What did Russia think would happen? — RogueAI

Finland joining NATO is not some sort of Ukrainian victory and only matters to Russia insofar as Russia was planning to invade Finland, which is exceedingly unlikely. Finland is in no way part of Russia's sphere of influence, which is what the conflict in Ukraine and Georgia et al. is about.

Probably not that they would become a satellite of China, but that's the reality. — frank

Reliance on China has radically increased, that's for sure, but Russia is not suddenly a vassal state of China all of a sudden. This can of course change in the future, but China has such a dependence on importing resources of all kinds, which is only projected to increase, that this remains a powerful economic bargaining chip for Russia. If China can't practically invade Russia due to nuclear weapons (exact same problem NATO is happening in the current dispute ... that nuclear blackmail does in fact work pretty well) and also Russia continues to trade with India, Russia maintains plenty of leverage. Not as much leverage as continuing to trade with Europe, but significant leverage nonetheless.

Russia has also become a power broker in the Middle East and expanded influence in Africa, that is also sensitive to China's interests.

However, the fact that surviving sanctions was very dependent on China for a first phase is the reason Putin needed Xi's approval for the plan. Dependence now is certainly less than a year ago, but could increase going forward but could also decrease.

However, making Russia so reliant on China is not in the Wests interest, has decreased Russias relative power on the world stage for sure, but has significantly increased China's. Keep in mind creating power blocks is not a linear process but a non-linear one, perhaps not exponential, but the synergy of power blocks is greater than the sum of its parts. Making China and Russia a power block is a radical increase in that blocks power, not just adding Russian power to China's power. That Russia may have less leverage that China within the block is of no relevance if the concern is China in the first place as a "near peer competitor".

Yeah. There's actually many differences between Ukraine and Afghanistan, if you haven't noticed. You can see from the examples of the Baltic states and East Europe that these countries can get their act up after the disasterous Marxism-Leninism they had to endure. Ukrainians have that chance too. — ssu

Oh, I see ... what's happening in Afghanistan right now is the Afghanis fault?

We (NATO) had our hearts in the right place and did all we could but just, shcucks, if it wasn't for them darm Afghanis and their inability to get their act up after the disastrous Taliban they had to endure that we financed to fight Maxist-Leninism terrible influence getting into the region ... wait, what? Where are we going with this?

Their other option is Putin's rule. Which actually many in the east now have to suffer. The Ukrainians are defending themselves and fighting this war. You would want them to stop? — ssu

I spent some time explaining that "Ukrainians" aren't some amorphous general will power goo.

Now, if Ukrainians weren't forced to fight, weren't deprived of their right to "vote with their feet", then I would agree that it is indeed "Ukrainians" fighting. And that would be meaningful, I could not deny it. However, that's not the case, and I so I have no idea how many Ukrainians fighting actually want to fight and how many are coerced to.

So that's definitely one issue.

However, the on-top of that issue is the West's undeniable policy of drip feeding arms to Ukraine. There is no other thesis tenable. And the only possible motive for the drip feed arms policy is the goal to not defeat Russia on the battlefield. Otherwise, we'd be throwing every weapons system we could into the fight from day 1. We don't. We hum and haw for literally months, all the while Ukrainians are dying with sub-optimal equipment, and then finally ... ok, you can have one. But not more!! Then the cycle repeats with the next weapons system. Each one heralded as some sort of victory in itself that we're "finally" sending artillery, or rockets, or killer drones, or APC's, or now tanks.

But victory against who? The West defeating itself in its first decision not to send those arms with a second decision (months later) to send those arms?

Insofar as we are sending arms, out policy is to sacrifice Ukrainians for our purposes.

The drip feed arms policy proves beyond any reasonable doubt that our purpose is not to defeat the Russians nor the welfare of Ukraine.

If you say "Bah, Putin! Must be fought! Ukraine be damned" you can make that argument. In principle I have no problem sacrificing any number of humans for a worthy cause. But the cause has to worthy, of greatness commensurate with the sacrifice being asked. So, I'm all ears.

What I have issue with (first of many) is the idea our policies are designed to benefit Ukrainians ... and when that can't be supported: Ukrainians want to fight! What else do you want!

Of course Ukraine can lose the war. So then the aggressor would be victorious. Then we have a huge diaspora of Ukrainians living in the West, the country in shambles and a very tense situation in Europe. — ssu

If you're arguing that propping up the Ukrainian government serves our Western European purpose of having less "diaspora", as you put it, hanging around, again, you can make that argument, but it's not an argument from the point of view of Ukrainian wellfair.

However, the question was, considering we agree Ukraine can lose the war, would the sacrifice until now and until defeat be worth it in the event of a loss?

Wrong.

They can. Just like the Afghan National Army voted with it's feet when the Taliban launched their final offensive. The Ukrainians didn't react as they did to the occupation of Crimea. That is a fact you cannot deny. — ssu

I'm not following you.

The question is about voting with one's feet about the war effort and being able to leave Ukraine. The "voting with your feet" expression has always included the context that it's legal to leave, you can leave in a legal sense.

Afghanistan is the perfect example of this. The bloated army rampant corruption and a totally wasteful administration that basically had trouble to operate anywhere else than in Kabul, was totally out of it's budget limitations on what Afghanistan itself could finance. Corruption was rampant, thanks to the West. — ssu

Why would it be different in Ukraine?

This created huge scandals and nobody basically cared about them. — ssu

Why would this be different in Ukraine?

Yet I think there is the possibility that Ukraine can transform itself just like the Baltic States or Poland has. — ssu

Is the mere possibility worth any cost to Ukrainian lives and welfare in the meantime.

This is @Isaac's question.

And this question ignores entirely the possibility of Ukraine losing the war and we don't even get to the part your talking about.

Policy is about cost-benefit and outcomes.

If the outcomes you wish for aren't probable ... does just somehow justify the policy anyways?

Even worse, if the wished for outcomes are not probable does that justify forcing Ukrainian men into a war in which Ukrainians are unlikely to benefit?

For, the fallback argument of "well, maybe it will be a disaster for Ukraine, that's possible too, but Ukrainians want to fight!! So we should send them the weapons regardless of the likely outcomes!!" has to then deal with the fact most "Ukraine" as some sort of abstracted willpower doesn't exist; individual Ukrainians want to fight or not, and if their freedom of movement is forcibly taken away and they can't "vote with their feet" (all of a sudden when it comes to war ... that's no longer a thing conservatives like to say) and are then forced into fighting ... that doesn't fit the definition of "wanting" to me.

War is a logic of sacrificing: sacrificing people's lives, sacrificing people's homes, sacrificing the present and future mental wellbeing of children, and so on, at some point the proponents of war must, at the least, outline the sacrifice (of others) and why it's worthwhile (to themselves).

Simply avoiding the issue is war fever denialism.

That might be true. In my view some form of violent conflict in the Pacific is simply inevitable, whether nations want it or not. — Tzeentch

I would be inclined to agree with you.

However, simply because such a conflict is inevitable does not mean the US plans to actually fight in it. They may accept they can't do anything with sufficient changes in relative China-US power but also new military technologies.

Taiwan is 100 miles from the Chinese coast.

We can get into the details, but at some point China is able to concentrate enough force (above and under the sea) in this area for an amphibious landing as well as effectively blockade Taiwan while effectively denying the airspace with lots and lots of missiles and being able to sink US carriers (again, enough missiles will eventually do the job).

Playing this scenario out, could the US "do" a lot with their own standoff missiles, submarines and so on. Certainly, but as long as China can establish a bridgehead on Taiwan it would be a similar situation as to Ukraine but a lot worse as there would be no way to resupply Taiwan for a long proxy war.

So, very quickly the choice is to wage full scale war with China which the US has no way of actually winning. Of course, China can't cross the Pacific and invade the US either, so it would just rapidly transition to a standoff. The economic clout of China would then be a big problem as you may simply not be able to stop enough countries trading with China with their own ships, even if such a situation was desired by US neocons to begin with (cutting off their own corporations from China, and potentially South-East-Asia supply chains entirely).

