Our "limited conventional assault" against Iraq had a few things going for it.
1) It wasn't just us. We had actual and consistent international backing.
2) Iraqi forces had just crawled out of a decade of war with Iran that left them in a stalemate position. Not exactly a great condition. Also the entire Russian army was equipped with shit Russian hand-me-downs from the mid-70's.
3) Almost the entire Iraq army was occupying Kuwait, and there was only one road out - they were sitting ducks (look up some images of Highway 80 to see what I mean - I'd post some but I've been accused of "appealing to emotion" when I do 
)
4) Saddam really, truly was not expecting the US to do anything. we'd been patting his ass so long and had told him before that we didn't give a good ratshit about Kuwait - and truthfully we didn't give a good ratshit about Kuwait, Kuwait was well-fucked by the time we got involved; because some Iraqi soldiers engaged Saudis at the border and rolled across Saudi territory.
5) Iraq had absolutely no way to hit us back. They could hit Israel with scuds, but that doesn't actually count.
6) We were able to institute a no-fly zone in northern and southern Iraq easily because, you know, Iraq's not very big.
Absolutely none of this applies at all to the situation in Ukraine vs Russia. None. We'd be going at it unilaterally - the EU isn't with us, nor is the rest of NATO even. Russian military forces are current and fresh. Only a small portion of that force is represented in Crimea. we've certainly made enough noise about it, and our bad habits in recent years likely have the Russians on alert just in case. And Russia can hit us back and will do so effectively - likely in as much a "limited" scale as we hit them with (it won't feel very limited, i assure you). We will further be unable to exert any territorial control over Russia due to, first, Russia being huge, and two, the fact Russia can shoot back.
So... yeah, you might as well be drawing comparisons to the Falklands or the War of hte Roses or something for all the relevancy this has.
Edit history
Recommendations
0 members have recommended this reply (displayed in chronological order):
= new reply since forum marked as read