The war in Ukraine has proven one thing: the
United States military would wipe the floor with. Russia. No, we're not funded by the CIA as many have
claimed in the comments section- this is simple objective truth. Let's look at why. If we want to evaluate the capabilities of
the two militaries we must first understand the core philosophy of each fighting force. The Russian military has traditionally been
a ground power, with heavy focus on its army and artillery. With few warm water ports, and almost none
that wouldn't be immediately under threat from NATO forces, Russia and the Soviet Union
before it held no illusions that they could become a major maritime power. Back when the US was fielding its first supercarriers,
the Soviet Navy wanted to match that capability, until they were reminded that to join the
fight anywhere outside their immediate shoreline, they'd first have to run a gauntlet of NATO
shore-based anti-ship missile batteries. Geography has not been kind to Russia's dreams
of being a naval power, which is why it's never been a truly global power at all, period. This means that any future conflict involving
Russia and NATO will most likely take place in Eastern Europe. The Russian military is well suited for this
task, with the largest armored vehicle fleet in the world- which it has used to aggressively
destroy Ukraine's stockpile of anti-tank missiles. Before the war in Ukraine, Russia had an estimated
170 Battalion Tactical Groups, or about 119,000 ground combat troops- making it one of the
largest ground forces in the world. It's in artillery where Russia truly shines
though, and it's been the only saving grace its military has been able to call upon. Before the war Russia had over 10,000 artillery
pieces and nearly 4,000 MLRS. Russia's reliance on artillery is not by accident. It knows full well that it cannot compete
in the air against NATO powers, and thus has relied on ground-based fire support to ensure
it can provide support for engaged infantry and armor. However, as Ukraine has shown, these numbers
are impressive on paper but far less so when the actual equipment is taken into account,
as a significant bulk of this equipment is all from the Cold War- and has not seen modernization
upgrades. Also, a lot of it simply doesn't work anymore
due to poor maintenance and storage, or outright theft of critical components. Ultimately, Russia is a ground power meant
to fight a war against the West in Europe. However, it’s far from a modern, professional
military. Rampant corruption has hollowed out every
single facet of the Russian war machine and made it an ineffective lumbering giant who's
only real advantage is sheer mass. That works against a power like Ukraine- to
a degree. But it would never work against the American
military. America basically won the lottery when it
came time to spawn on the world map. It's the single most defensible nation on
earth, quite literally immune to invasion from a hostile power thanks to two giant oceans
on each coast and complete domination of its global hemisphere. This defensive advantage came at a significant
cost- to project military power, America would need to first move that power thousands of
miles east or west. That's why the United States has always been
a naval power since its creation as a state, when it struggled against the vastly superior
Royal British Navy during the revolutionary war with a handful of boats we'll generously
call 'warships'. However, by the dawn of the 20th century,
the United States Navy was rivalling the Royal Navy in tonnage and expertise, and would surpass
it in the interwar years as the most powerful naval force on earth. This was all at the expense of its army, because
when World War I and World War II kicked off, the US army was a bit of a clown show. Enthusiastic almost to a fault, the British
initially feared a total defeat in Africa when the US Army joined the fighting in World
War II. However, under tutelage of the allied powers
and cutting its teeth in combat, the US Army grew in proficiency, while its Marine Corps-
a competent force throughout the early 20th century- would do some of the nastiest, dirtiest
fighting on the planet against a fanatical enemy. America emerged from World War II with one
clear lesson in mind: never again. Determined to never be second to any other
power in the world, the US began to nurture what would become one of the most professional
fighting forces in earth's history. To that end, it became a technological power,
putting its considerable intellectual and engineering resources into developing weapons
one or more generations ahead of any potential adversary. In the second half of the 20th century, the
United States shifted from a naval power to a naval and air power, unmatched in either
arena- with a growing emphasis on air power. Engineers like the late great Kelly Johnson
ensured that in the skies, America has no peers. Modern Russian military doctrine gravitates
around the Battalion Tactical Group, a formation of 600-800 combat troops made up of two to
four companies of infantry- usually mechanized- and reinforced with air-defense, artillery,
engineering, and logistical support units. A tank and rocket artillery company are typically
