It's a very interesting article. I always read you with great attention, I am interested in the opinion of an educated and intelligent Westerner. There is still hope that not everything is so bad in this world. I want to make a few comments.
1. Russians have been paying great attention to drones from the very beginning. Moreover, the Russian army had a lot of them. I remember well how, before the start of the Ukrainian operation, Shoigu even came to a factory for the production of drones and was interested in how to increase production. It was shown in detail on Russian television. But it turned out that there were few drones for such a conflict. There is always a shortage of ammunition in any war.
2. I'm not sure that the West has lagged far behind Russia in the field of missile technology. If you are right, then the West will not be able to catch up with Russia. The priority of rocket technology over aviation technology began in the USSR under Khrushchev, 70 years ago. He said, "We will make rockets in the same quantity as sausages." He pushed the rocket men forward and pushed the Stalin Falcons back. The discontent of aviators in Russia still exists.
3. Western air defense systems are, of course, weaker than Russian ones. The reason is the Second World War. Hitler's aircraft inflicted enormous damage on the Soviet Army. It was then that the great history of Russian air defense began. After the war, my father served in the air defense battery in Moscow in 1947-50. At that time, the soldiers served in the army for three years. The battery with one of the first radars in the history of Russia was located near Kuzminki Park, and I sometimes drive past this place. This is just a small sketch.
Now the Russian industry produces more anti-aircraft missiles than the whole world. It's not a joke, it's true. The West won't do anything about it, even China is buying Russian air defense systems.
I read somewhere that Shoigu was credited for buying Iranian Shaheds drone's legal rights and setting up mass production very early into the war. That was a master stroke of the Russian pragmatism, recognising that the art of war is being developed in that direction and assessing that Iran has already posses the tech that is superior and can be built on. In parallel to developing the tech, development of the tactics and operational excellence came into life, Rubicon was formed. Two-three years on and look at them now, an invincible force.
The west MIC industry and it's war doctrine is mired in corruption on all levels and with hollowed and toothless 'democracies' supposedly in charge of the affaires this modus operandi - provoking RU to raise tensions, fear and consent at home for more weapon's production - will go on for a very long time...
While it is true that the US political/military class is gun shy, their now 80+ year-old wet dream of destroying and carving up Russia/USSR (it’s all the same to them) is quite as fresh as goats frolicking in Springtime.
The obvious fact that the Russians were wrong-footed especially in the initial phases, takes the edges off all the “baroque” (oh I do love that word) psycho spin the western media keeps churning out. It is also obvious that NATO, in order to stay alive, needs this quagmire—as the multi headed beast needs all the other quagmires. Like a pig in slop. Or a vampire pig in slop.
As far as the use-value of international navies is concerned, let them go and clean up all the plastic drowning the oceans.
Well, broadly that's all pretty much true. There are a few quibbles about detail: i.e. "Ansar’Allah, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, has no effective means of air defence." That didn't seem to stop them downing 12 or so US 'Reaper' high end drones.
Similarly, the caveats about expense and speed of manufacture of aircraft do not apply very much to China and to some extent Russia. This is mainly a US and (inasmuch as they can compete) EU/UK problem, where manufacturing of weapons is strictly on a commercial for-profit basis.
Apart from these relatively minor details, good stuff.
I would extend the discussion of defeat of the West to fall chiefly on the United States. To counteract Russia will invoke an all guns, no butter economy. That will be fine with our oligarchs, but the hoary practicalities of resources will ruin the rally.
It will take decades to ramp up production of conventional weapon systems like artillery tubes and shells. Likewise for air defense and anti-missile missiles. But for the latter, not getting essential rare earths from China will make any production ramp up impossible.
The US has the earths, but meaningful production is a long, long, way away.
Perhaps profit is a large factor in the sense that the Russians priority is to simply win the war & be able to defend themselves, whereas the US priority for a good while now it appears to me is to primarily to profit shareholders & the MIC. The Russians are through a mix of private & public sector support are actually following the example of the WW2 US mass production on a smaller scale, which supplied around 50 % of the armaments in the Western theatre.
