capability well past its expiry date…he says reading about cavalry wearing shiny armor in WW1.
And then there is the inconvenient fact that ATGM technology developed a lot in the last 50 years while the tank really hasn’t evolved that much.  We stuck on some better armor and a computer in the gun.  They also got larger, heavier and burn more gas.  APS was about the only major development and it is lagging ATGM capability, let alone drones.
Then in 1991 we had one of the largest confirmation bias events in military history.  We looked at the Gulf War and said “the system works!”  While conveniently missing the fact that the Gulf War was not a peer-on-peer conflict.  We beat up a one eyed goat with developmental challenges and went “see, now let’s spend another few trillion on this stuff.”
And then when we saw weird stuff happening in places like Chechnya, Nagorno Karbak, and Ukraine…we went “silly Soviet doctrine”.  So going all the way back to the last real peer on peer tank actions we see the major impact of small, smart and precise missiles and go “meh, Israel still won and we kept using them…so they must still work.”
Tanks may have been put on the endangered species list back in 1973 but we ignored it.  Here we are in 2024 watching all sorts of weird evidence over a two year period and the analysis is still. “Meh, Ukraine is winning enough…they must still work…we will keep using them.”  Probably the last thing Austro-Hungarian Cavalry said after shining their breast plates in 1914.
For me this war is an Ostfreisland moment, and frankly I think it is for most modern militaries.  And what happens next will likely follow the same pattern:
”The leadership of the US Navy, however, was outraged by Mitchell's handling of the tests; the 2,000 lb bombs had not been sanctioned by the Navy, which had set the rules for the engagement. Mitchell's bombers had also not allowed inspectors aboard the ship between bombing runs as stipulated by the Navy. The joint Army–Navy report on the tests, issued a month later and signed by General John J. Pershing, stated that "the battleship is still the backbone of the fleet."[62] Mitchell wrote his own, contradictory account of the tests, which was then leaked to the press. The sinking of the battleship sparked great controversy in the American public sphere; Mitchell's supporters exaggerated the significance of the tests by falsely claiming Ostfriesland to be an unsinkable "super-battleship" and that "old sea dogs ... wept aloud."[62] Senator William Borah argued that the tests had rendered battleships obsolete. Mitchell was widely supported in the press, though his increasingly combative tactics eventually resulted in a court-martial for insubordination that forced him to retire from the military.[63]”
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Ostfriesland

Again, here is the thing…maybe they were.  We never tested our c-ATGM doctrines beyond exercises in Europe…and shockingly the mighty tank (we had spent billions on) was still relevant.  Much like the lessons observed in the wars leading up to WW1 we basically ignored stuff that did not fit our model.  If that model was never truly tested, and it wasn’t, then one cannot simply say “ well tanks were relevant because we kept using them”.  I mean, sure, human history of warfare is not full of examples of us hanging onto military capability well past its expiry date…he says reading about cavalry wearing shiny armor in WW1.
And then there is the inconvenient fact that ATGM technology developed a lot in the last 50 years while the tank really hasn’t evolved that much.  We stuck on some better armor and a computer in the gun.  They also got larger, heavier and burn more gas.  APS was about the only major development and it is lagging ATGM capability, let alone drones.
Then in 1991 we had one of the largest confirmation bias events in military history.  We looked at the Gulf War and said “the system works!”  While conveniently missing the fact that the Gulf War was not a peer-on-peer conflict.  We beat up a one eyed goat with developmental challenges and went “see, now let’s spend another few trillion on this stuff.”
And then when we saw weird stuff happening in places like Chechnya, Nagorno Karbak, and Ukraine…we went “silly Soviet doctrine”.  So going all the way back to the last real peer on peer tank actions we see the major impact of small, smart and precise missiles and go “meh, Israel still won and we kept using them…so they must still work.”
Tanks may have been put on the endangered species list back in 1973 but we ignored it.  Here we are in 2024 watching all sorts of weird evidence over a two year period and the analysis is still. “Meh, Ukraine is winning enough…they must still work…we will keep using them.”  Probably the last thing Austro-Hungarian Cavalry said after shining their breast plates in 1914.
For me this war is an Ostfreisland moment, and frankly I think it is for most modern militaries.  And what happens next will likely follow the same pattern:
”The leadership of the US Navy, however, was outraged by Mitchell's handling of the tests; the 2,000 lb bombs had not been sanctioned by the Navy, which had set the rules for the engagement. Mitchell's bombers had also not allowed inspectors aboard the ship between bombing runs as stipulated by the Navy. The joint Army–Navy report on the tests, issued a month later and signed by General John J. Pershing, stated that "the battleship is still the backbone of the fleet."[62] Mitchell wrote his own, contradictory account of the tests, which was then leaked to the press. The sinking of the battleship sparked great controversy in the American public sphere; Mitchell's supporters exaggerated the significance of the tests by falsely claiming Ostfriesland to be an unsinkable "super-battleship" and that "old sea dogs ... wept aloud."[62] Senator William Borah argued that the tests had rendered battleships obsolete. Mitchell was widely supported in the press, though his increasingly combative tactics eventually resulted in a court-martial for insubordination that forced him to retire from the military.[63]”
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Ostfriesland