attached to each BTG. The BTG is meant to operate as a combined
arms maneuver unit, and has the advantage of allowing for the use of support assets
such as artillery at the tactical level. A relative lack of infantry though- with only
about 200 infantrymen per BTG- means that it's difficult for this formation to actually
hold territory, and the Russian army relies heavily on Marines, paratroopers, or other
units for the task. The fact that Russia is already looking to
reorganize its BTGs is indicative of how well they perform against a near-peer adversary. Lessons learned in Ukraine are showing that
the BTG is more a lumbering beast than agile, tactical, combined arms maneuver unit- though
in truth this probably has more to do with the quality of Russian soldiers, doctrine,
and leadership than the composition of the BTG. A significant weakness of the Russian military
is its ability to coordinate effectively, and this has made the BTG a fundamentally
flawed composition as it decentralizes Russia's greatest asset: its artillery. Unable to coordinate its massive advantage
in artillery- as big as 20 to 1 during the first six to eight months of the war in Ukraine,
and 8 to 1 on average today- Russia has had far less success in leveraging its only real
overmatch against the far smaller and less well equipped Ukrainian military. British intelligence indicated that as of
November of 2022, Russia was already starting to move away from the BTG concept. The US Army's Brigade Combat Team is everything
that the Battalion Tactical Group tried to be, and more. A BCT can come in four flavors: infantry,
Stryker, armored, and strawberry-lemonade. BCTs are meant to be fully self-supporting
units, and deployable anywhere in the world for any mission the US Army requires of them. As such they have various assets native to
them. The infantry BCT is made up of about 4500
soldiers, and is organized around a core of three battalions of infantry. This already makes them significantly more
powerful than Russia's BTG, as each battalion is made up of around 1,000 soldiers. However, this also means the US fields far
fewer BCTs than Russia fields BTGs, with only 14 active BCTs in the US Army. American infantry is either mechanized or
motorized, deployed in Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles or using HMMWVs or their equivalent
replacement, giving the BCT an emphasis on high mobility. Alongside its infantry, a BCT will typically
also contain one recon cavalry battalion, one brigade support battalion, one engineer
battalion, and one field artillery battalion. A Stryker BCT is centered around the use of
the Stryker armored vehicle, and is meant to plug a gap in between the US Army's light
infantry and heavy armored infantry. It's also meant to be a very fast response
unit, with an entire brigade being air lifted anywhere in the world within 96 hours, and
a division within 120 hours. Like the infantry BCT, a Stryker BCT is made
up of three infantry battalions in 300 Stryker vehicles, one recon cavalary battalion, one
artillery battalion, one brigade support battalion, one brigade headquarters and headquarters
company, and one brigade engineer battalion. An anti-tank company made up of the mobile
gun system variant of the Stryker directly supports the Stryker BCT against enemy armor. The armored brigade combat team is what the
US military sends when you've fudged around and it's time for you to find out. This is the armored fist of the American military,
specifically designed to break the strongest of enemy defenses. The core of this formation is its 87 Abrams
main battle tanks and 152 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, and an armored BCT can
come in two varieties, with either two tank companies and one mechanized infantry company,
or two mechanized infantry companies and one tank company. As the US shifts away from fighting insurgencies
and the war on terror back to fighting near-peer adversaries, so too is its BCTs changing. The Waypoint 2028 program, later rebranded
to Army 2030, is looking to fundamentally redesign how America deploys its battalion
combat teams, with a focus on armor to face near-peer threats. This redesign aims to move artillery from
the BCT to the divisional level, much the same as Russia is attempting to do, so that
it can be better employed across a wide engagement front- while also improving survivability
in a heavily contested electronic warfare environment where communications may not be
always guaranteed between units. Engineering units are also being reorganized
to a divisional level, for much the same reason. As has been famously said, war doesn't tolerate
BS, and the American Battalion Combat Team has been put to the fire multiple times. Each time its superior mobility and coordination
proved decisive, while Russia's smaller Battalion Tactical Groups, ironically smaller and meant
to be more maneuverable, have not been. This is largely due to training, leadership,
and doctrine though. The biggest flaw with the Russian military
is a lack of professional training and soldiers both. With a culture of abuse and corruption, the
Russian armed forces have a difficult time retaining recruits, and only an estimated
