Bernard's Excellent Take...

On SMO and he makes this important note. Describing acerbically and justly the headline and the content from the Daily Mail, which states:

A very long established contact forwarded this message from a former senior US military official:

Just in from an Army Colonel in the building:
“Spoke to someone today who said that the Ukie basic training is 10 days and then off to the front. 65% casualty rates. At least double or more the losses of the Russians but you don’t hear anything about it.”

Bernhard correctly notes: 

I very much doubt that Russian units, the way they are currently fighting, have casualty rates of more than 10%. Russia is regularly rotating units in and out to give them some rest and to let them replenish. It is a classic Russian artillery war now and infantry only comes in when the Ukrainians are already defeated. As this permanent grinding continues the Ukrainians will soon reach a breaking point.

And here is the thing, of which I speak and write since the start of SMO: at some point of time the audit of what Western military professionals know about modern war must be undertaken. As with General Baldwin's "suggestions" today, one has to accept the fact that many US and European military professionals ARE genuine articles in having a fantastical (that is a Hollywood induced) "understanding" of the modern war and have very many people who are absolutely lost in terms of forces correlation and meaning of combat effectiveness. Of course, there are still many military professionals in the US, as an example, who think and view SMO realistically. But, as Larry noted today, as well as Bernhard points out--there is something really off in basic intel assessments by many NATO people, who, obviously, are lacking the grasp of the modern combined arms warfare. 

Knowing the real (or close to it) situation in 404 today, one MUST ask the question how all those Western media "experts" the level of Petraeus, Keane and many others from the US top brass have to feel themselves when they have been fully exposed as nothing more than talking heads and ignoramuses. This is a serious issue, especially considering the scale of the events unfolding in 404 and the way they have a direct effect on the fates of the combined West and its leader, the United States. Reputation is very difficult to build but is very easy and fast to lose. Here we have the Exhibit A of this truism.