Taiwan and Korea are obvious flashpoints, almost guaranteed to boil over if the US is going to make any effort at maintaining its influence, which I'm assuming it will. — Tzeentch

The problem is China is playing the long game. There's no preemptive strike that the US can do vis-a-vis Taiwan. As for Korea I doubt North Korea would actually attack South Korea nor China have any ambition to invade North/South Korea.

At least for the foreseeable future, it's really just Taiwan, that the globe mostly already accepts the "one China policy" so unless Taiwan prevents China from establishing a bridgehead in a conflict, largely under their own power and motivation (which arguably it could do for most of the last decades), but if that changes and China simply conquered Taiwan, business would likely just continue as normal globally.

This was tried by the US, but Russia rejected it, because they feared ending up as de facto US vassals like Europe. — Tzeentch

Being actual friends is different to offering subjugation as a vassal state.

Had the US made actual friends, or at least not enemies, with Russia then it would be in a much better position to focus on the Pacific.

The problem for the US is that nations have caught onto its strategy of keeping Eurasia divided, which it does in order to avoid a peer competitor from rising. (theories by Mackinder, Brzezinski, Wolfowitz, etc.) — Tzeentch

I wouldn't say they've caught on, more that they can now do something about it given arctic shipping as well as better rail systems.

Both Russia and China seem to be aware of this, which is why their unlikely alliance has taken form, and why it is unlikely to change while the US remains the world's dominant superpower. — Tzeentch

Agreed.

The only power on the Eurasian continent that seems unaware of how the cookie crumbles is Europe. — Tzeentch

Also agreed.

The US no longer has the power to subjugate new countries, not even Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, so all it can do is tighten its grip on existing vassals.

However, fundamentally, in my view, the war in Ukraine is about the Euro.

A peaceful Europe would have the economic size, stability, jurisprudence, to become a flight to safety from the dollar and the US empire could become irrelevant overnight.

If you can't fix your shit you can at least fuckup all the alternatives.

Europe is experiencing inflation mainly due to the war and being cutoff from Russian gas ... US has no such excuse, so imagine the consequences of significant inflation in the US but not only low inflation in Europe but no way for the European policy makers to cause inflation even if they tried. Imagine if the only way to keep pace with US inflation was to, I don't know, just decide to cut off Russian natural gas supplies all of a sudden.

How have we made an enemy "for no reason"? — ssu

When you :

1. Move military infrastructure closer to someone, such as alliances and missiles
2. Constantly refer to them as a rival / competitor, literally use the word enemy on occasion, needs to be contained etc.
3. blame them as a matter of course for all sorts events with no or scant evidence, hacking, murders, somehow affecting the 2016 election result with 200 000 dollars of facebook advertisement.
4. Bomb their friends and allies and threaten their interests (Syria).
5. Then support people openly preaching their destruction such as the Nazi groups in Ukraine (suddenly when Ukrainian Nazi's say Russia doesn't have a right to exist and they want to basically wipe it off the map, that's now ok in polite society).

You make someone your enemy.

Now, the apologetics for these policies are that Russia really is our enemy so we should be constantly moving military infrastructure closer to them, expanding our anti-Russia alliances, blaming them for things without evidence (as even if they didn't do it, serves as useful propaganda to keep the heat on and "we know" they do similar things anyways as they're bad), attack anyone that is a friend or ally of Russia, and support anyone who is against Russia regardless of their politics (enemy of my enemy is my friend, and definitely Nazi's are an enemy of Russians).

What I have simply pointed out is that if Russia did not start out as our enemy in the late 90s, then the West has chosen a path that makes Russia our enemy, and if they weren't to begin with, then those choices are basically for nothing (of course, not exactly nothing, other interests will be served, but I hope you get my point).

A common theme that seems to be lost on the apologisers for Western policy vis-a-vis Russia is confusing rights with threats and results.

For example, does NATO have a "right" to offer membership to other countries to join their club, sure.

Likewise, do other countries have a "right" to join the club, again sure.

Do countries have a "right" to buildup military infrastructure and capabilities. Yeah, why not.

However, can the result of exercising such rights lead to tensions and wars the nominal purpose of those actions was to avoid in the first place. That's what history teaches us.

Just because something is a right does not mean it is a good idea. Most people on this forum have the right to hang themselves, or starve themselves, or run into a wall, or quit their job, or bring all their possessions to the dump, right now. Even assuming all rights are perfectly clear and can't be questioned, rights are insufficient to justify action.

As you build up your military alliance and infrastructure you by definition threaten people not-in-your-club. Other parties are going to make decisions based on the reality that you really are threatening them.

Putin chose to annex territory from Ukraine when Ukraine was suffering from a revolution. Then last year he went all in to annex a lot more with the plan to install a puppet government. To sideline the "Make Russia Great again" and just to think this is only reactionary development to the West is simply ignorant of the facts. If Russia wanted to stop US spreading it's control, it could do so just like it did in Central Asia. Just by waiting and not being openly hostile to the countries (like annexing territories). Imagine how different the World would be without Putin annexing Crimea in 2014. Europe wouldn't be rearming, likely it would have continued to disarm itself and there would be far more friends of Russia than now. The whole idea of an European country invading another would seem as pure fantasy. — ssu

The difference with Crimea is that it's a big naval base for the Russians.

Your idea that just waiting would reduce Western influence in Ukraine is bizarre.

Likewise, if the situation was not described as a "Ukraine was suffering from a revolution" but rather the US orchestrated a coup, then again the analysis may change.

Now, if you're basically saying if Russia rolled over and just accepted US hegemony, Europe too, and maybe even if US stopped its Imperial projects and gave up its hundreds of bases around the world, things would be safer and better. I totally agree. But insofar as that's not likely going to happen any time soon, then the question is one of navigating hostile tensions.

And plan to "defeat the baddies"? Why is this such a problem? — ssu

The problem, as has been discussed for hundreds of pages on this very forum, is there is no plan to defeat Russia.

There's not even a remotely honest attempt.

Western policy is to drip feed weapons into Ukraine to keep Ukraine from losing outright but also make an actual defeat of Russian forces in Ukraine exceedingly unlikely.

We now have Western tanks (after being told for a whole year that was a "no-no, of course we can't send tanks, don't be foolish"), a hodgepodge of different tanks and different systems and rounds, logistical nightmare, only some tanks etc.

Obviously this doesn't change much, at best only slows the degradation of Ukrainian forces.

And potentially counter productive as now Russia has the symbol of Western hostility on the battlefield. Insofar as Russian tanks were against old Soviet tanks, I'm sure the irony was not lost on many Russians.

So, Western tanks are unlikely to be a "game changer" this late in the game, and already the West is now talking about fighter aircraft (as tanks are meant to be deployed) ... again not our "best stuff", but maybe old systems lying around etc. without any realistic plan to put that in action.

However, tanks, aircraft, all sorts of missiles, could have been provided en-mass from the very beginning of the war when Ukrainian forces were at their peak relative strength (numbers, training, moral) with Russian forces, the land Russian took in the early stages of the war was the least defended (now there's sophisticated defensive ground works all along the front), not to mention the chaotic impact of sanctions and starting a full scale war that Russia needed to deal with domestically at the time as well.

That's when you want to throw in weapons that can tip the balance ... if your goal is to "defeat the Russians".

However, any plan that actually sets about to determine how to coherently defeat the Russians immediately runs into the problem that it depends on the Russians refraining from the use of Nuclear weapons even in the context of a embarrassing defeat of conventional forces.

The only military solution to this problem is a full scale strategic first strike against Russia, which even American Imperialists, neocons and deep-statists have cold feet about (otherwise they would have already done it at some point in the last 70 years).

