My black pill theory for why the US and Russia allow the Ukraine war to drag on for so long is that both sides want a testing ground to accelerate the innovation of drone warfare.
Discussion
Quite possible.
This is how all wars operate.
Why would Russia sacrifice their Slavic brothers? If it was Anglo-Saxons they are fighting maybe but sacrificing Slavs to test weapons doubt it!
damn
🎯
It’s a good theory.
But I like to follow the money trail… I think now is mainly momentum and Europe.
This is a typical USA centric interpretation of the situation. The primary stakeholders are the Europeans and they are quickly integrating Ukrainian innovations into the EU militaro-industrial complex.
Weapons field testing, demonstrations for new buyers, clear out old stock and pump up the weapon industry to prepare for the next war.
1936 Spanish Civil War, both Nazis and Communists gave weapons and tactics to each side testing these new strategies on a large scale. Precursor to WWII, allowed fine tuning and changes to battle hardend weaponry. So yes Nato has been training Ukraine army a lot longer than most people know and testing new weapons and tactics no doubt.
For the US your theory would just be a part of the continuing strategy of feeding the military industrial complex not just about drones. It's the perfect war, the US gets to partake but no American soldiers are injured or killed and of course they get to experiment with new weapons.
The main reason for this war dragging on so long is that the actors financing and driving this war aren't using their own constituents/people to fight it out. In other words, western powers get to throw Ukrainian slaves (which are willingly sold by Zelensky and his goons) into the fire without having to fear any negative consequences at home short-term and long-term. Normally, there is a certain threshold for loosing manpower which forces elites to concede when a war is lost. The situation in Ukraine allows western elites to use up far more manpower than usual because they don't care about the long-term outcome for the "Ukrainian nation".
“No, Stop, Don’t…”
-Willy Wonka
Fuck russia and fuck the US!
I recommend reading Seven Seconds to Die. It’s a decent precursor to this iteration of Ukraine/Russia. DOD has recognized Ukraine is a canary for where mil med is at (re: LSCO and prolonged field care/protracted patient care) currently and how we’ve been spoiled by GWOT and the ability to shape an operational environment to our wants and needs. Drones have further complicated this but I’d make the argument they’re the result of the necessities of this war as IEDs were a product of GWOT. Unfortunately, Pandora’s box is open now. The US is formally behind in drone development (find the tank immediate action drills and the recent UAS pub) for the most part because we still view them as serialized gear vs disposable munitions amongst other reasons. I can’t speak on DIME; yes, we are observing and learning from Ukraine (and Gaza… austere medical care) but I don’t think your hypothesis is the case. Is it a potential bonus? Possibly. All of this is meant as respectful discourse.
Yes, but it's mostly about laundering money.
Developing new weapons and tactics comes second to the laundering money part.