Manned combat will be obsolete in Future not just planes, tanks and ships.... Why spend 2 million training a Navy SEAL when a $1000 mosquito sized micro drone with AI and small explosive charge goes in his ear and blows his brains out? Thats the future.
We are gonna have to ban the machines, like Dune, if we want to fight mano a mano again
As far as West caching up. Good luck!!! Study in mafs not queer theory or DEI makes nations innovators. China graduates 10x engineers as USA. Russia 2x with half the population.
Why train people? As Aurelian pointed out you need them to hold territory. And those 2 million dollar Navy SEALs, well you will need them if you want to do more then murder people.
Eisenhower's Military-Industrial Complex has morphed into a for-profit planet-devouring juggernaut.
A few examples: The F.35 has always been a tax payer sinkhole and an all-around disaster. And these are only 2 of the Pentagon/Dept of Defense/War’s black holes. There’s never been an organizational fiscal monstrosity to equal the Dept of DefWar.
So once upon a time, military aviators were flying around in doghouses and motorized kites. Fast forward 111 years to 2025…
What does an island already bristling with US military hardware want with main battle tanks? Will the US Navy ferry a Taiwanese tank corps across the Taiwan Straits, after which they Rommel their way toward Beijing(?)
The military tactics in both the French and Indian War as well as the Revolution in the thirteen colonies also proved this point in strategic execution.
You are a broken record. You say the same thing, week after week, on multiple sites. If you insist on sharing your thoughts can you at least please come up with some new ones?
This has nothing to do with your poorly thought out, uninformed, and frankly, ignorant opinion. Opinion, not fact, as as such, it is not possible to "prove you wrong".
You are like this guy I used to know at the local pub, who seemed to only be able to talk about one thing all the time. He would come in, join the conversation, and within minutes, completely destroy it, because all he could do is repeat his same old talking points, day after day, week after week.
And all you can do is play tone cop but you seem unable to articulate why you think I'm wrong, why my opinions are unfounded, etc..
Basically your argument is that I repeat myself and you don't like what I say. None of that has the slightest bearing on whether what I wrote has any basis in fact.
This is my last reply to you, I don't feel it is appropriate to shit up this comment section.
You are under the delusion that America is as pure as the driven snow, that we only act out of altruism and a desire to make the world better for everyone in the face of absolute evil (insert constantly rotating bad man/country here) that seeks total domination of the planet. America would never undertake violent action against anyone if it wasn't for those dastardly Europeans who keep tricking us into doing things that we really don't want to do.
In reality, it is quite the opposite. America likes to kill people, it likes to blow up other peoples homes and take their shit. This is what America does, and has does for it's entire history, less about 5 years or so. Nearly 250 years of constant warfare against people at home and abroad.
I never said America is not evil. It most assuredly is evil, and yes, it seeks domination. That does not mean that America is not strong or that it is winning.
That doesn't mean sniveling europeans are not cheering the United States on, the way the yapping poodle really wants Master to beat up the postman.
I would go a bit further than taking Russian Federation as an example and look at Iran as an example.
Almost totally isolated from West and East, they came up with the Shahed drone, produced in thousands at scattered/distributed sweatshops (no high-end tooling and R&D required) and powered by a ..scooter engine.
Geran2-3 further developed by Russia no, produced in 1000s/month provide a tick lower the impact of a cruise missile (which costs orders of magnitude more and requires much more time to produce).
You mention correctly on the end, that land occupation cannot be achieved by drones/missiles, one needs bots on the ground. But for that role an Armata T14 or T90 might be an overkill, maybe tha tis the reason russians further tweak the known, mobile, "cheap", easy to maintain T72 platform.
It is interesting you talk about the first blitzkrieg. That one was, on paper, against a peer opponent. And it was until 2022 the only time it worked against a peer opponent. The main reason for that is that while the French army was better equipped and had more manpower their command structure was still Napoleonic Wars/trench warfare and the Germans innovated on that level to beat the French.