So, the logical consequence of accept Russia can't be defeated in military terms is that the only military option available is calibrate just harm to Russia to be harmful ... but not so harmful as to risk actual defeat in Ukraine.

In terms of American hegemony or even some rose glasses view of the West's mission on earth, maybe it makes sense, but it's a policy that is in it's nature sacrificing Ukrainians on the battlefield and Ukrainian welfare generally speaking knowing the promised assistance of "whatever it takes to win" is a lie (to manipulate Ukrainians to carry out our policies for our objectives) and will never come.

One can argue that sacrificing Ukraine to harm Russia or slow Russia down is a morally acceptable. Great plans require great sacrifice. My position on this I've made clear is that it's not morally acceptable to me as I would not accept the argument from someone else that I sacrifice for their morality when they are not willing to do the same when they have the same opportunity. Indeed, by definition asking others to sacrifice for one's own cause implies that universal morality you were talking about ... but if it's universal then they should definitely be doing the same thing.

But if we ask any other Western nation why they aren't fighting the Russians right now ... what's the answer? Oh, well, that would be too dangerous and not make any sense.

Why would the answer be different for Ukrainians?

And if it's different not because of some universal project to "fight the baddies" but only the fact it's there country that got invaded and so their business ... then why is it our business?

Fight, or don't fight. What is it to me?

NATO could have exercised its "rights" anytime and offered Ukraine to join, which Ukraine certainly would have exercised its right to join and then exercised its right to invite foreign troops in to help fight a common enemy ... why all of a sudden these rights not exercised?

Oh, it would "inconvenient" for the West as there is no viable plan to "defeat" the Russians, not by NATO, much less by Ukraine on their own.

How about the treaty of Portsmouth of 1905?

How about the peace of Riga 1921?

How about the treaty of Brest-Litovsk 1918?

I could go on, but in all above Russia / Soviet Union existed afterwards, and was OK accepting peace terms that it originally wasn't ready to submit. And was defeated or fought to a stand still on the battlefield. So what on Earth is the problem??? History shows clearly that when faced with a disaster on the battlefield, Russia will bow down in wars of aggression that it itself has started.

It's a bit different if you are trying to take Moscow as a foreing invader... — ssu

WWI is in no way comparable to what is happening now, likewise fighting Japan (which is an Island), and certainly the peace of Riga 1921 following disastrous losses in WWI and the creation of the Soviet Union is not comparable.

We could get into the details of why these aren't comparable situations in the slightest in simple relative power terms.

Was any one of your examples the resolution of a proxy war?

But the biggest difference, in any case, is nuclear weapons which did not exist in 1921, 1918 or 1905.

My view has been that the outcome of the Ukraine war is not all that relevant to the United States, and that their intent has been to drive a wedge between Europe and Russia, and to remilitarize Europe. — Tzeentch

I completely agree the primary goal is to drive a wedge between Russia and Europe.

I'd also agree a secondary goal is to remilitarize Europe.

However, I disagree it's vis-a-vis war with China.

Remilitarizing Europe brings in mad arms contractor cash, so is just a bonus in the situation.

The US cannot win a war with China and there are too many corporate inconveniences to such a war.

Furthermore, if you actually wanted to fight a war with China you'd be super friendly to Russia so that their nuclear submarines and so on aren't a factor and likewise reduce the likelihood of a two front war as much as possible. What you would want is to start your war with China and Russia is in the position that it's not its business.

Europe has no military relevance in the Pacific and that can't change in a reasonable time frame in any case and trading with China is by sea which would be blockaded in such a scenario, which the US could do so what Europe's policy would be (like usual) doesn't matter.

Rather, precisely because the US has no appetite for war with China, the writing is on the wall for the US empire and the US dollar.

With this war in Ukraine, and separating Europe from Russian resources, the US is destroying the viability of the Euro as a alternative to the dollar. Russia and China can do their own thing but you'd never get "the world" switching to Renminbi or Rubbles or any combination of BRICS moneys.

The best bet for the US dollar is a fractured world and totally subservient Europe.

One thing you learn in the corporate world: it's always about the money.

I see no reason that would not continue to be the case.

Right, this argument is basically that the only thing important to us is to influence our own governments and since we aren't nationals of foreign countries, it's needless to talk about them, think about them at all and hence we can totally disregard them. — ssu

I use pretty clear language that it's a primary responsibility what we actually have power over.

As for Russia, our Western governments (in Europe by deferring to the US to set the policy and accepting a position essentially of irrelevancy on the issue) refer to Russia as our rival / enemy, constantly talk of "containing" Russia, move missile bases closer to Russia on obviously spurious purposes and then stage a coup, get "there man" in power, build up military assets in Ukraine, arm Nazi groups (violating our own Western laws we had to pass because the optics were so bad) ...

And then Russia (our stated enemy) attacks our "ally-but-not" Ukraine.

What do you expect to happen?

If Russia's so "bad" ok well that would explain why their our enemy, but why would we expect anything other than bad things from our enemy?

If Russia isn't so bad, Putin not literally equivalent to Hitler, then clearly we've made an enemy for no reason and have brought about the destruction of Ukraine for no purpose while, especially in Europe, harming our own interests in the process.

Now, I've consistently asked that, ok, assuming Russia is so bad, what's the actual plan to "defeat" the baddies?

How can the drip feed of arms to keep Ukraine on life support but with zero chances of winning on military terms helping Ukraine?

Suddenly we're sending tanks ... so all those apologists for the drip feed policy that bent over backwards and got themselves into so many knots to explain that we "cant' send tanks" for reason or then tanks wouldn't actually be useful, Ukraine doesn't need them, for more reasons etc. turn out to be totally wrong.

We can send tanks, and we are ... but why now? Because, once again, we level up the arms support only when that is not actually an escalation in actual power terms.

In the time the West has been discussing sending Tanks, the Russians have consolidated their lines, built up sophisticated defences, called up hundreds of thousands of additional troops. Not only have the Ukrainians lost significant number of tanks and tank crews in inferior tanks during this time, but providing tanks now still represents long lead times of training and building out the supply chain and maintenance skills, which are significant training and logistical challenges in peace time.

The problem with this thinking is that it leads simplistic navel gazing where absolutely everything evolves around in the end the US and everyone else is either a pawn or a victim of the Superpower. And people thinking like this don't understand just how condescending they are toward others and how it leads to faulty conclusions. — ssu

Actual criticism and holding our governments to account, is literally the opposite of navel gazing.

Navel gazing would be the just assuming the policy can't be criticised, can't be changed, and then just despondently muttering "chucks" as Russia wins the war and totally destroys Ukraine. That's navel gazing.

Navel gazing is just declaring the war is just, the Western policies just, Russia is bad, and therefore we are not responsible for the outcome of pouring in billions of Euros of weapons. If it's counter productive to Ukrainian welfare ... well our hearts were in the right place and we have nice navels we were checking out ... all those single or widowed Ukrainian woman too that we can now integrate into our society's to boost the labour pool and the birthrate, we've had out eye keenly on those navels too.

Now, is there a pathway to Ukrainian "victory"? No one in this discussion nor any where else have described it, and that's simply in conventional means. Russia can completely destroy Ukraine with nuclear weapons on a few minutes notice. Is that a good thing? Obviously not. But they can and it's just reality we have to deal with.

A reality that is the actual reason for the drip feed arms support policy: go to far, actually place Russian forces in a position of "losing", and not only the cost-benefit to the use of nuclear weapons changes but there's also the justification (to Russians and their partners). Would there be "enough" justification? Who knows, it would be a big gamble but so too would be simply losing the war in conventional terms (which I do not dispute that Nato has the power to do, and even through Ukraine as a proxy at least at the start of the war--it maybe simply not feasible now as the drip feed policy has been successful), but what we definitely do know is that Western policy has been not to find out what Russia would do if nuclear weapons was the only military resort to salvage the situation, how effective Russian nuclear weapons would be, and how ordinary Russians and Russia's partners would react to the use of nuclear weapons. NATO could find out the answers to these questions, but chooses not to.

