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Comment by zibzab | Hacker News Reader

This is probably one area where software projects and wars differ:

When things go bad in a war, you can always throw more bodies on it to turn it around.

Oh no, you definitively can't. Not when you're the one invading.

People always bring up WW2, but in WW2 USSR was being invaded, and had a lot of material support from the west. They could keep "throwing more bodies on it" because

1. Those bodies were still very motivated, since they were being invaded and,

2. They had useful equipment for those bodies, in significant part from western support (lend/lease etc.

Ukraine is more like WW1 for Russia. That didn't end so well for the Russian leadership.

Just to expand on that a bit, the USSR received ~$11 billion in lend-lease assistance from the US, which is roughly $130 billion in current dollars.

The scale was incredible - hundreds of thousands trucks and jeeps, thousands of tanks, thousands of airplanes, as well as small arms, ammo, explosives, etc. Food, too, and lots of oil. A huge part of the Red Army's success was having the US backing them up.

The Napoleon invasion in 1812 started with deep Russian humiliation. But then the Russians won.

The Winter War of 1939 started with deep Russian humiliation. But then the Russians won.

The WW2 started with deep Russian humiliation and mind-bogglingly terrible losses. But then the Russians won.

On the other hand, the Russo-Japanese war and the WW1 were lost because of the political decisions rising from unrest at home.

This war started by Russian humiliation. How it's going to end remains yet to be seen.

Though a lot of countries manage to cope with the neighbouring countries being independent and not invading them or installing a puppet ruler. Perhaps Russia will be able to get used to it too.

Here's hoping.

People also forget that the of the red army fighting Hitler about 4.5 million of the troops were Ukrainians fighting on the Russian side. They were supposed to be some of the best troops.

I think that's about as successful in war as it is in software projects, except many of those bodies will end up dead. If there's one thing that the Russian invasion shows, it's the massive difference that morale makes. But also planning, coordination, logistics. You need to have soldiers who know what they're doing.

This is not true. Most credible military analysts say that Russia's Achilles heel in this war is the lack of trained personnel in sufficient numbers.

Not always, Russia lost war in 1920 with Poland. Russia was trying to give military support to communist movements in Europe going across Poland. While Poland was trying to restore lands occupied by Russia in partitions of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1772-1795 that lead to Poland not existing for 123 years.

Russia lost that war and had to settle borders with Poland in the Treaty of Riga.

I'm all for Poland and Lithuania joining forces again and invading russia.

Until you can't.

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