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Warpy

(114,361 posts)
3. The problem with draftubg teenagers and early 20 somethings
Sat Dec 20, 2025, 07:29 PM
Saturday

is that there generally isn't really good decision making going on. I would love to se statistics compiled on death rates between the young draftees and older draftees between two adversaries with comparable equipment and training. I have a hunch that would tell a different story than the one coming out of most military command structures. Besides, there is nothing like the idealism of protecting a very real family as opposed to protecting an abstract like a nation.

Besides, from what I've seen and heard, it's the young guys at home who are running the 3D printer farms and drone assembly clubs and driving supplies down from Poland. They're not sitting the war out, they're just not on the front lines.

The OP is also missing something else that is ensuring Ukraine will win this war: engineering. One of the dirty little secrets of the USSR was that much of their truly innovative engineering design originated in Ukraine, something we can see in their rapid development and deployment of some truly horrifying weapions. Russia has been playing catchup from the beginning and eventually they'll manage to exhaust their ability to try.

But I have to agree, Ukraine's best hope is if someone serves Putin a dish of badly prepared fugu with a side of sauteed amanita muscaria over a bed of oleander greens.

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