But what's then the result? Ukraine loses the war in the most destructive mode possible short of nuclear weapons.

Is this good for Ukrainians? Even Zelensky doesn't make that argument, but that Ukraine is fighting for "Western values" and Europes interest, not Ukrainians.

First of all, to have a good understanding of international relations, politics and the overall international situation is by itself a valuable thing. It's worth wile discussing by itself. Not to discuss Russia and it's actions, because we don't have a way to influence the country, is a quite absurd idea. — ssu

We obviously have been discussing Russias actions, so it's not clear where this idea comes from. Your issue is that I don't support Western policies.

As for simply morally evaluating Russias actions in themselves, I've made it clear that I'd take interest in that subject after the war is over and the imperative to determine what we actually do now no longer takes precedence over philosophical speculation. However, I've invited people who care to make the argument so that I could just review it and agree with it and made my position clear that an argument condemning Russia's invasion would either need to likewise condemn US/NATO invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan, and intervention in Libya and Syria or then explain what's different. US felt Iraq was a threat to national security, invaded, caused the deaths of over a million Iraqis, turns out the evidence was fabricated; well, if this is moral nevertheless, certainly Russia's actions are far more moral considering no one disputes the bio labs in Ukraine and, regardless of their true nature and purpose, certainly actual labs that exist are more threatening than labs that don't exist at all (again, a fact no one now disputes about Iraq).

However, ok, let's say someone does the actual work of supporting their position (based on a moral condemnation of Russia rather than the US is simply looking out for the US's interest in maintaining their hegemonic status, which so far is the only actual argument that tries to justify the US's policy: it's in their hegemonic interest to so) ... well, what do we do about it? Why is supplying arms to Ukraine in a drip feed manner without any chance of victory a reasonable policy even assuming the "West good / Russia bad" suppositions?

And if for you this thing, the war in Ukraine, is something comparable to being a political activist or caring about Uganda, the war in Ukraine is quite real for me as it has had effects on my life with the Finnish military training on an intensity never seen even during the Cold War. And I've never seen the Russian border here so empty of any traffic. — ssu

The reason to mention Uganda and Saudi Arabia and so on, is to point out the duplicitous and self serving nature of this "What about Russia!" argument. The policy of our Western governments is that what nation states do is not our concern insofar as they serve our interests.

Why would I care about the West's moral evaluation of Russia if the West doesn't apply that standard when it's inconvenient?

So everyone that opposes Western governments is put on a pedestal and hailed, because they oppose Western governments and their actions are "understood". Right. — ssu

We've gone through this a nearly a hundred times now. We live under Western government, our votes and protesting affect most directly Western governments, our "power", as little as it is, is in the West and we are therefore first and foremost responsible to try to manage Western governments as best as we can. In addition to this power we are responsible for, by virtue of living in the West we understand the West better and so are more able to provide constructive criticism as well as more effective planning.

Of course, this is not some iron clad law, if I felt a calling to become a political activist of some sort in Uganda or China or Russia or Saudi Arabia or Uzbekistan wherever, I could go do that, but if your carry the thought experiment out it would require a long learning curve to be of any effect.

Now, there can be arguments for and against such a course of action. The for would be that bringing foreign knowledge and connections can help "shake things up", especially if there are no other white saviours in the region then there is certainly a white saviour optimum quota to get things done anywhere. In economic terms the addition of a new category of resource, in this case the resource of being white and Western, may have outsized impact at the start of the diminishing returns curve.

However, the argument against such a course of action is that first of all white Westerner backpackers and do-gooders are pretty much everywhere nowadays and there are few "Last Samurai" unrealised gains out there, and, perhaps more importantly, the West, despite there being plenty of unsavoury places elsewhere, nevertheless remains the major power centre of the world and affecting policy here has a larger affect on global governance policies, not only in terms of global issues like climate change and biodiversity collapse but also enlightening the national policies of the savages.

Through leading by example / bombing the right people, naturally.

The US and Russia are reluctant to offer a clear definition of "victory" and "loss". — neomac

We're not talking about their definition, we're talking about whatever definition proponents of the idea "Russia must be defeated" or "Russia can't be allowed to get a victory" in various forms for whatever reasons.

Of course, the goal posts can be moved around within the framework of these proponents of the position or then any other discussion.

It should the authors of statements like "Russia must be stopped" in various forms or "a Russian victory in Ukraine must be prevented because it would encourage more 'rule breaking' or nuclear proliferation etc." to very precisely define what they mean "stopped" or "victory", otherwise they are of course setting themselves up to just move the goal posts later.

To me, if at the end of this war, Ukraine remains a sovereign non-pro-Russian non-Russified non-demilitarised country (even without Crimea), NATO members will increase in number and military capacity at the expense of Russian security, the overall Russian military projection capacity and reputation will be significantly decreased, the Russian propaganda machine in the West wrecked, and Russian economy impoverished & decoupled from the West long enough (whatever else being equal like the Rest relative neutrality), then Russia has much more likely lost its strategic power competition against the US and the power status it wanted so badly to be acknowledged by the West. So it doesn’t matter if Russia keeps Crimea&Donbas and sells this as a victory against the US/NATO/West to the Russians. Anyways, I’m not sure that the West is ready to leave Crimea to Russia, neither that the Russia nuclear threat is enough deterrent for all annexed regions (including Crimea). Besides this year is going to be decisive also for the future presidential elections, in Russia before the US. So there are domestic politics incentives pressing for a resolution of this war. We will see. — neomac

Of course, that this is or will happen is debatable and we are of course debating it.

But, for the subject at hand, it's easy to say as long as Russia is sufficiently harmed then the war is worth it, but at what cost to Ukraine is worthwhile to achieving these goals that are not analogues or close proxies but have only abstract connection to Ukrainian welfare?

If you're willing to say "if Ukraine has lost 100 000, then that's worth it for the harm to Russia so far, and another 1, 2, 3, hundred thousand dead would be worth it" then say so, rather than complain it's emotional blackmail. You are only considering the harm to Russia and not the harm to Ukraine, for you position to be coherent you must either state unlimited harm to Ukraine is worthwhile to achieve limited harm to Russia or then there must be somewhere you draw the line: 500 000 KIA, a million?

And, "they haven't / won't lose that much!" is not an answer to this question. You are free to say 100 000 KIA would be worth it, but no more, and then argue Ukraine has only lost some 15 000 or whatever the Ukrainian government number is and there's a ways to go before you'd consider the idea the harm to Ukraine is disproportionate to you objective. You are free to place the number much higher or then at simply then simply all Ukrainians dead would be in principle acceptable to you if Russia is harmed in the way you describe. Certainly, I think we'd all agree that all Ukrainians dying is unlikely, but it is either the morally acceptable sacrifice to achieve your goals in your framework and "anything goes" or then there must be a line somewhere between tolerable and intolerable losses for these military objectives. No military objective is worth unlimited losses to achieve (in this case it the losses are limited to Ukraine, not unlimited to all NATO, which you are not advocating getting involved; of course, by the same logic Ukraine cannot rationally accept unlimited losses to achieve NATO's objective, so it is necessary to manipulate them to do so, if the cause be just).

Why would countries have sent Ukraine weaponry back in 2008? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Do you not know the basic facts of the discussion?

Georgia and Ukraine had hoped to join the NATO Membership Action Plan,[3] but, while welcoming the two countries’s aspirations for membership and agreeing that "these countries will become members of NATO", the NATO members decided to review their request in December 2008.

