Looking at two countries in an actual long running war, both kept using cashless means, with actually increases in usage:
https://cbr.ru/eng/press/event/?id=18776
https://bank.gov.ua/en/news/all/drugiy-rik-povnomasshtabnoyi...
https://cbr.ru/eng/press/event/?id=18776
https://bank.gov.ua/en/news/all/drugiy-rik-povnomasshtabnoyi...
At this point it's not cash that is missing, it's absolutely everything that sustain human life, and there's probably not enough working things to even barter.
In comparison, total KIA losses of Soviets in the Afghanistan war were 14k-26k, and Americans in the Vietnam war lost 58k KIA + 150k WIA throughout 10 years.
In short, this is the biggest war in Europe since WW2. But hey, it's not war enough because not enough Ukrainians are dead or something, idk.
[~] https://t.me/pechalbeda200
[^] https://meduza.io/en/feature/2024/07/05/a-new-estimate-from-...
One of the worlds (what we thought) super powers has been trying for the last two years to destroy the infrastructure of a country with 33M inhabitants. They may not have fully mobilised, but they are definitely spending all their military equipment. Long range / tactical missiles. Air assets. Naval assets. Cyber warfare.
The result in Ukraine : unimaginable human suffering, but electricity and the internet are still working over there.
When the nukes start flying, that's another matter though. But in that case our problem will not be that our credit cards stop working.
But in terms of total assets deployed, they are currently all-in. Attrition being what it is, they are reducing their Soviet stockpiles at a prodigious rate and are currently activating 40’s and 50’s equipment.
This is all extremely well documented by open sources. People are counting tanks on military bases using satellite images. Check out Perun on YouTube. He’s a defense economics expert that posts a 70 minute PowerPoint presentation every Sunday, complete with sources and references.
The high-speed "Sapsan" trains from Moscow to St. Petersburg are German, not the other way around. The cranes they used to build the Crimea bridge were Dutch, not the other way around. The optics they were putting in their newest tanks was French, not the other way around. But of course, all these guys need to take over Europe is just "mobilization", whatever that means. With multiple times less people and inferior technology. Right.
You are either seriously misguided or just trolling.
I would guess that NATO planners have been adjusting their assessment of what Russia is capable of when completely mobilized. The answer sure looks a lot like "way weaker than we imagined, pretty well ineffective in the face of significant resistance, the only reason to pay any attention them at all is they have ~half the nuclear weapons worldwide."
You are claiming this is actually beneficial for the Russian Federation because all of that is outweighed by experiments in tactics, correct?
[_] https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2024/07/15/mvd-otchitalos-oroste-...
While we focus on democratic debates that are based on their spoonfed misinformation campaigns, Wagner is literally conquering central african countries one by one.
Russian production numbers sound good if you ignore that most of them refer to stored Cold War era equipment being reactivated. Their main and most successful staple has been artillery and that mostly worked because it could be fired from the safety of being on a side of the border NATO pretty much told Ukraine not to cross - for a time. It also seems like the "saber rattling" Russia did in the lead-up to the invasion by positioning military around the Ukranian border was less of an intimidation tactic and more of a necessary part of the process.
I'm not saying Russia couldn't do a lot more damage in an all-out war into the West even without involving nuclear weapons (which already assumes European countries with nuclear weapons or the US wouldn't use them either). But based on the underwhelming performance of the Russian military relative to its supposed numbers, I don't think Russia could have pulled off the kind of Blitzkrieg you're envisioning, let alone once supply lines become a problem. Especially if you consider that the plan for the invasion of Ukraine clearly was built around a surprise attack on Kyiv, which failed spectacularly because the terrain and weather meant the tanks had to drive slowly in a line and somehow Russia didn't bother providing infantry support.
OP: Looking at two countries in an actual long running war...
You: This isn’t really all hell breaking loose actual war.
Nobody used the term "all hell breaking loose". You did. You redefined the conversation to be about 100% mobilization (from Russia), and then got all pissy that people called you out.
Could Russia mobilize more? Yes, absolutely. But based on what we've been seeing they lack the supply lines, resources and frankly military competence (which is unsurprising given how Putin deals with anyone but yes-men) to be able to do anything with that if they had it. Also, as I said, the NATO response to invading, say, Poland would also look extremely different from the current NATO response to invading a non-NATO border state.
The Soviet Union's main advantage during WW2, other than receiving immense support from the Allies (both in supplies and military equipment), was that it was fighting the Nazis on their back foot. The Nazis had made a similar fumble as Russia did in Ukraine by misjudging the climate and seasonal weather and they also didn't have a reliable supply line. The Soviet Union did deal a devastating blow in Stalingrad but the Nazis there were pretty much stranded in hostile territory without support at that point and many soldiers were suffering from frost-related health issues. When the Soviet Union actually invaded Germany the Nazis' troops were already spread out all over Europe and into Africa and losing ground in the various occupied territories.
The Soviet Union suffered massive casualties and contributed more sacrifices to defeating fascism than any other country involved, but militarily its capabilities do not translate into any scenario involving modern Russia NATO analysts would lose sleep over. Russia is "holding back", yes, but so is NATO and especially the US. Even the "modern" equipment the US has started sending to Ukraine is decades behind on what the US military has available. Ukraine's stronger allies have very much been holding out on "the good stuff" and instead mostly cleaned out their dusty reserves. Russia OTOH doesn't seem to have the production capacity nor resources to churn out its newer equipment (which is still years behind what the US etc have access to) and is already falling back on decades old stock and desperately buying ammunition from North Korea of all places.