2% of conscripts choose to sign an enlistment contract at the end of their mandatory service. This extremely high turnover rate means that
the Russian military lacks seasoned troops which form the backbone of any modern military,
and directly leads to a crippling lack of non-comissioned officers. Before the war in Ukraine, Russia attempted
to fix this by creating new training programmes for NCOs and offering incentives for soldiers
to re-enlist. As the war has shown, this has not been enough. Regular Russian officers have often been forced
to pick up the duties an NCO would do, and senior officers have even been spotted leading
platoon-sized actions. Inevitably, these senior officers get killed
or wounded, further eroding the discipline and capabilities of the Russian military. If all the managers at a restaurant disappeared
because they'd all been killed, it'd be very difficult for a bunch of cashiers, cooks,
and wait staff to do the specialized tasks senior management is responsible for, such
as ordering, handling pay and benefits, scheduling, etc. In effect, this is what's happening with the
Russian military today. It's brain drain slowly attritions the forces,
and every day the Russian military is in effect getting dumber. And that's really saying something. The United States, like every other modern
nation, is having difficulty reaching recruitment quotas and retaining those already in service. Ironically, the US believed it would have
difficulty recruiting during the lengthy wars in Iraq and Afghanistan- but it wasn't until
the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan that a true recruitment crisis occurred. Today the US Army is short 25% of its needed
recruits, with estimates putting the US Army down 7% of its current force numbers in two
years. The other services aren't suffering as badly,
but still face their own challenges- with only the US Marines coming out relatively
ok thanks to strong retention rates. The US military is struggling to remain competitive
versus a strong economy, and the lack of conflict ironically means that potential recruits don't
see service as a critical national need- and nothing could be further from the truth given
the potential threat of conflict with China. Covid however has had a significant effect
on the recruitment crisis, with an explosion of mental and physical health issues amongst
the younger Americans who would normally fill out the military's ranks. Also, adherence to physical and mental standards
disqualifies a large group of individuals from even considering service in the first
place- and while the US could do like China and lower recruitment standards over a half
dozen times, doing so would only result in sub-par troops. Recruitment crisis and its implications for
an all-volunteer force aside, the US military is worlds away from the Russian military in
professionalism and education. Hazing exists, as it does in any major organization,
but in the Russian army this is actively encouraged rather than punished. Likewise, US troopers aren't stripping the
wiring out of their vehicles to sell at a local market. A strong NCO corps ensures discipline and
training standards are met, as well as an institutional system of oversight and accountability. Whereas in the Russian military, training
is typically done only long enough for someone to snap a picture and send it up the chain
as 'proof', there are multiple levels of accountability for US personnel. And unlike a heavily conscripted force, American
servicemen generally want to increase their training and education. Education is something the US military takes
very seriously, heavily encouraging personnel at all levels to pursue higher education by
making it free. For senior personnel, the US also operates
five world-class war colleges, which instruct American officers alongside officers from
nations all over the world. For America, war is both a science and an
art form. But the real difference between the two militaries
is their very fundamental nature- the US military encourages, even instils in its personnel
a sense of initiative. The Russian army does not. Russia continues to fight like its Soviet
predecessor, with a heavy top-down command structure that discourages personal initiative. The US military by comparison encourages leadership
at every level- from an individual squad leader to a senior general- to act on their own initiative
after exercising good judgment. This makes the US a military of many potential
leaders, insulating it from the combat attrition of command personnel. Meanwhile, we have plenty of evidence from
Ukraine of entire Russian units paralyzed because of severed links to command staff. This glaring vulnerability of the Russian
military is what originally prompted the US to develop the most lethal war doctrine to
date- AirLand battle, now evolved to SeaAirLand battle. This operational doctrine is the core philosophy
of how the US fights wars, and it was revealed to the world for the first time in the early
1990s during Operation Desert Storm. It's so frighteningly effective that it took
even US military planners completely by surprise, sweeping aside one of the world's largest
armies with absolute ease. SeaAirLand battle seeks to present an adversary