So, if "these countries will become members of NATO" why not in 2008? And if not and declaring so may significantly increase tensions with Russia and send events towards this current war but for [insert reasons] Ukraine won't be allowed to join NATO before the reason for it (not being invaded) actually happens ... but, because we're nice, we'll send arms, then, yeah, why not start the training on all the potential weapons systems Ukraine may need in 2008.
— 2008 Bucharest summit - Wikipedia

It had a pro-Russian government through 2014, and there was a path towards soft "annexation" ala Belarus for Russia. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ukraine did not have a government that was pro-Russian, or then Wikipedia is way off in stating "Ukraine had hoped to join the NATO Membership Action Plan" and Ukraine would have made it super clear this wasn't the case, they didn't want an invitation to join NATO, certainly don't want NATO to declare they'll be joining someday, they're pro-Russian!

Ukraine had a government until 2014 that was non-delusional enough to strike some sort of balance between Russia and the West, and played successfully one against the other (successfully getting a good deal from Russia to maintain the status quo, which was far preferable to Ukraine than the current war, which was an obvious risk in trying to spur Russia completely to anyone with a modicum of realism).

Define "Russian victory" and provide evidence from Russian officials in support of it. — neomac

It's the Atlantic article arguing that a Russian victory must be prevented to avoid nuclear proliferation.

It is the people who are proponents of this position that must explain how they actually prevent a Russian victory so as (for completely non-sensical proposed reasons) prevent further nuclear proliferation, or then proponents of the general position of:

In any case, the way they have been bombarding Ukraine is completely unconscionable and must be prevented, thwarted or stopped by any means necessary. — Wayfarer

To explain what means are included in the "any means necessary" and how these means actually "stop" Russia (i.e. avoid a Russian victory).

Of course, proponents of this position that realise there is very little chances of evicting Russia from all the former Ukrainian territory and then that actually ending the war and Russia saying "yep, defeated" are free to move the goal posts around and explain how Russia "winning" some things (like the land bridge to Crimea) isn't really "winning" because they could have won even more things.

My own position is that the situation should be resolved by negotiation, in which case no side will be completely victorious but some compromise worked out.

However, in simple military terms complete victory would be one side forcing the unconditional surrender of the other side; allies were definitely victorious in WWII.

If Russia ends up in the long run with more territory but does not actually defeat Ukraine then it's up for debate if the price paid for the land was worth it overall, certainly not an outright victory over Ukraine, but of course Ukraine would have paid orders of magnitude, possibly 2 or 3, higher price and didn't win anything. If the "strategic defeat" concept proves true (which now seems extremely unlikely as Russia seems to have transitioned their economy successfully) then perhaps it's a "win" for NATO, loss of some sort for Russia (not great, not terrible), and a clear immense and unmitigated loss for Ukraine

... but any journalist who can, with a straight face, argue that the best way to reduce the risk of nuclear conflict is to provoke a nuclear power, has lost any right to be taken seriously.

... but then it's The Atlantic, so ... — Isaac

It's truly bizarre.

It's basically kindergarten level of analysis.

You might be interested to look at historical analyses of US Lend Lease aid to the UK, and later the USSR. The aid was critical, more so to the UK, eventually supplying a large proportion of all UK material and a substantial proportion of food as well. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The difference is that:

- The Nazi's did not have nuclear weapons that could strike the US, which severely limited military options to "lose slowly"
- US administration intended to join the war and were looking for pretext and did join the war (so not hypocrites)
- The UK, Empire + Common Wealth, and the Soviet Union could plausibly defeat the Nazi's, obviously even easier with the US directly involved, so it was not supporting a lost cause. And by "defeat" in the context of WWII meant actual defeat of Nazi Germany which was not only possible but did in fact happen.

It's hard to argue that the US was "drip feeding" the Brits or Soviets. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Where do I argue the US drip fed arms to the UK or Soviet Union in WWII.

Did the US severely limit the kinds of weapons it would deliver to the UK or Soviet Union?

There's a drip feed of weapons to Ukraine because of cold hard facts.

Are you seriously trying to argue that because the US named both programs the same thing they must therefore be the same thing?

The quickest way to get vehicles out would be to set up maintenance facilities in Poland and have them staffed by NATO personnel. — Count Timothy von Icarus

No, the quickest way was a year ago when the war started to start solving these problems in the event "whatever support Ukraine needs" requires Western tanks, or even anytime since 2008 when it was first declared that Ukraine would be joining NATO eventually ... one day ... maybe ...

It makes sense to stockpile some stuff in Poland and not to turn it over yet, as the material can be neatly laid out in warehouses without fear of Russian missile attacks — Count Timothy von Icarus

Maybe a reason Russia is keeping the fight in South-East Ukraine 1000 km from Poland.

Point being, people underestimate how long this stuff takes. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Maybe people on the internet who don't have a clue about anything underestimate how long things take, but that's not my case (the person who explained all the lead times required) and it is not the case of NATO decision makers. No one involved underestimates the time things take, and NATO was fully aware that it would take significant logistics and training to introduce Western MBT into Ukraine, and they were and are completely cognisant that not preparing that months in advance and only "getting around to it" when Ukraine is in desperate need is setting Ukraine up for failure. Now they are severely tank-deficient and this will severely limit their ability to defend, not to speak of launching any counter offensives to relieve pressure or at least get some victories somewhere for propaganda purposes.

Furthermore, anyone with a pencil and paper could have worked out that this moment in the war would come as it's simply impossible that Ukraine would have basically a 4-1 tank attrition ratio in their favour required to simply stay par with Russia: therefore, Ukraine is going to run out of tanks and will need more ... and Russia isn't going to supply them their tanks and old soviet stuff lying around is both limited in quantity and quality, therefore, ipso facto, the only option will be Western tanks and if the idea is for Ukraine to "win" the logistics and training for that eventuality would need to be carried out at or before the "how long this stuff takes".

If the prior Lend Lease is any indication, peak flows won't start until late 2023 or later. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The two situations are not remotely comparable.

Both the UK and the Soviet Union had their own war industries and the US had to first ramp up production for it's own defensive purposes as well as deal with U-boats in the Atlantic. It was not the case that the UK and Soviet Union essentially depended 100% on the US for arms, funds, and material and the US was preparing to enter the war itself (so needed to prepare that).

In this situation the Ukraine military and government is kept on life support by continuous Western aid and has essentially zero war material generating capacity of its own.

Therefore, if you want Ukraine to "win" you need to do things very differently than in WWII and send massive amounts of material before and at the start of the war and all the systems necessary to be effective, since if there are no other armies that are going to enter the war and it has to be all "Ukraine" then you need to maximise the force multiplication of their original professional force: tanks, planes, artillery, helicopters, air defence, missiles and vehicles of all kinds, and while we're at it some submarines and torpedoes, and then rationalise the logistics and training as you go.

If you actually had as a goal Ukrainian "victory" you wouldn't have these months long deliberations about the next weapon system when the previous weapon systems failed to produce "victory", you'd supply directly everything Ukraine can use to force multiple in the present and train out-of-country on every weapons system that Ukraine may require in the future. That is what "winning" through Ukraine as a proxy force would look like.

Now, if you say "well, if NATO did that then Russia would just start using nuclear weapons, so they can't" then you are simply saying that NATO's policy is to not let Russia lose.

For, it wouldn't matter to Russia how they lose in their calculation to use nuclear weapons, just that they are actually losing; there is no "the fair way" to supply Ukraine in a way that produces victory but Russia says, "well, that's fair, you got us, played by the rules so we won't use nuclear weapons but accept defeat".

And that is the dynamic at play here. If NATO policy was "nuclear weapons be damned, glory to Ukraine!" then they would have been sending and training on every weapons system Ukraine does or might need since the start of the war or even before.

Well said.

↪boethius Perhaps it is no coincidence that Germany ousted their last defense minister and appointed a new one yesterday. — Tzeentch

Definitely, the only reason for this is to change policy and not need to deal with journalists bringing up previous statements all the time.

Nevertheless, Germany may still capitulate on their current policy, or then the change of ministers is to increase their negotiation position with a more credible threat that they may not do as they're told, and get concessions elsewhere.

