Well the answer is obvious, isn't it? The vast majority of the Iraqis hated their leader and their government. The army deserted whenever they could. No one except a bunch of fedayeen from other countries, for god's sake, was interested in defending Baghdad.

Chechens, on the other hand, love their homeland, hate Russia, and are willing to struggle and die to protect their cities.

well that and the fact that our army rocks and thier sucks

CNN TV: suicide bomber in baghdad - 4 Marines seriously wounded

Grozney is a case study in "how not" to approach urban warfare. Giving credit where it is due, Grozney was autopsied at the US war colleges, and may have helped influence our approach on Basrah/ Baghdad

And you're a bunch of ex-communist pussies!

Damn, having a free press sucks, doesn't it?

what Siniac said

Go in and read the entire article... I thought it was mostly the Arab street media that needed accuracy training!

I'm sorry, but I get a kick out of this. The Soviets did some soul-searching after the 1991 war, too. I recall one observation along the lines of "Well, now we know what would have happened in a war in Europe."

Seriously, folks, the speed of the military victory (sorry, but I do have to emphasize that the political war is still underway) is going to send shockwaves throughout the world. It's not only the Third World nations that are going to reconsider things. China, Russia, North Korea (second world, maybe 2.5 world) will also have to re-evaluate the military situation.

Lovely quotes like this:
> in the final analysis they were
> cowards who relied on technical
> superiority... [snip]
> 33 percent assumed Iraq would prevail

remind us that, although it might seem at times like any nation would be foolhardy to force a military conflict with the US, people occasionally forget and go back to assuming the US is a paper tiger. Saddam has, perhaps by making a similar mistake twice, acted as a blackboard.

-BF

MREs might not be ambrosia; but as soldier fuel goes, they're orders of magnitude more effective than, say, vodka.

Although our armies rock, if the Iraqi PEOPLE had wanted to stop us, they could have. We would not drive tanks over civilians and we would not fire on an unarmed crowd of people blocking the way unless they started endangering troops. The people wanted Saddam out, but couldn't do it themselves. We are doing it BECAUSE NOBODY ELSE WOULD.

sarcasm
Oh, and of course, it is all about oil. That is why we risk soldiers in the cities after we already secured the oilfields and port facilities.
/sarcasm

It's not solely because of the comparison with Grozny that this is so traumatic for the Russia and its armed forces.

Grozny is their second 'Vietnam'. The first, and it was even worse, was Afghanistan, and you have to remember that we just shot through there in a few weeks.

The Russians now have to confront the fact that the inferiority they were so afraid of with regard to 'star wars' and stealth technologies has been extended in a very public way by the US into the arena of the conventional armed forces.

This makes the size of the Russian conscripted armed forces totally and very visibly absurd, but if they send them home the size of the already top-heavy military leadership and bureaucracy will have to be cut back too.

Plus they have neither the money nor the skills to even begin putting together something modern and professional in the way of a defense capability.

Meanwhile they can't just ignore the problem because the Chechens won't let them.

What a mess.

The russian military is very poorly trained, consisting mostly of conscripts. Having your child sent to the military are a mother's nightmare, comparable to serving a prison sentence. With that kind of organization it is difficult to hold a candle to a modern equiped and motivated force.

Russian generals are still fighting WWII.

No one is sure how much the Russians spend on their military. Estimates I've seen are in the $4-8 billion per year range.

The US total is nearing $400 billion per year. We're approaching a two orders of magnitude difference here.

So except for nostalgic and delusional cold warriors, no one need bother comparing the Russian military against ours. There is no comparison.

"Last week, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov echoed Achalov's opinion: "If the Americans continue to fight accurately, avoiding high casualties, the outcome is uncertain. If the Americans begin carpet bombing, Iraq will be defeated." "

This is typical Russian. :)

40% of this statement, he probably believes. The rest tends to be hope and self delusion. Unfortunately, because of that, this is precisely how their military operates. That would be 40% plan / 40% dellusion / 20% hope. US Military prefers the 110% plan (Flexibilty! Contingency!) / 30% hope / 10% dellusion model.

This would go a long way to explain the discrepancy between what would have been similar actions undertaken by our two countries.

I think it's because the Russians use Russian equipment - T72 tanks, night vision goggles, GPS jammers, and toasters.

Mostly, never underestimate the determination of an American soldier who needs to buy gas for his SUV back home.

That was sarcasm, of course.

Actually, the US spends about $340 billion annually on the military, the Russians about $56 billion.

Defense Spending

and thanks GOD we do spend 340 BILLION..................

I am glad we didn't get UN (and specifically Russian) help here. It is quite evident that the Russians are on the conquering half of the liberating/conquering continuum. We wanted to liberate the Iraqi people, and that's why we did the precision weapons. Liberating Iraq took weeks, conquering it would take months, if not years. We won not only because we were technically superior (to the Grozny appoarch) but also and more importantly morally superior.

Does anyone really believe that the Russians are doing what they are doing in the Chechen best interest? I see their "Muslim problem" getting much worse.

I regularly follow Pavel Felgenhauer in the Moscow Times - he is very levelheaded. Unlike that obnoxious idiotarian Chris Floyd.

Here's a better link for the defense spending (they seem to block remote-links to that PDF):

http://www.cdi.org/budget/2004/world-military-spending.cfm

At some level, they get more for their buck, but they also are atrociously far behind on payment for just about anything -- salaries, electricity, equipment. Military housing in the US tends to be *cough* substandard, while military housing in Russia will be ghetto conditions. Like most Russian families, soldiers will grow vegetables to survive and maybe earn extra money. Military bases will bargain with nearby farms to send harvest labor in exchange for food.

It's gotten marginally better under Putin, but it's still a mess.

It probably has mostly to do with WHY we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. We came to both countries as liberators, and were accepted as such by the populace. This means we had their support, and our enemies didn't. The Russians came to Afghanistan and Chechnya as conquerors, and had to fight a much tougher war. If Americans ever go into a country as conquerors, we will also have to fight a much tougher war.

Of course, our army is much better trained, equipped, and motivated than the Russian army, but the context of the fighting probably has more to do with our relative success.

Look what happened in Basra, I think, when Saddam's cronies were holed up in an important Mosque - the people there wouldn't let our troops near the place.
(Fox showed video of this, the commander there had his troops smile, kneel and point their weapons to the ground to indicate they weren't going to attack)

So if the ordinary people were really really against it, it would be a lot more difficult.

yes it would be more dificult if the population was against us too.

more dificult on the population....