billbindc

I think one partial answer to this question is that the capabilities of the Ukrainian army were clearly expanding in ways that Russia we now know, wasn't really equipped to handle. There are something like 20 Bayraktar's available for use. They've been doing serious damage. Absent this war, there would have been 100+. Gerasimov saw what happened btw Armenia/Azerbaijan as clearly as everyone else did. The Ukrainian missile program was also on the cusp of expansion and increased capability. We've already seen what regular and irregular Ukrainian infantry can do. Certainly a big factor was that if they didn't go now, they were going to be clearly unable to in a couple of years.

Note: The Peter Principle applies to dictatorial sociopaths as much as it does to that dude down the hall from your office.

Another odd thing...the incredibly bad accuracy of the Russian Iskanders:

The_Capt, I think that's really spot on. Another 'odd' issue is the clear reluctance of Russian air assets to engage in ground attack. Part of that may be simply that they don't trust their AA ground assets to not shoot at them...which is a pretty bad commentary on their readiness. Another reason may be that their pilots are averaging under 100 hours/year in the seat and they don't trust them to be able to accomplish the mission. You would think that they'd have trained up for invading a country of 40 million people but apparently not.

Folks...billbindc here...who you may remember from the benighted days of dosomefink. Been talking to a lot of folks and I'd say the "Putin has lost it" thing is over rated and on some level the Russians trying to benefit from madman theory. Putin has been a Russian imperialist forever. It's been his idee fixe since the fall of the USSR. In one "near abroad" country after another, he's either coerced them back into the fold (Chechenia), enforced informal hegemony (Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine) or attacked them outright (Ukraine, Georgia). He has also constantly tested the limits from corrupt influence to outright assassination (Salisbury anyone?). What he's doing now isn't new, it is simply a reflection of the greater abilities he believes he possesses. At no time has he behaved suicidally. He will rattle sabers and he will do what he thinks he can get away with. The smart thing for us to do is remain cool, stay out of direct conflict and give every boot/5.56 round/Javelin/MRE to the Ukrainians we can lay our hands on.