However, considering the embarrassment of Leopard 2's being all destroyed in Ukraine, which not only can't be excluded but maybe the likely scenario (from the German perspective who knows this system best), it may simply be impossible for Germany to undermine themselves to that extent simply to be a good student of the US and no other practical reason.

Left as it is, the situation is actually a really great advertisement for German arms, as the American position is essentially: Well, German tanks are better than our tanks in an actual war, so yeah, take that Germany, fuck you.

There maybe little need to risk this recommendation from the Pentagon for a primary military export by sending them to be destroyed in Ukraine.

KYIV/BERLIN, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Ukraine pleaded on Thursday for the West to finally send it heavy tanks as the defence chiefs of the United States and Germany headed for a showdown over weapons Kyiv says could decide the fate of the war.

[...]

A German government source said Berlin would lift its objections if Washington sends its own Abrams tanks. U.S. officials say the Abrams is inappropriate for Ukraine, because it runs on turbine engines that use too much fuel for Kyiv's strained logistics system to keep them supplied at the front.

Poland and Finland have already said they would send Leopards if Germany lifts its veto, and other countries have indicated they are ready to do so as well. Britain added to the pressure by breaking the taboo on heavy tanks last week, offering a squadron from its fleet of Challengers, though far fewer of these are available than Leopards.

Germany has been reluctant to send offensive weapons that could be seen as escalating the conflict. Many of its Western allies say that concern is misplaced, with Russia showing no sign of backing away from its onslaught against Ukraine.

Colin Kahl, the Pentagon's top policy adviser, said on Wednesday Abrams tanks were not likely to be included in Washington's next massive $2 billion military aid package, which will be headlined by Stryker and Bradley armoured vehicles. — U.S., Germany head for showdown over tanks for Ukraine - Reuters

For those wondering about the tank situation. According to the article "U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was in Germany on Thursday to meet new Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, shortly after Pistorius was sworn into office," but I'm not sure if that means today or then next Thursday, so unclear when we'll find out if Germany "sticks to its guns" so to speak or capitulates.

Although I'm highly skeptical Western tanks would be enough to "defeat Russia", enough of them would help create a stalemate, which I think is what US is aiming at currently; calibrate the drip feed into a stalemate.

What I expect is on people's minds is that simply maybe not enough and a massive fleet of Western tanks being destroyed in Ukraine would be a major embarrassment. It cannot simply be assumed

The Greatest Nuclear Threat we face is a Russian Victory, The Atlantic.
— Wayfarer
:up: — neomac

Again, how do you actually prevent a Russian victory?

Sanctions haven't worked, international fighters haven't worked, the great Ukrainian offensive hasn't worked, the drip feed of new weapons systems hasn't worked, and there is likely no air defence even possible for defending the Ukrainian electricity grid.

If the real threat is Russian victory, how is that actually prevented?

If you can answer this question, then feel free to move onto the next question of likely the only situation in which Russia uses nuclear weapons is ... losing and not winning, and how would Russia using nuclear weapons to avoid limited defeat (likely successfully) in Ukraine (and also now there's a major power clearly willing to use nuclear weapons) somehow put other nations off building their own nuclear weapons?

This argument is nonsense built on-top of nonsense.

To continue my analysis of the military situation, the UK, and I believe Poland as well, sending main battle tanks and the US sending Bradleys now is a pretty good evidence for the drip feed arms supply theory, which is that military support for Ukraine is calibrated to not let Russia lose; now that Russia is gaining ground again, suddenly the next military system is all the talk and needs to be supplied.

Germany has taken the common sense position that they'll supply main battle tanks if the US supplies main battle tanks. Totally reasonable, someone asking you to do A, and who can also do A, should be willing to also do A if they want you to do A.

Otherwise, the argument structure that you should do something I'm equally capable, but not willing to do myself, is called manipulation.

It's unclear which and how many Western tanks will be supplied to Ukraine, but what is clear is that if the will to "help Ukraine" was genuine these tanks could been supplied from the beginning, or, at minimum, Ukrainian tank brigades trained on these systems since February (or even before) in the event Ukraine loses a significant part of their entire tank fleet as well as all the other soviet equipment that could be scrounged here and there.

We can also safely conclude that all the reasoning provided before for not supplying Western main battle tanks was completely spurious and lies (which was in any case obvious), if suddenly the story is changing now.

As for the effectiveness of Western tanks themselves, this is now very much sub-optimal conditions. Lot's of experienced Ukrainian tank crews have been lost who could have made use of the Western systems.

In addition to the attrition of tank personnel, there's the logistical challenges. Of course, this could have been easily mitigated by fielding just one Western tank company since the start of the war to work out logistical issues in case it turns out that "anything Ukraine needs" includes Western tanks.

The complexity and maintenance of Western tanks is the major practical problem in suddenly fielding them, and it's very unclear how effective they can be in the remaining skillset and when they'll be effective. Operating tanks takes a considerable amount of skill, even starting with just manoeuvring without getting stuck, and tanks are of limited supply so it's not a case where people can just be thrown into it and we'll just assume the survivors learn something.

It's definitely an open question, even with proper training, how effective Western tanks would be against Russian tanks. Russian tank doctrine is more smaller tanks; with one less crew that also helps permit more tanks. What sort of proficiency Ukraine will have with these tanks is anyone's guess.

However, Western tanks will also remain vulnerable to drone and air power. If the Western tanks are effective against other ground units, this will increase Russian motivation to engage certainly a lot of drones but also their attack helicopters. Artillery may not be so effective destroying Western tanks but may damage them (a problem amplified if they are difficult to repair) as well as of course suppress and degrade supporting infantry and other vehicles. Electronic warfare seems to have become pretty effectively employed by the Russians.

On the offensive, both ATGM's (which the Russians also have) and mines are an additional problem.

To summarise, Western tanks at this stage maybe very late in the game, too late to have a major impact; certainly better than nothing but now fielded in sub optimal conditions, and the requirement of air power and electronic warfare to support the tanks remains, which likely we'll start to hear about if Western tanks start to lose against Russian combined arms or just tank-on-tank engagements (whether because Russian tank doctrine is good enough or just Russian tank crews are far more experienced at this point).

On the political side, there's a major symbolic element to the supply of Western tanks, definitely gives the impression this is NATO's war.

In terms of narrative for Russia they can credibly say they destroyed Ukrainian war fighting capacity and are now even more directly against NATO than before. Why this matters is first on the international scene of countries friendly to Russia it undermines the narrative of Russian incompetence in dealing with the much smaller Ukrainian army; it's difficult to continue to say Russia has underperformed if the West needs to send in Western tanks and difficult to continue to say that it's actually Russia that has lost a significant amount of tanks and not Ukraine. The supply of Western tanks, in itself, boosts Russian "strength" perception, which is what matters most to countries friendly to Russia.

Domestically, the supply of Western tanks simply confirms the Kremlin's narrative that they are actually fighting NATO and not Ukraine. This narrative is important in terms of increasing toleration for losses. If we compare the current scenario to one in which Ukraine was not helped at all by the West and the current front lines is 100% Ukrainian military achievement, it would indeed be a completely military debacle for Russia (an argument that the West continues to make regardless of the facts, but this only plays to a Western audience). The counter argument of course to Russian military debacle is that they are fighting NATO, which is out to get them, and therefore it's a harder fight requiring more sacrifice. Western tanks is a sort of step change in the symbolism of this argument; Russia can credibly say domestically and to their international audience that they defeated Ukraine and are now battling NATO tanks.

The optics of Western tanks being destroyed in Ukraine may also undermine support in the West for the war, lead to self-reflection of Western omnipotence as it maybe the end of the drip-feed escalation ladder, so if that doesn't work ... then maybe best to compromise.

That the move maybe underwhelming militarily and also counter-effective politically, is potentially a good explanation of why Germany is getting cold feat and the US just flat out says they won't deliver their tanks.

