Bearstronaut

There's been plenty of examples of a weak and brittle nation on the brink of collapse over the past half century. Afghanistan and South Vietnam being the most obvious examples. Ukraine reminds me more of South Korea than either of those countries. Definitely not perfect to be sure but with a strong sense of national will and the determination to fight for their country. Hell, Ukraine is even better than the ROK was. People are seriously talking about Zelensky losing an election during an existential war while absolutely nobody would have thought that about Rhee Syngman or Park Chung-hee. 

As a Korean, this is fantastic work! 😀
really hope to play this mod.

You are correct.

I disagree.  It highlights my diatribe even better when framed this way.  The entitlement and unwillingness to sacrifice that dominated the back end of the 19th century kicked the problem down the road until it came to a point when the sacrifice was no longer discretionary, it became existential.
Pre-WW1 Europe went into that war blind to its realities, refusing to understand what the sacrifices actually meant (“home by Xmas”) and by the time they did it was far too late.  That was not “willingness” by 1915, it was Sunk Cost entrapment.  The most powerful and richest nations in human history tore themselves apart as war became a fire that ran away with its own consumption.
Failure to sacrifice does not mean immediately raising the “white flag of war” at the first shot.  It means that during the competition stage one refuses viable but painful options to get off the spiral.  Once you hit bottom it is too late.  Sacrifice is going to happen.  At that point one can only choose which “bad” to take.
If a nation allows events to slide to the point they are in existential crisis they have already failed in many ways.  It is not western unwillingness to send millions of it own to die.  It is our unwillingness to make the sacrifices to avoid that very destination ahead of events that concerns me.

To be completely honest I think millions upon millions of Americans would be perfectly willing to sacrifice our prison population and poverty-stricken ethnic minorities to the jaws of war.

To be completely honest I think millions upon millions of Americans would be perfectly willing to sacrifice our prison population and poverty-stricken ethnic minorities to the jaws of war.

To be completely honest I think millions upon millions of Americans would be perfectly willing to sacrifice our prison population and poverty-stricken ethnic minorities to the jaws of war.

To be completely honest I think millions upon millions of Americans would be perfectly willing to sacrifice our prison population and poverty-stricken ethnic minorities to the jaws of war.

Someone read/watched The Expanse books/tv series.

Someone read/watched The Expanse books/tv series.

Someone read/watched The Expanse books/tv series.

Nah it was Crichton. Expanse is good but like so much of it,  it draws on existing ideas and tropes. Shot here in Toronto btw. 
Anyway,  back to topic

This is really just an academic cop-out -“F#ck knows, so let’s call it ‘intermediate’ and dump the solution forward”
Some fundamentals of warfare have shifted.  Mass manoeuvre on offence is clearly broken as we knew it.  Establishing conditions to re-start it remain out of reach.  Neither side has been able to project and sustain mass precision, or at least the levels required to break deadlock.  I am not convinced that there will be a technological or doctrinal solution by 2025.
I think we are going to start seeing difficult conversations.  Ukraine will likely need to dig in and adopt small power strategies of continuing to bleed the RA.  At some point Russia will realize this is a waste of time and effort, probably need a few more disasters to drive that point home.
Defensive primacy might be back (for now).  Denial primacy definitely is happening.  Themes of Denial, Corrosion, projected friction, precision, smart mass, Illumination, Hyper-connectivity, dispersion, deception and attrition seem to really dominate.  A battlefield of negative decisions - I can’t have positive decisions but neither can you.
The military problem may be unsolvable.  Over to the political side.

For peaceful purposes only!
There's also the classic "Breakfast Bazooka / Between Meal Mortar" at 4:15 of this longer video.
They say you never hear the sugared snack with your name on it...

Damn you Hapless.  He got first post on page 3000.

"The open market"? For 155mm HE rounds?
Wut?

Dude, good lord.  As Steve has signalled we are getting way off track here but if you are going to take a position…how about some proof before we turn all the way into an INCEL echo chamber?
Here are counter points that took about 10 seconds to find:
https://www.cfr.org/womens-participation-in-global-economy/#
https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2022/09/27/sp092722-ggopinath-kgef-gender-korea
https://eige.europa.eu/newsroom/economic-benefits-gender-equality?language_content_entity=en
As to demographic trend…yeesh been hearing this old song for forty years.  People don’t have fewer children because women get jobs.  They have fewer children because they can’t afford them.  So we are at distribution of wealth.  A living wage.  Social program and a bunch of issues that basically hold a society together.  Immigration (oh let’s light that fuse).  And a bunch of other stuff that really drags this thread sideways.
Move along now.  Nothing to see here.

 

Sure they are.  I have the entire 20th century to prove it.  Separation of church and state was well on its way by the end of the 19th century.  It is an incredible stretch to see religion paying a central political role in WW1 and WW2, let alone the Cold War.  Was it employed to keep the masses fighting?  Sure.  So was alcohol and nationalism. 

"What most people think they are fighting for"  Urban 2 was trying to 1) push back Muslim/Arab encroachment and 2) solidify power in Europe.  These are not high morale or righteous objectives.  God did not will it, we did.  And then used God as cover to get thousands to go die somewhere to try and achieve political -not ideological- aims.  History is rife with this dynamic.  The Church's use of religion to commit genocide is historical fact, but don't dress it up as anything but a political ploy.
Same mechanism is happening in Russia right now.  But instead of "God", insert whatever Putin is selling.

And “raccoon stealing”…let’s not forget that.  As if raccoons have no agency of their own!  
Emptying our raccoon churches and filling them with ambiguously self-identifying marmots…wake up sheeple!

I get that you might be having a bad day but there is so much unwarranted angst in this post: absolutely nobody in “The West” argues that children should have the right to choose their gender.  No-one is emptying our churches (though there are many fewer people heading in) and less than nobody is “emptying churches so they can be turned into mosques”.
Reconsider the merits of whatever media source has told you these things.  You rightly identify that we are in a collision of systems but make no mistake: it is the enemies of our Western system who promote misinformation such as what you posted above in order to foster the very division you warn against.   Seeing through that, being less angry about things that aren’t happening and therefore being a part of a secure Western system is the best way to maintain focus and win. 

Right?!  One of the first videos I saw was a Merkava getting taken out Ukrainian style.  I expect it will be "low intensity/terrorist" handwaving like when we saw when ISIL do the same thing in Iraq.  The military community will likely split up into camps on this whole thing - kinda like we did here.  "It is a fad.  We have heard it before."  "Interesting, but we have counters...please say we have counters." and "Holy Sweet Mother of God! What just happened?"  The people in charge tend to come from the first or second camp.
The evidence is mounting though.  Any professional worth their salt cannot be saying "it will be fine" after watching this war closely. 

Wow that seems a bit unfair. Sorry, not sorry, you aren't getting new toys fast enough.

Late August 1917-early September 1917. After Pilckem Ridge, before Menin Road.

Drones are the essential element of why the war works the way it does. We all know that. An effective technological solution that grounded one side drones would almost certainly result in a huge swing in the battlefield. The big question is does this solution exists, and can one side deploy it at scale faster than the other side can adapt. The other known tech shift that is just hanging out there waiting is much greater AI/autonomy/swarming. Could one side do that scale fast enough to matter.