Russia was not ready for the data center war it started with Ukraine | Hacker News Reader

Russia was not ready for the data center war it started with Ukraine

arstechnica.com

10 pointsmikelgan5 comments

Russia wasnt ready for a war at all.

They assumed the Ukrainians would give up on day one, and had no plans for a war that lasted a week or years.

A perfect example of hubris and doing zero homework on your opponent.

Iran is another example of exactly the same game plan, well plan that wasnt a plan.

It's the shadow of the "blitzkrieg". Russia's invasion of Crimea in 2014 went without a hitch and led Russia to think it could do the same with all of Ukraine. Similarly America's success in the gulf war (largely because they had enough sense not to occupy Iraq) led America to think it could do the same in the Iraq war.

In the cold war the US and Russia speculated about ways to shut down blitzkreig: the Russians developed the doctrine of defensive lines and the US developed the doctrine of "infantry with light vehicles can outmaneuver tanks". Both doctrines proved effective in Ukraine, but drones made the Russian-style defensive line impregnable. Like drones can kill anything that moves but can't break through 1m of concrete... yet!

And to make it all there is the global electronics shortage, I dread having to replace any of my computers or mobile devices right now, replacing a whole data center for a country under sanctions seems painful.

I wonder how much the west knew about the ineffectiveness of the Soviet military machine from the start. Take a look at the reactions of the west after the Russians invaded Ukraine. Nobody in NATO moved an inch, and yet this scenario is very much what was expected if the Warsaw pact would start WW3.

Im going to make a guess and say everybody always knew the Soviets were bloody but never a serious threat.

Well, Communism had a good run from 1945 to 1970 or so. The Soviets easily got control of Eastern Europe. Mao startled the world by taking China, Cuba got taken over by Castro, etc.

By 1970 or so it was clear China and Russia were not a unified bloc (heck, Russia supported Chang Kai-shek backstabbing Mao in 1927.) Russia made a lot of progress in economic development in the third quarter of the 20ths century but retrospectively they got the same "WTF happened in 1970?" disease the West did but suffered it worse. And of course strategies of containment were effective just about everywhere except Vietnam.

I am well aware of the border fights between China and Russia. I was more questioning whether the west overplayed the military capabilities of the Red Army and its forces. I think it its stranged that there were news about the Russian build up to invade Ukraine, so i think its clear that NATO did know about the preparation phase which of course at the least took weeks, and yet NATO did not react.

Seems very underwhelming how little the west reacted and almost did nothing to elevate its forces such in places along the border.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com