The UK committing 10 Challenger 2 tanks is, my guess, was meant to just break the taboo and get other countries, mainly Germany, to commit significantly more Leopard 2 tanks. Only 10 tanks was selected as a mitigation factor in the event they are all destroyed ... they can then say "well it was only 10 and no one else sent any tanks so what-are-you-going-to-do, don't blame the Challenger, blame Germany". Will be interesting to see if these tanks even get to Ukraine and fielded if there's not a deluge of other Western tanks.

Argues that Putin's success would entail uncontrollable nuclear proliferation, whilst his defeat will deflate the attraction of nuclear weapons. — Wayfarer

Even if true for some reason, that somehow Russian defeat would make other states look at nuclear weapons and not be as "attracted" to that sleek cold steel, what's the plan to actually "defeat" Russia?

Because if there's no effective plan, then even in the context of this idea there's nothing effective to do. So, failing a first option that is unworkable, the next option that is feasible and would actually reduce nuclear proliferation is the major powers getting together and resolving the conflict and continuing to cooperate to reduce nuclear proliferation.

This has been the deal since the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, that the major powers will reduce their nuclear stockpiles, lower nuclear tensions and be generally more reasonable, and in exchange the non-nuclear powers will not seek nuclear weapons.

The country that eroded this deal was first and foremost the United States in invading Iraq and bombing Libya (countries that gave up their WMD programs to be "reasonable" parties to the WMD deal, which signalled to everyone else that the deal isn't honest but the US may attack you anyways for being a more reasonable global citizen: more reasonable than a dictator with plenty of WMD stockpiles), and the country that started to pull out of the non-proliferation deals is the US, and the country that kept baiting advancing its nuclear umbrella all the way up to to thousands of kilometres of Russian border for over 2 decades is the US.

The cause of nuclear proliferation since the non-proliferation global status quo is definitely the United States.

What the part of the world that finds nuclear weapons attractive learns from this conflict is that (Russian) nuclear weapons is an effective defence against US actions: Russia with nuclear weapons has deterred a no-fly zone whereas Libya without nuclear weapons got no-fly-zoned to rubble (with the insane logic that anything that could potentially support indirectly something that could fly is any imaginative wary whatsoever, is a legitimate no-fly-zone target, which is 1984 level nonsense).

No. It argues that "If nuclear threats or the actual use of nuclear weapons leads to the defeat of Ukraine..." — Isaac

The argument is completely nonsensical; all non-nuclear nations that might develop nuclear weapons would be for deterrence purposes, and mainly from the United States and not Russia or China or other neighbour's, they would not look at nuclear weapons as a means to expand their territory.

Thousands of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them are required to threaten the entire planet.

In any case, the way they have been bombarding Ukraine is completely unconscionable and must be prevented, thwarted or stopped by any means necessary. — Wayfarer

You do realise any means necessary includes nuclear weapons?

Or are you just talking virtue signalling nonsense to y'a boyz?

As far as smug self-righteousness goes, it is difficult to surpass its glory when you dismiss the will to defend oneself as a slavish pursuit of an ideology. — Paine

Defending a nation state is not self defence, the nation state exists only ideologically.

If the cost of the defence far exceeds whatever the purported benefits in well being to the majority of people are, then it is indeed a slavish pursuit of an ideology.

You are free to argue that the cost to Ukraine so far is worth it and overall "defending" Ukrainian interest, likewise baiting the war in the first place by continuously asserting the joining of NATO ... without ever joining NATO and NATO explicitly telling Zelensky that the "door would remain open" but they would never be allowed to join.

Even more absurd, when the war started it was all about defending Ukraine's "right" to join NATO, as all parties pretty much agreed that Ukrainian neutrality would end the war and so reasoning to reject that was needed by the parties pushing war. You cannot be more ideologically motivated than fighting and dying for a hypothetical right to join an organisation that won't let you ever join in practice.

What did you just write?! If the “concept” (intention or extension) of “legitimate grievance” needs to be negotiated then you yourself can not claim as a fact that those I listed are “legitimate grievances”: main parties didn’t negotiate anywhere what “legitimate grievances” Russia may be acknowledged to have. — neomac

Unfortunately your reading comprehension is so low we need here a dictionary intervention.

My constituents have a legitimate grievance, and it must be addressed tonight.

People caught in this way have a legitimate grievance against the tax regulations in this sense.

The system would then be clogged, making it impossible for those with a legitimate grievance to have their case heard promptly.

I think all of us feel that one of the most important things is that nobody should have a legitimate grievance.

I realise that there is a war on and that things are difficult in regard to borrowing, but this is a legitimate grievance.

Both claimed a legitimate grievance against those who stood in the way of a thorough-going conversion and justified violence in terms of divinely sanctioned retribution.

Those absent parent groups who campaigned so loudly against the child support scheme can no longer claim legitimate grievance.

Does this term as it is used at present prevent a person who has a legitimate grievance against that diplomatic agent from taking proceedings?

No attempt has been made to meet this real and legitimate grievance felt by tens of thousands of work people.

The attainment of contentment, or if contentment be too strong a word, the absence of a legitimate grievance, is a big step towards efficiency.

We hope also to get rid of some legitimate grievance which exists with regard to ready-made clothing. — Cambridge Dictionary

The banks should not be handed a legitimate grievance that would justify their failure to lend. -Times, Sunday Times

Politicians have responded by recognising tax avoidance as a legitimate grievance and are attempting to tackle it. -Times, Sunday Times

You have a legitimate grievance against words ending in. -Times, Sunday Times

Any employee who saw goalposts moving thus would have a legitimate grievance. - Times, Sunday Times

The people were satisfied with the administration, and they had no legitimate grievance against it. - Retrieved from Wikipedia — Collins Dictionary

"Legitimate grievance" is a mainly legal expression to make the distinction with a "grievance" that may or may not be legitimate.

For there to be a grievance, someone need only to complain about something, which could be anything, no matter how unreasonable.

For example, an executive may come into the CEO's office and say that there's a problem with a client and they received a letter with a long list of grievances.

The CEO may then reply "are there legitimate grievances?"

The question is not about whether the client feels their grievances are legitimate, but what this executive thinks. The answer will be the executives opinion about the merit of the grievances.

Legitimate grievance is a concept utilised on one side of the negotiation table to discuss the list of grievances on the other side.

In the context of business, if I'm the CEO and you an executive in the firm, and we agree this client has legitimate grievances, it means we believe the client would have a strong case to sue us, so we should be nice and try to solve the problem. If we concluded there was no legitimate grievances it means we think we can tell this client to take a hike. Of course, that remains our opinion and others may disagree or then we may disagree with each other.

In non-legal contexts (like the police promised coffee but that could not give rise to a law suite), or then the war (which has no legal authority to resolve it), the concept of legitimate grievance simply expresses what you think does actually need to be resolved in some way for the other side to do what you want. The police may have no legal compulsion to get a murderer a cup of coffee, but they may feel this grievance is indeed legitimate, they did say they would do that, and so they should comply if they want the murderer to keep talking.

Legitimate grievances is what you discuss on your side about the other side, trying to determine or guess what's actually important to the other side that your side is willing to do. The police may recognise the murderer's grievance of being arrested and no longer free is heart-felt and the murderer rather not be in prison; so, sure, it's a grievance but the police are unlikely to view it as a legitimate one, whereas coffee perhaps they can do.

So, when I say, for example, Nazi's in Ukraine is a legitimate grievance, it's expressing my opinion that we in the West should also not want Nazi's in Ukraine.

For a negotiation to conclude, there is rarely an agreement on what are all the legitimate grievances but the end result is simply the terms of the agreement.

The whole point of settling (for example in business) is often to be able to avoid ever needing to recognise the grievance was legitimate, and substituting money for the explicit recognition and potential legal public relations consequences if the matter went further. "We recognise no wrongdoing" is a typical phrase of any settlement between a corporation and the government. Of course, the whole reason they are settling is because, internally, they see the grievances in question are indeed legitimate and they have indeed done wrong.

