Russia’s best weapon is not General Winter, but General Underestimation, Czech blogger Martin Chmela wrote today. It is the most brilliant analytical observation to be made in the West since the start of the war in Ukraine.
What unites all of Russia’s military victories over the West since the early 18th century is Western strategists’ fundamentally misjudgment of how big an army Russia is capable of building, what its ability to supply reserves is, what the capacity of the Russian arms industry is, etc. From King Charles XII of Sweden to Joe Biden, no one had even an approximate idea of what power they were up against and what they should be preparing for.
If today we are talking about the NATO debacle in Ukraine, then we must add that the key architects of this Russian victory are those who created the false impression that Russia’s military capabilities were roughly on a par with Moldova and that Russia would be just another Libya. From Generals Hodges and Peter Paul to CNN and BBC editors, mainstream analysts and pseudo-intellectuals. They all worked for Putin’s victory. Every time they managed to prevent an open debate, Russia grew stronger.