So I wrote that until 2022 it was the only success. Then Russia surprised the world by invading with what considered a too small army. Everyone was talking about Russia just posturing before that point since they'd need 3/4 million to a million soldiers for a big arrow push for a real invasion (and they are still pretending that Russia is losing since it hasn't done a big arrow push). Instead they performed a blitzkrieg operation. The goal was distinctly political, in the Clausewitz meaning, and that was to get Ukraine to negotiate. Even then it wasn't a guarantee that Russia would complete their objective(s) seeing that they overstretched when the spearhead crossed the Dnieper to menace Odessa. At that point Ukraine didn't remove that spearhead while they had the capacity. Had Ukraine removed that army then Ukraine would have had a good chance of booting Russia from its territory (or forcing Russia to declare a state of war so that they could send conscripts to fight).
Yes, everything points to the fact that the Russians planned to apply political pressure resulting in what almost became the Istanbul Accords. No wonder they were caught wrong-footed having to fight an actual war. The idea that Ukrainians/the West would finally "come to their senses" seems to have taken a long time to die. The Ukrainians otoh have long been trying to hold out that much longer in the hope that something changes — NATO gets involved directly, Putin is overthrown, Russia is hit by an asteroid etc., because they view losing as equivalent to the destruction of their country. Which suggests that their country can only exist as anti-Russia. Meanwhile, Georgia appears to have figured out that hitching it's wagon to the West and antagonizing Russia doesn't pay, and it's still there, and doing well economically.
One of the reasons that weight in on this "attitude", ---inadept capacity to adapt, of the West is the fluid notions of what they are, who they are and what a long-term strategy looks like.
Another suggestion: ---for another article, the "disconnect", the mental detachment of any physical harm possible to the front-runners, being the talking heads and politicians: they ---wrongly, live with the notion of playing a video game, where they cannot occur any bodily damage themselves, being faced with risk to their families. They ---they same bunny quality, hollywood-esque "spoke-persons" live in a bulb, without the notion of the bulb one step ahead of being eventually pierced. That is certainly a reason for intellectual sloppiness, shopping ahead by the day, personal versus collective ambitions distort.
Very interesting article, thanks Aurelien. I just want to say that in all these discussions about rearmament we are missing the elephant in the room, which is the nuclear weapons. As I see it, the next strategic move, necessary especially if the US disengages from Europe, will necessarily be a nuclear rearmament of the European states. Germany probably first, and then Poland and maybe some others will follow… and the npt will be forgotten.
And, quite impressive, looks like M. Macron is the first Frenchman in history to be happy about a massive German rearmament!
If the Germans are allowed to make at least 10 nuclear bombs, the British will be the first to hang themselves. So the Germans won't have any nuclear weapons.
This is moving to Terminator territory. The Russians can invade with robots and hold large areas of frontier without a single person present. Everyhing under surveillance and anyone moves gets killed. They can then slowly extend this territory Westwards. How about that.
It's a very interesting article. I always read you with great attention, I am interested in the opinion of an educated and intelligent Westerner. There is still hope that not everything is so bad in this world. I want to make a few comments.
1. Russians have been paying great attention to drones from the very beginning. Moreover, the Russian army had a lot of them. I remember well how, before the start of the Ukrainian operation, Shoigu even came to a factory for the production of drones and was interested in how to increase production. It was shown in detail on Russian television. But it turned out that there were few drones for such a conflict. There is always a shortage of ammunition in any war.
2. I'm not sure that the West has lagged far behind Russia in the field of missile technology. If you are right, then the West will not be able to catch up with Russia. The priority of rocket technology over aviation technology began in the USSR under Khrushchev, 70 years ago. He said, "We will make rockets in the same quantity as sausages." He pushed the rocket men forward and pushed the Stalin Falcons back. The discontent of aviators in Russia still exists.
