Hendrix's Eccentric Commentary

1/30/2025

There is a sort of life-cycle factor at play. Ukraine started the war with a smaller army that was better trained and much more motivated, the Russians started with a bigger army that was demonstrably unprepared. For about the first year the Ukrainians kicked ass. The problem is that better training and motivation are wasting assets for the smaller army — your best leaders get killed off, casualties hit you proportionally harder, your training and motivation edge erodes, and war weariness sets in. The less skilled but bigger army is suffering smaller losses proportionally even if they are larger than the smaller enemy. Their gain in experience is relatively greater than their opponents, morale gains as they start approaching battlefield parity with their opponents and start winning small victories, and their larger size means that they can do a better job of providing some rest for their troops. What this means is that the smaller but more highly trained and motivated army, if they are to win, must do so QUICKLY. The longer the war drags on the more god will be found marching with the big battalions. If Russia is prepared to suffer the casualties they will win absent some black swan event or outside intervention.