with conundrums across the full warfighting spectrum to sow chaos and uncertainty amongst
the enemy, opening up vulnerabilities and opportunities in one or more domains. To achieve this, the US has become a truly
combined arms force, with ground, air, space, and naval assets tightly coordinated together
via tactical data links- something Russia is still struggling with to this day. While Russia has coordinated its aerospace
forces with ground-based air defenses, it's struggled to loop in its ground combat units
to achieve what the US has long ago mastered: common engagement capability. This is the ability for one spotter to observe
an enemy and guide another shooter's weapons to the target, and it's the secret behind
the US' lethality. Unlike Soviet forces which sought decisive
battles with overwhelming force, the US specializes in launching deep strikes into the enemy's
rear areas, specifically targeting logistics and command and control, or C2, nodes. This is why the US has placed such a heavy
emphasis on its air forces, stealth, and stand-off attack capability, as well as extreme precision
rocket artillery soon to be supplemented with ground-based ballistic missiles with extremely
long ranges. While the air force is busy making a mess
of the enemy's communications and supplies, ground forces strike at the enemy in smaller,
more mobile formations that attack from a variety of different directions. This makes it difficult for the enemy to coordinate
a defense, especially when their command and control has been disrupted or destroyed. A focus on rapid mobility and communications
allows the US to then quickly identify breaches in enemy formations and rapidly exploit them
with overwhelming force. The US has basically adopted Muhammad Ali's
famous adage of “floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee”, and it's proven
its mettle against numerically superior forces time and again. Now let's look at the specifics of what actually
makes the US a superior force over the Russian military. Let's start with the basics: communications. Communications is key to battlefield success,
without it you can't tell your troops what to do and when to do it. Of all the investments in technology that
the US has made, few surpass the untold billions that went into building the most robust, secure
battlefield networks in the world- and they are key to the US' success. Thanks to tactical data links like Link 16
and the future replacement, Link 22, American units can freely swap information between
each other. Even weapons enroute to their target can speak
with one another, such as the new Long Range Antiship Missile which can deconflict when
launched in volleys to ensure all missiles don't hit the same target, and can update
target priorities as missiles in a volley are knocked out by enemy air defenses. But at the very basic level, secure communications
allows the US to move units around and coordinate without letting the enemy be privy to this
information. Russia does not have this capability. Immediately after the invasion began, frontline
reports from Ukrainian troops revealed that communications amongst the Russian military
was very poor, with units often relying on unencrypted civilian radios or even cell phones. Russian strategic bombers, the very same craft
responsible for delivering a retaliatory nuclear strike, were also recorded using unsecured
communications. On paper, Russia is supposed to have secure,
encrypted communications for all or at least most of its units. Russian soldiers have been observed using
advanced radios such as the R-187P1 Azart and R-168-5UN-2, both of which were discovered
on a captured Russian paratrooper after the failed Antonov airport attack. However, the fighting in Ukraine has shown
that this is simply not the case, and one need only look at Russia's history of corruption
to understand why. In 2021 senior military figures and the manufacturer
of the Azart radio came under investigation for embezzlement, with millions of rubles
meant to purchase encrypted radios for the military vanishing into the pockets of various
officials instead. To make matters worse, as Ukraine gets better
at pinpointing Russian communications, officers are moving further and further away from the
front- to the point that Russian units have reported having to resort to cell phones to
reach them and ask for orders. The general failure of the Russian officer
corps aside, which cowardly moves to the rear as they send their men to their death, going
up against a technologically advanced foe such as the United States with unsecure communications
is its own death sentence. The US has made communications a top priority,
issuing the AN/PRC-148 to its combat units. In fact, communications are so important that
units in the field will typically deploy with multiple backups, including radios for local
traffic, long-range radios, and satellite radios for emergencies. Embedded personnel such as Air Force Combat
Controllers will have their own radios to communicate with overhead aircraft waiting
to bring the boom when asked, and they can even stream video directly from overhead assets
to get a bird's eye view of the battlefield, taking advantage of superior sensors on US
aircraft. If there's one flaw with US communications