My main issue is that there is healthy and unhealthy self regulation.  We need to be able to confront obvious trolls or anyone pitching outright falsehoods, in either direction.  We have done that routinely and must continue to.
What we do not need are echo chamber police that reduce your noted spectrum from 1 to 10, to “only 8-10!  All other numbers are -12 and support genocide!”  At that point we really do become an insular echo chamber where original thought goes to die.
This sort of behaviour smacks of the contemporary cancel culture and gotcha politics we are plagued by in the modern age. I do think we are all on the same side but I should be able to push back on a Ukrainian poster who is basically crapping on the US, and express frustrations with a partner who at times appears to be misaligned with ourselves. Further I should be able to do so without someone throwing insults and down-explaining the larger situation when I think I have clearly demonstrated that I know more than they do.
I am going to go cool off now but if we become a Ukrainian fanboys club in here then I fear we will lose what has made this venture worthwhile - an objective attempt to understand.

I could care less what we call it.  It is more the recognition that Europe was largely a global backwater in the evolution of warfare during this period. The major global powers were in Asia and Persia. It wasn’t until Europe gained superiority in maritime power that things began to shift in and around the 15th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_medieval_great_powers#:~:text=The following is a list,%3B Timurids%2C 1400–1450)
The single largest military evolution (and operations) were within the Mongol Empire as they rose to be the largest empire in human history at that time (only surpassed by the British empire in the 19th and 20th centuries).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires
The Mongol conquests killed an estimated 10% of the total human population of that day.  For reference that would equal about 800,000-1B people today - or a thermonuclear exchange essentially. The Mongols were the nuclear war of their era.  So if we are going to say “Going Medieval” it should be in reference to them and not a freakin Month Python skit.

Or I am trying find a useful role for hardware we already spent billions on? The damned things are bought and paid for.  Pretty sad when one has to do both sides of an argument though.
A mid-range integrated indirect fires platform has some real promise at least in the short term.  There are the logistical considerations but the payoff of more rapid precision fires might be worth it…might.  I suspect it will get squeezed out eventually but watching both the Russians and Ukrainians in this war, it is a concept I would take for a spin.

I so don't care...just get them out of my f#cking basement.

Come talk to me after you have been in a couple wars with weak partners who end up failing in the end after we spend blood and treasure trying to hold them up - then maybe you can call “boomer trantrum.”
I know exactly why we are bankrolling this thing and the reasons are similar to why we have attempted interventions around the world for over 30 years - and based on your response, that means I was likely doing this before you were born, trust me, I “get it” better then you do.
My point is that we have been burned by weak partners before and when I hear this continuing “The West sucks/the West is weak/the West is scared” repeatedly coming from citizens of a nation that we have spent over their annual national pre-war GDP on trying to save…well any grown up has to pause and ask themselves “just who are we supporting here?”  Is Ukraine South Korea or are they Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan?  I strongly suspect they are South Korea but the signals coming from some quarters - and there have been more than a few - leave room for some healthy caution.

I so don't care...just get them out of my f#cking basement.

Unsurprising.  For the record I am a Gen X, caught between two overly entitled and self-righteous generations - one we are putting into homes, the other through university.
We have tolerated breaches of "non-aggression and potential genocide" before (see Rawanda, Yugoslavia, Syria and Sudan), so before one climbs on the soapbox, check your history books. 
You are free to hold onto your position all you like, but do not come in here and "missionary" someone who has been playing these games a lot longer and a lot closer to the heat that you ever will.  I am as free as you are to cast cautious eyes on Ukraine for every reason we did not pull them into NATO before 2022.  On this thread alone I have seen: antisemitism, xenophobic anti-immigration, continual western shaming, possible violations of LOAC, reckless targeting and reports of corruption. 
Ukraine is a nation worth fighting for and supporting, but high minded principles will only carry so far.  Our interest align..to a point. And always keep an eye on partners and never pretend that they are just like us in every way.