3. Western air defense systems are, of course, weaker than Russian ones. The reason is the Second World War. Hitler's aircraft inflicted enormous damage on the Soviet Army. It was then that the great history of Russian air defense began. After the war, my father served in the air defense battery in Moscow in 1947-50. At that time, the soldiers served in the army for three years. The battery with one of the first radars in the history of Russia was located near Kuzminki Park, and I sometimes drive past this place. This is just a small sketch.
Now the Russian industry produces more anti-aircraft missiles than the whole world. It's not a joke, it's true. The West won't do anything about it, even China is buying Russian air defense systems.
I read somewhere that Shoigu was credited for buying Iranian Shaheds drone's legal rights and setting up mass production very early into the war. That was a master stroke of the Russian pragmatism, recognising that the art of war is being developed in that direction and assessing that Iran has already posses the tech that is superior and can be built on. In parallel to developing the tech, development of the tactics and operational excellence came into life, Rubicon was formed. Two-three years on and look at them now, an invincible force.
The west MIC industry and it's war doctrine is mired in corruption on all levels and with hollowed and toothless 'democracies' supposedly in charge of the affaires this modus operandi - provoking RU to raise tensions, fear and consent at home for more weapon's production - will go on for a very long time...
While it is true that the US political/military class is gun shy, their now 80+ year-old wet dream of destroying and carving up Russia/USSR (it’s all the same to them) is quite as fresh as goats frolicking in Springtime.
The obvious fact that the Russians were wrong-footed especially in the initial phases, takes the edges off all the “baroque” (oh I do love that word) psycho spin the western media keeps churning out. It is also obvious that NATO, in order to stay alive, needs this quagmire—as the multi headed beast needs all the other quagmires. Like a pig in slop. Or a vampire pig in slop.
As far as the use-value of international navies is concerned, let them go and clean up all the plastic drowning the oceans.
Well, broadly that's all pretty much true. There are a few quibbles about detail: i.e. "Ansar’Allah, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, has no effective means of air defence." That didn't seem to stop them downing 12 or so US 'Reaper' high end drones.
Similarly, the caveats about expense and speed of manufacture of aircraft do not apply very much to China and to some extent Russia. This is mainly a US and (inasmuch as they can compete) EU/UK problem, where manufacturing of weapons is strictly on a commercial for-profit basis.
Apart from these relatively minor details, good stuff.
I would extend the discussion of defeat of the West to fall chiefly on the United States. To counteract Russia will invoke an all guns, no butter economy. That will be fine with our oligarchs, but the hoary practicalities of resources will ruin the rally.
It will take decades to ramp up production of conventional weapon systems like artillery tubes and shells. Likewise for air defense and anti-missile missiles. But for the latter, not getting essential rare earths from China will make any production ramp up impossible.
The US has the earths, but meaningful production is a long, long, way away.
Perhaps profit is a large factor in the sense that the Russians priority is to simply win the war & be able to defend themselves, whereas the US priority for a good while now it appears to me is to primarily to profit shareholders & the MIC. The Russians are through a mix of private & public sector support are actually following the example of the WW2 US mass production on a smaller scale, which supplied around 50 % of the armaments in the Western theatre.
Manned combat will be obsolete in Future not just planes, tanks and ships.... Why spend 2 million training a Navy SEAL when a $1000 mosquito sized micro drone with AI and small explosive charge goes in his ear and blows his brains out? Thats the future.
We are gonna have to ban the machines, like Dune, if we want to fight mano a mano again
As far as West caching up. Good luck!!! Study in mafs not queer theory or DEI makes nations innovators. China graduates 10x engineers as USA. Russia 2x with half the population.
Why train people? As Aurelian pointed out you need them to hold territory. And those 2 million dollar Navy SEALs, well you will need them if you want to do more then murder people.
why murder people? Simply having the ability to murder people + threaten to use it should suffice for most political purposes.
"I need lebensraum and I'll kill you all" type of wars obviously excluded
Eisenhower's Military-Industrial Complex has morphed into a for-profit planet-devouring juggernaut.
