Some thoughts about the Ukraine war:
It seems to me that the Russian convoys could have been stopped just inside the Ukrainian border, had there been a little forethought.
1. Ukraine should have placed tank barriers near the border crossings decades earlier, certainly after the Crimean invasion. Many barriers could have been permanent and others could have been positioned when the threat became imminent, not to obstruct domestic traffic prematurely. An array of disabled tanks and trucks on and about the border-crossing roads would be a barrier to those lined up to invade.
2. Ukraine should have built up an arsenal of anti-tank/anti-truck drones, as soon as such weapons became available. All too late, they are using drones effectively to drop explosive darts on the vulnerable tops of tanks. Drones could deliver a wide variety of non-destructive and non-lethal vehicle-stopping and personnel-stopping bomblets. These would be essentially radio-controlled fireworks that scatter Gorilla Glue on windshields and other vision ports as well as on personnel and door parts, or that spread itching powder and nauseating odoriphores on or in vehicles.
3. Ukraine should have installed anti-aircraft weapons around its cities to be manned by trained teenagers and women.
4. Ukraine should have accumulated a substantial fleet of fighter planes and pilots over the post Soviet years, these planes being stored beneath reinforced concrete surfaces and tested systematically.
5. There was a time when access to the Black Sea might have been a reason for Russia to conquer south-east Ukraine. That reason seems invalid now that Russia has Georgia.
