How do you like the Russian military now, Senator Cruz? [View all]

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

In recent years, many on the American right have deified Vladimir Putin as a “genius” and his armed forces as invincible conquerors because they are not burdened by Western liberal pieties.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) typified the trend last year when he linked to a TikTok video showing a muscular Russian soldier doing pushups, parachuting out of an airplane, and using a rifle. Cruz contrasted this Kremlin propaganda unfavorably with a U.S. Army recruiting video featuring a female corporal who was raised by two mothers. “Holy crap,” Cruz tweeted: “Perhaps a woke, emasculated military is not the best idea…” He went on to blame “Dem politicians & woke media” for trying to turn U.S. troops “into pansies.”

Well, how do you like the Russian military now, Sen. Cruz? The Internet is full of videos showing Russian troops running out of fuel and food in Ukraine, weeping after surrendering, and complaining that they are being used as “cannon fodder.” There are reports of Russian soldiers sabotaging their own vehicles rather than fight in a war they want no part of. The Russians are even leaving their dead on the battlefield — a shocking thing to see for U.S. soldiers, whose creed contains the line, “I will never leave a fallen comrade.”

I have spent decades covering the U.S. military, including numerous visits to Iraq and Afghanistan, and the lack of competence and morale displayed by the Russian military is simply impossible to imagine on the part of U.S. troops. U.S. personnel are far better equipped, trained, motivated and led than their Russian counterparts. It’s not even close. If the Russian military were ever to face the U.S. military in battle — something that we must fervently hope will never happen because of the presence of nuclear weapons on both sides — I doubt the Russians would last any longer than the Iraqi army (which was trained and equipped along Soviet lines) did in 1991 and 2003. Indeed, in 2018, U.S. air power pulverized Russian mercenaries who attacked a U.S. outpost in Syria: The U.S. troops suffered no casualties while the attackers lost 200 to 300 men.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/03/putin-invasion-ukraine-shattered-myth-invincibiity-of-russian-military-power/