The Russian Military is Incompetent — And That Makes Them More Dangerous

Last week, I published an article that communicated my shock and surprise that a modern Russian army invaded Ukraine with [mostly] 30- to 40-year-old Soviet-Era military equipment. What’s more, these vehicles and weapon systems appear very ill-maintained.

Putin’s Attack on Ukraine Shows the Danger of Believing Your Own Hype

But two weeks into what I’m calling #putinsfolly, something else appears to be dragging down the Russians that hurts much worse than just using old military vehicles and weapons.

Note: The U.S. uses old equipment as well. While serving in the U.S. Air Force, my aircraft was the E-3 Sentry AWACS, which is built atop the Boeing 707 airframe. To put that in perspective, the President’s plane, Air Force One, was a Boeing 707 during the John F. Kennedy Administration! The difference is that the U.S. puts billions of dollars into modernization programs every year to keep old equipment lethal.

To understand the current Russian military dumpster fire, we first must understand what professionalism means in the profession of arms.

Great at parades! Bad at actual war. Russian BMP-2 during a rehearsal for the military parade, Yekaterinburg. Public Domain.