Ian Welsh and those types have constantly claimed ridiculous stuff about the war in Ukraine like, “Russia could win in a week if it really tried!”

No. Just no. That’s not how wars work. Especially not that kind of war. That’s a fundamentally ignorant take on the nature of war in general and what is occurring in the region. Russia possibly could have won quickly if they’d not completely misunderstood what sort of conflict they were getting into.

However, no country — not even as one as callous about human life as Russia — tolerates 1,000-2,000 KIA a day for months and years if they could just defeat the enemy if “they really tried.”

Ian Welsh just hates the West and the United States in particular and loves Putin. Everything else he writes and believes springs from that poisoned well. And he understands warfare about as well as a turtle understands astrophysics.