Hacker News Reader

Comment by brabel | Hacker News Reader

Your impression of Russia's war capabilities is vastly mistaken.

"According to Joseph Fitsanakis, professor of intelligence and security studies at Coastal Carolina University, “Russian military production is currently outpacing that of the US and all of NATO member states combined. This may be hard to believe, but Russia is obligated to do it if it is going to outpace the support given to Ukraine."

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/12/2/russia-races-ahead-...

View on HN

It shouldn’t be surprising that a country with a war economy has a higher first derivative at producing material, the question of import is

1. What is the difference between absolute quantities comparing against all relevant players,

2. How long would it take to bridge the gap at current production rates, and

3. Can that rate of production be sustained long enough for it to alter any fundamentals?

The point to rebut isn’t that Russia is making more, it’s whether they can continue to do so ongoingly before Ukrainian advances, regime falter or economic collapse, US/China step-in, or internal unrest will dramatically weaken or make the current Russian negotiating position untenable.

All of this is irrelevant if Ukraine crumbles first.

Same goes for Russia, and is all seems pretty relevant.

The article seem to indicate that it's much more sustainable for the West than for Russia.

It’s not sustainable for Ukraine.

NATO is ensuring it’s just about sustainable.

Yes, by pushing to reduce the drafting age, which the Ukrainian don't want to, because someone needs to raise families and Ukraine has a way lower population, while Putin brings in north koreans already. And can also escalate by general mobilisation at some point if cornered. So I don't see the outcome as clear.

It's not sustainable for -either- side.

Both sides are aching (very badly) for this thing to be over, or at least taken off the stove.

One can quibble further as to the details -- which are a matter of metrics, wildcards, politics. And (as recent events have shown) there are still many cards to be played.

But that's the fundamental equation we need to keep in mind.

the article is not the reality tho

Ongoingly is not a word.

OED has it https://www.oed.com/dictionary/ongoingly_adv?tl=true

Have you ever in your life heard someone say the word ongoingly?

it shows up in papers from a decade ago.

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Ongoingly-redesigning-...

I agree that it's not in common use.

No but I'm in favour of word inventability and extensionabilityization.

I see the meaning of that word is "To continue reading, please sign in or purchase a subscription."...

Love the "first derivative" view! One can take a snapshot of a good day, but if russia really was producing more weapons than USA + NATO for a prolonged time, having also more people, Ukraine would fall a long time ago.

It didn't. As we say in Poland "paper will accept everything". And russia is known for shameless propaganda.

So far, Russia is still making gains on the battlefield though, not Ukraine. At some point, that momentum would have to reverse.

Also, I don't think it's an "until" about China stepping in, they seem to be squarely on Russia's side, just presenting themselves slightly more moderate in public to appear suitable as a mediator. (Maybe sort of like the US does with Israel)

Finally, there is BRICS and some massive shifts of attitude in Africa that seem to work in Russia's favor.

> So far, Russia is still making gains on the battlefield though, not Ukraine.

This is again first derivative. Russia annexed Crimea, sent unofficial troops to Donbas, in 2022 moved rapidly and captured a lot of territory... But later was pushed back severely. And after that, it was gaining terrain in a truly snail pace.

BTW India and China are in an ongoing border conflict, the hostilities don't end there, with India banning many Chinese apps for example. They're nowhere near as united as EU or NATO, it's more like the Visegrád Group.

Do Americans have the technical expertise for a higher curvature? The American primary/secondary schooling system sucks, and most of the top STEM students at university are not interested in working for the military.

Their "production" includes restoring stuff from the soviet equipment bases. When they make stuff from scratch, they are as much drip-feeding as west is, or even less - for example they make 6-8 Su-34s a year, while Lockmart is making 156 F-35s a year.

I partly agree, in that by drip feeding Ukraine supplies we have given Russia time to build up their production rates. And my earlier comment was disputing the idea that drip feeing the supplies was some kind of intentional strategy.

With regards to the broader claim that Russian production is outpacing that of the west. Yes, with artillery shells that's probably true, though we are continuing to ramp production. There aren't really any other areas though where a combination of western production + stock drawdowns couldn't supply Ukraine with greater quantities of material.

They have destroyed the rest of their industrial capacity and economy in the process, an outcome very much desired by US and friends.

Russia isn't that interesting any longer, economy wise.

China is the competitor to the US nowadays. All Russia has is nukes and troll farms, and corruption.

Russia has all the minerals to support any size of Chinese war machine ramping. It’s not their economy that matters.

That doesn't make sense. The minerals don't disappear just because Putin fails invading Ukraine. The minerals will be waiting in the ground no matter what.

It seems that something like "they've trashed their economy" would have been a better choice of words.

But -- "destroyed"? What's that supposed to mean? What purpose is served by the use of such hyperbolic language?

I don't think US and friends would have any problem with them having a successful economy if they didn't use it to attack and threaten other countries.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com