Unsurprising.  For the record I am a Gen X, caught between two overly entitled and self-righteous generations - one we are putting into homes, the other through university.
We have tolerated breaches of "non-aggression and potential genocide" before (see Rawanda, Yugoslavia, Syria and Sudan), so before one climbs on the soapbox, check your history books. 
You are free to hold onto your position all you like, but do not come in here and "missionary" someone who has been playing these games a lot longer and a lot closer to the heat that you ever will.  I am as free as you are to cast cautious eyes on Ukraine for every reason we did not pull them into NATO before 2022.  On this thread alone I have seen: antisemitism, xenophobic anti-immigration, continual western shaming, possible violations of LOAC, reckless targeting and reports of corruption. 
Ukraine is a nation worth fighting for and supporting, but high minded principles will only carry so far.  Our interest align..to a point. And always keep an eye on partners and never pretend that they are just like us in every way.

Come talk to me after you have been in a couple wars with weak partners who end up failing in the end after we spend blood and treasure trying to hold them up - then maybe you can call “boomer trantrum.”
I know exactly why we are bankrolling this thing and the reasons are similar to why we have attempted interventions around the world for over 30 years - and based on your response, that means I was likely doing this before you were born, trust me, I “get it” better then you do.
My point is that we have been burned by weak partners before and when I hear this continuing “The West sucks/the West is weak/the West is scared” repeatedly coming from citizens of a nation that we have spent over their annual national pre-war GDP on trying to save…well any grown up has to pause and ask themselves “just who are we supporting here?”  Is Ukraine South Korea or are they Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan?  I strongly suspect they are South Korea but the signals coming from some quarters - and there have been more than a few - leave room for some healthy caution.

Come talk to me after you have been in a couple wars with weak partners who end up failing in the end after we spend blood and treasure trying to hold them up - then maybe you can call “boomer trantrum.”
I know exactly why we are bankrolling this thing and the reasons are similar to why we have attempted interventions around the world for over 30 years - and based on your response, that means I was likely doing this before you were born, trust me, I “get it” better then you do.
My point is that we have been burned by weak partners before and when I hear this continuing “The West sucks/the West is weak/the West is scared” repeatedly coming from citizens of a nation that we have spent over their annual national pre-war GDP on trying to save…well any grown up has to pause and ask themselves “just who are we supporting here?”  Is Ukraine South Korea or are they Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan?  I strongly suspect they are South Korea but the signals coming from some quarters - and there have been more than a few - leave room for some healthy caution.

I so don't care...just get them out of my f#cking basement.

Unsurprising.  For the record I am a Gen X, caught between two overly entitled and self-righteous generations - one we are putting into homes, the other through university.
We have tolerated breaches of "non-aggression and potential genocide" before (see Rawanda, Yugoslavia, Syria and Sudan), so before one climbs on the soapbox, check your history books. 
You are free to hold onto your position all you like, but do not come in here and "missionary" someone who has been playing these games a lot longer and a lot closer to the heat that you ever will.  I am as free as you are to cast cautious eyes on Ukraine for every reason we did not pull them into NATO before 2022.  On this thread alone I have seen: antisemitism, xenophobic anti-immigration, continual western shaming, possible violations of LOAC, reckless targeting and reports of corruption. 
Ukraine is a nation worth fighting for and supporting, but high minded principles will only carry so far.  Our interest align..to a point. And always keep an eye on partners and never pretend that they are just like us in every way.

Unsurprising.  For the record I am a Gen X, caught between two overly entitled and self-righteous generations - one we are putting into homes, the other through university.
We have tolerated breaches of "non-aggression and potential genocide" before (see Rawanda, Yugoslavia, Syria and Sudan), so before one climbs on the soapbox, check your history books. 
You are free to hold onto your position all you like, but do not come in here and "missionary" someone who has been playing these games a lot longer and a lot closer to the heat that you ever will.  I am as free as you are to cast cautious eyes on Ukraine for every reason we did not pull them into NATO before 2022.  On this thread alone I have seen: antisemitism, xenophobic anti-immigration, continual western shaming, possible violations of LOAC, reckless targeting and reports of corruption. 
Ukraine is a nation worth fighting for and supporting, but high minded principles will only carry so far.  Our interest align..to a point. And always keep an eye on partners and never pretend that they are just like us in every way.

Come talk to me after you have been in a couple wars with weak partners who end up failing in the end after we spend blood and treasure trying to hold them up - then maybe you can call “boomer trantrum.”
I know exactly why we are bankrolling this thing and the reasons are similar to why we have attempted interventions around the world for over 30 years - and based on your response, that means I was likely doing this before you were born, trust me, I “get it” better then you do.
My point is that we have been burned by weak partners before and when I hear this continuing “The West sucks/the West is weak/the West is scared” repeatedly coming from citizens of a nation that we have spent over their annual national pre-war GDP on trying to save…well any grown up has to pause and ask themselves “just who are we supporting here?”  Is Ukraine South Korea or are they Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan?  I strongly suspect they are South Korea but the signals coming from some quarters - and there have been more than a few - leave room for some healthy caution.