it's that there's too many different radios, and efforts to consolidate them into a single
system have so far failed. That hasn't stopped the US from throwing millions
at the problem until it eventually hopefully goes away, something that it's exceptionally
good at- to a fault. The next significant difference between the
two militaries’ infantry is their equipment. Take a look at these two photos and see if
you can spot the differences. Anyone who has served in a ground combat role
can probably spot them immediately, but don't feel bad if you can't- the differences are
subtle but make all the difference in the world and makes US soldiers far superior to
their Russian counterparts. Need a clue? Look at the helmets- specifically the front
of the helmets. You might notice that Russian helmets have
no mounts for night vision. Now look at the rifles and compare the rifles
of the American soldiers with those of the Russian soldiers. Spot a difference? Most Russian rifles come with no optics whatsoever,
while American combat rifles come with already have optics when given to the troops. Even more importantly, American rifles carry
the PAQ family of laser systems, which are critical for aiming with night vision. Russian rifles do not carry these. So even on the rare occasion that a Russian
soldier may have night vision, which is estimated at 1 in 10 soldiers, they are unable to use
their rifles while also using their night vision. By comparison, every single US soldier is
issued night vision, and the required laser targeting system with which to use it properly. Other key differences include the mass adoption
of armored vests by the US military, while most troops who are lucky enough to be issued
body armor in the Russian military are typically issued what are colloquially known as 'second-chance
vests', poorly suited for stopping high powered rifle rounds. US soldiers also carry supplemental equipment
such as radios, gloves, knee pads, and even eye protection- Russian soldiers largely lack
these small bits of kit that can end up giving an edge to a warfighter. And we're not cherry picking here, you're
welcome to look up photos of US soldiers in action versus their Russian counterparts-
while there are elite Russian units who have access to what is standard to US infantry,
the entire point is that this is standard for all US infantry. The US owns the night, and prefers to run
night combat operations to exercise its vast advantage in imaging over any potential adversary. But more importantly, the US invests heavily
in making sure its troops have the right equipment for the job, and this extends to its combat
vehicles. American optics are on the whole superior
to their Russian counterparts, especially as sanctions kick in and Russia is denied
western optics or the components to build its own. New Russian tanks are being sent to the front
with nothing more than gunner's sights, significantly lessening their effectiveness against western
tanks being donated to Ukraine. By the way, Russia had invested heavily into
developing a native capability to build advanced night vision devices. The entire affair collapsed in on itself however
when corruption inevitably took a massive bite out of the budget, and the officials
overseeing the company set up to produce domestic night vision kit were discovered to be siphoning
off funds for themselves instead. Now when Russia needs it the most, it's unable
to produce the specialized components required for night vision optics. The entire Russian military suffers from a
lack of kit that would be considered standard in the US military. Russian aviation for example has only a few
aircraft capable of providing accurate air support for ground units, as the bulk of its
air fleet lacks the targeting pods necessary for the task. The US by comparison has hundreds of these
aircraft, and can basically bolt on a targeting pod to just about anything that you can think
of hurling into the sky. An Abrams tank may not be very aerodynamic,
but if it wanted to the US could strap a targeting pod and rocket onto it and for its brief flight
through the sky, be capable of delivering accurate ground fires for friendly forces. Russia's inability to do the same was on full
display during the famed Belgorod incursion by the Free Russia Legion and Russian Volunteer
Corps, when a Russian Su-34 dropped dumb gravity bombs that missed their target by a generous
few hundred meters or so. The differences between the Russian and American
military are so significant that we could probably do an entire 60 minute episode on
this topic. Matter of fact, if this video gets enough
views we'll do a part two, and present even more evidence from Ukraine on how the United
States would absolutely decimate the Russian military. And for anyone who still doubts this or thinks
we're just shilling for the US- remember that in June of 2022 the US sent a dozen HIMARS
batteries to Ukraine and it absolutely wreck. Russia's day. If Russia has yet to eliminate a single of
the now 30 or so estimated HIMARS in Ukraine, how exactly does it expect to cope with the
four hundred still in the US inventory? Now go check out Why Putin Is Scared To Deploy
The Su-57 To Ukraine, or click this other video instead.