A few examples: The F.35 has always been a tax payer sinkhole and an all-around disaster. And these are only 2 of the Pentagon/Dept of Defense/War’s black holes. There’s never been an organizational fiscal monstrosity to equal the Dept of DefWar.
So once upon a time, military aviators were flying around in doghouses and motorized kites. Fast forward 111 years to 2025…
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/f-35-air-forces-2000000000000-mistake-213747
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/f-35-failure/
Meanwhile the US Navy has been playing around with bazillions of dollars of tax payer widows’ mites, and they come up with this: https://www.19fortyfive.com/2025/02/the-u-s-navys-littoral-combat-ship-is-in-big-trouble/
The U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship Is in Big Trouble or: What do armies and navies and air forces do with weapons they don’t want and perhaps have never wanted? https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/billions-dollars-wasted-navys-littoral-combat-ship-nightmare-213130
Not to mention that this thing is hideous as Satan’s dildo, and I’m not even a techno-
aesthete.
Tank Boondoggle Watch: Taiwan Acquires First New Tanks in 30 Years: Was the American M1A2T Abrams the Right Choice? https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/taiwan-first-new-tanks-30-years-m1a2t-abrams
What does an island already bristling with US military hardware want with main battle tanks? Will the US Navy ferry a Taiwanese tank corps across the Taiwan Straits, after which they Rommel their way toward Beijing(?)
Meanwhile in Ukraine, the M1A1 Abrams is stuck in the tracks of the Wehrmacht: https://defencesecurityasia.com/en/significant-issues-with-american-m1a1-abrams-tanks-in-ukraine-anticipated-early-on/
The modern variant of Clausewitz’s dictum can be reworked this way: war is national economic interest carried on by other means.
The military tactics in both the French and Indian War as well as the Revolution in the thirteen colonies also proved this point in strategic execution.
My usual italian translation, here:
"Imparare dalla sconfitta?
A cosa serve realmente la tecnologia militare?
Aurelien
Oct 15, 2025
Learning From The Defeat?
What is military technology actually for?"
https://trying2understandw.blogspot.com/2025/10/imparare-dalla-sconfitta-cosa-serve.html
You are a broken record. You say the same thing, week after week, on multiple sites. If you insist on sharing your thoughts can you at least please come up with some new ones?
Thanks for you attention to this matter!
Oops! That was supposed to be a reply to Feral Finster, not the host.
So prove me wrong.
Otherwise, you are playing Tone Cop.
This has nothing to do with your poorly thought out, uninformed, and frankly, ignorant opinion. Opinion, not fact, as as such, it is not possible to "prove you wrong".
You are like this guy I used to know at the local pub, who seemed to only be able to talk about one thing all the time. He would come in, join the conversation, and within minutes, completely destroy it, because all he could do is repeat his same old talking points, day after day, week after week.
And all you can do is play tone cop but you seem unable to articulate why you think I'm wrong, why my opinions are unfounded, etc..
Basically your argument is that I repeat myself and you don't like what I say. None of that has the slightest bearing on whether what I wrote has any basis in fact.
This is my last reply to you, I don't feel it is appropriate to shit up this comment section.
You are under the delusion that America is as pure as the driven snow, that we only act out of altruism and a desire to make the world better for everyone in the face of absolute evil (insert constantly rotating bad man/country here) that seeks total domination of the planet. America would never undertake violent action against anyone if it wasn't for those dastardly Europeans who keep tricking us into doing things that we really don't want to do.
In reality, it is quite the opposite. America likes to kill people, it likes to blow up other peoples homes and take their shit. This is what America does, and has does for it's entire history, less about 5 years or so. Nearly 250 years of constant warfare against people at home and abroad.
I never said America is not evil. It most assuredly is evil, and yes, it seeks domination. That does not mean that America is not strong or that it is winning.
That doesn't mean sniveling europeans are not cheering the United States on, the way the yapping poodle really wants Master to beat up the postman.
