“fifteen Russian armored divisions, five guards divisions, the Russian blue-water navy and fleet submarine attack and ICBM flotillas, the layered hundred regiments of rocket and arty, the twenty air wings of 4G fighters and fighter-bombers, the ten strategic bomber wings, the six thousand modern tanks and three thousand combat aircraft and one million soldiers & sailors, and lastly the 5000 nuclear weapons and the unofficial thousands of battlefield tacnukes that we dont know about, was planning to troop whatever was left of its 30 tanks, brigade of infantry, several Volga-closing inshore PT boats” This is not a rational discussion, if you actually believe that Russia has this size force across eleven time zones, much less concentrated in the Caucases to crush little Georgia.
The truth – that the Russians only had about thirteen thousand men, and the Georgians roughly the same in their order of battle fighting on their home turf, AND THEY STILL BROKE AND RAN – is much harder for you to swallow.
In fact, the Georgians did have Israeli made UAVs, night vision goggles, U.S. supplied Marine BDUs (check the camoflage pattern from the Paliwood-type Georgian soldier who kept popping up dead or wounded in all the AP photos)…certainly some equipment the Russians didn’t have. And they still lost. Obviously they would have been overwhelmed eventually by superior numbers from Russia, no one disputes that. But this isn’t what happened at all. A force that marched confidently into South Ossetia believing that Russia would stand aside instead got shellacked in 72 hours. And the Russians lied to the media about going to Gori? So did Stormin’ Norman right before Desert Storm. Disinformation is a fact of war.
And spare me all the preparations for war stuff. Both sides prepared in advance, except the Russians had better SIGINT from Saako personally directing the battle from his cellphone like any arrogant Ivy Leaguer might try to do, plus probably some disaffected Georgians who reported his war plan in advance. So…does the fact that Russia is bigger and has more competent intelligence services prove that Georgia was an innocent victim? Hardly.
The fifteen ACTUAL Russian armored divisions you describe probably have not existed except on paper since 1993. There are probably only two or three ready to fight on ten weeks notice if that. Hell, the one and a half division that went in to S. Ossetia was the cream of the crop (mostly paid volunteers not conscripts) and they still had to be spun up with exercises and be right across the tunnel to perform well.
You are living in a fantasy world where somehow you can simultaneously believe that Russia is dying off demographically AND still can maintain a million strong force as opposed to 200,000-300,000 contract soldiers with a whole bunch of one year conscripts who may or may not actually be in a barracks somewhere between Vyborg and Vladivostok, or may only report on paper while developing a truly alarming number of respiratory illnesses. I daresay even some of the crazy disease statistics you hear about young Russian men might simply be a consequence of ducking the draft rather than reality.
That’s it, I’m done arguing with idiots.