Thank you for the excellent (as always) article.
I would go a bit further than taking Russian Federation as an example and look at Iran as an example.
Almost totally isolated from West and East, they came up with the Shahed drone, produced in thousands at scattered/distributed sweatshops (no high-end tooling and R&D required) and powered by a ..scooter engine.
Geran2-3 further developed by Russia no, produced in 1000s/month provide a tick lower the impact of a cruise missile (which costs orders of magnitude more and requires much more time to produce).
You mention correctly on the end, that land occupation cannot be achieved by drones/missiles, one needs bots on the ground. But for that role an Armata T14 or T90 might be an overkill, maybe tha tis the reason russians further tweak the known, mobile, "cheap", easy to maintain T72 platform.
It is interesting you talk about the first blitzkrieg. That one was, on paper, against a peer opponent. And it was until 2022 the only time it worked against a peer opponent. The main reason for that is that while the French army was better equipped and had more manpower their command structure was still Napoleonic Wars/trench warfare and the Germans innovated on that level to beat the French.
So I wrote that until 2022 it was the only success. Then Russia surprised the world by invading with what considered a too small army. Everyone was talking about Russia just posturing before that point since they'd need 3/4 million to a million soldiers for a big arrow push for a real invasion (and they are still pretending that Russia is losing since it hasn't done a big arrow push). Instead they performed a blitzkrieg operation. The goal was distinctly political, in the Clausewitz meaning, and that was to get Ukraine to negotiate. Even then it wasn't a guarantee that Russia would complete their objective(s) seeing that they overstretched when the spearhead crossed the Dnieper to menace Odessa. At that point Ukraine didn't remove that spearhead while they had the capacity. Had Ukraine removed that army then Ukraine would have had a good chance of booting Russia from its territory (or forcing Russia to declare a state of war so that they could send conscripts to fight).
Yes, everything points to the fact that the Russians planned to apply political pressure resulting in what almost became the Istanbul Accords. No wonder they were caught wrong-footed having to fight an actual war. The idea that Ukrainians/the West would finally "come to their senses" seems to have taken a long time to die. The Ukrainians otoh have long been trying to hold out that much longer in the hope that something changes — NATO gets involved directly, Putin is overthrown, Russia is hit by an asteroid etc., because they view losing as equivalent to the destruction of their country. Which suggests that their country can only exist as anti-Russia. Meanwhile, Georgia appears to have figured out that hitching it's wagon to the West and antagonizing Russia doesn't pay, and it's still there, and doing well economically.
One of the reasons that weight in on this "attitude", ---inadept capacity to adapt, of the West is the fluid notions of what they are, who they are and what a long-term strategy looks like.
Another suggestion: ---for another article, the "disconnect", the mental detachment of any physical harm possible to the front-runners, being the talking heads and politicians: they ---wrongly, live with the notion of playing a video game, where they cannot occur any bodily damage themselves, being faced with risk to their families. They ---they same bunny quality, hollywood-esque "spoke-persons" live in a bulb, without the notion of the bulb one step ahead of being eventually pierced. That is certainly a reason for intellectual sloppiness, shopping ahead by the day, personal versus collective ambitions distort.
A very interesting article.
Very interesting article, thanks Aurelien. I just want to say that in all these discussions about rearmament we are missing the elephant in the room, which is the nuclear weapons. As I see it, the next strategic move, necessary especially if the US disengages from Europe, will necessarily be a nuclear rearmament of the European states. Germany probably first, and then Poland and maybe some others will follow… and the npt will be forgotten.
And, quite impressive, looks like M. Macron is the first Frenchman in history to be happy about a massive German rearmament!
If the Germans are allowed to make at least 10 nuclear bombs, the British will be the first to hang themselves. So the Germans won't have any nuclear weapons.
This is moving to Terminator territory. The Russians can invade with robots and hold large areas of frontier without a single person present. Everyhing under surveillance and anyone moves gets killed. They can then slowly extend this territory Westwards. How about that.