So, now that (hopefully) you know what words mean, you are free to argue that Nazi's in Ukraine is not a legitimate grievance, or the oppression of Russian language speakers, or NATO missiles in the baltic, or indeed Russia has no legitimate grievances of any kind.

You are also free to argue that these may very well be legitimate grievances, but Ukraine has many more legitimate grievances, etc.

And, if you want the war to continue, for instance to maximise the damage on Russia, then it simply doesn't matter what may or may not be legitimate grievances for anyone: the war continues and feelings don't matter.

However, it's when you want to negotiate a settlement that the other side may accept, then it is necessary to consider things from their point of view and what grievances they have and which are legitimate (according to yourself).

A successful negotiation will parse everyone's legitimate grievances (at least satisfactorily enough for all parties to agree to it) and everyone's leverage (at least satisfactorily enough that no party feels they have enough leverage to demand more, as otherwise they would demand more and the negotiation continues).

Negotiation is not some absolute moral question, it is likely the moral issues remain unresolved and all parties feel the most wronged.

Negotiation is about arriving at agreements, which requires considering the perspective of the counter-party and how they see the world and what they would see as potentially resolving the situation and preferable to further conflict.

The majority of European "leadership" is an ideologically driven bunch inspired by the likes of Klaus Schwab. Authoritarian to the core, they'll jump on every crisis opportunity to further their personal agenda and tighten the reigns on the population of Europe.

Crises give governments extraordinary powers, and they are currently using those to pass all sorts of far-reaching legislation, from attempts at forced vaccinations during covid, to mass-surveillance, digital IDs and digital currencies. Notice the common thread - control, control, control. — Tzeentch

Although I agree with the basics, they still require economic strength to pursue their personal and legislative agendas, which for decades has involved the "realpolitik" move of accessing Russian resources.

If it was purely ideological driven they would have broken with Russia a long time ago, not made new pipelines and so on. There's been clear disagreement with the US on policy for decades, clear motivation to stay on friendly terms with Russia and trade. It would not be plausible that EU leaders build up dependence on Russia just to have a crisis and push through their agendas.

I would completely agree when it comes to Boris Johnson, but there weren't other European leaders joining him in Kiev to convince Zelensky to keep fighting.

In other words, it's difficult to interpret European leaders, apart from Boris and maybe Poland, as being motivated to cause the war to happen and escalate it, there's just also a complete lack of evidence of any motivation to prevent the war, or pressure a peace settlement once it started.

Additionally, we now get mixed messages from these same leaders about the war now.

Rather, it seems to me the central European leaders really did have a mentality of scolded school children.

Ah ok, I haven't been following the conversation for a couple of weeks.

It is truly a bizarre transformation of it being totally normal to criticise US foreign policy, this entire last century, to any criticism is now pro-Putin. Likewise, for the arms industry, and not just in the US but also in Europe, who don't benefit from the war and it's purely ideological and informed by propaganda ... which, ok, most people view the world that way, but European leaders one would assume have a more sophisticated view of the world and would be pushing propaganda due to some underlying motivation. Motivation of the US is pretty clear, but it's really hard to interpret European leadership's motivation in this and come up with a different interpretation to: they're both really dumb and don't really understand anything and / or then just cowards in the face of social media pressure.

As long as I can be pro-US while disagreeing with their foreign policy many/most times, and still not pro-Putin. — creativesoul

I believe this is the point @Isaac is making. Criticism of US foreign policy isn't "pro-Putin".

To me other notions to clarify are those of “victory” and “loss”. They may have a meaning on the battlefield — neomac

They definitely do have meaning on the battlefield, but I understand since Ukraine isn't achieving these "victories" as of late you've made up some different meanings for victory to cope with that.

Anyhow such geopolitical victory doesn’t depend just on Russian means, resolution, or escalation threats, but also on Western cohesion, resolution and vision in addressing the Russian security and economic challenge. This will also be an example also for other authoritarian regimes, like China. And an important premise to repair or rebuild more convenient relationships between the West and the Rest in the interest of everybody. — neomac

You are just completely delusional. The West does not represent the "interest of everybody" and is not seeking, in this war or any other policy dimension, solutions that are in the "interest of everybody".

Even more bizarre, you don't hesitate to just flat out say US's actions are justified due to their hegemonic position (and just ignore the fact that if Russia wins, then they are the hegemon, and therefore justified in your framework, in the region).

Here the problems I see:
First, you seem asking me to solve an equation whose form and variables are unknown. What does “lose” for Ukraine mean in quantifiable terms? What’s the likelihood of loss and win and how did you calculate it? What’s the time range you are considering? What’s the cost threshold that if exceeded will make the cost unreasonably high? What quantifiable parameters would make you consider a Western plan a “‘coherent workable’ plan to actually ‘beat’ Russia”? — neomac

These are your problems, not mine. I don't care about beating Russia.

I'm not a Russophobe. I didn't live in fear of Russia before this war, I don't live in fear of Russia now. I do fear US escalating the conflict to essentially accidental nuclear war, but this is a fear of the international dynamic that's been put in place, mostly by the US "meddling" in Ukrainian elections and internal affairs.

My position in this debate is that a negotiated peace is preferable to more war, Zelensky is an idiot, but the West (US / EU) easily has the leverage to negotiate a resolution to the conflict and just ignore the fact Zelensky is an idiot.

And, "loss for Ukraine in quantifiable terms" is easy to define: tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians dead, economy wrecked, massive emigration, and not even achieving anything further on the battle field since last spring but forced to accept Russia control over it's current occupied territory, maybe more. This would definitely be a loss for Ukraine.

Now, if you want to wax whimsically that even if Ukraine loses the war Russia is harmed "enough" geopolitically and there's some Western geopolitical victory of some sort, then even if that were true, Ukraine gets no benefit, so the end result is using the Ukrainians for our own geopolitical ambitions: aka. sacrificing Ukraine to harm Russia.

I am entirely willing to sacrifice an entire country in war campaign, wars take sacrifice, I am the kind of person who would not hesitate to sit down and write an "equation" concluding millions, or hundreds of millions of people must be sacrificed for what I believe to be right (if it makes sense of course), but I am only willing in a war in which I am actually fighting in and my own country takes losses in the country being sacrificed. This was the old way: "you want us to make a fanatical stand to slow down and attrit the enemy, you get your fucking asses fucking here and do some dying too, otherwise we're suing for peace or straight up surrendering and not damaging our country for nothing".

For example, the UK wanted France to resist Nazi invasion, and so sent an expeditionary force to help with that. It's common sense.

Without that, we are not "allied" with Ukraine, we are cynically manipulating and exploiting them for entirely different geopolitical reasons (in the case of Europe, self-defeating geo-political reasons) with minimum risk to our own soldiers lives and so minimum cause to sit down and really reflect on what are doing and the consequences of our leaders decisions.

Here you are no longer delving into hypothetical thoughts, you clearly state as a matter of fact “war is totally provoked”, “these are definitely Nazi institutions with enormous power and influence in Ukraine”, “The rights of Russian speaking minorities that, fact of the matter is, Ukraine started oppressing”, “There have been war crimes also by the Ukrainians”. — neomac

These are just facts. I don't claim these are hypotheticals.

And you count them as “legitimate grievance”. Besides since you talk about “entirely justified grievance” and “in total contradiction to the West's ‘values and policies’” (unquestionable proof of Western hypocrisy right?), the gap between “legitimate grievance” and “justified grievance” seems now bridged by the reference to Western shared rules. You look pretty convinced about all this. — neomac

Yes, these totally factual things, documented by our own the Western media (before they got the memo that these subjects were off limits), and are legitimate grievances.

Legitimate grievance does not mean "justified". It's a concept you need to negotiate with people.

For example, a murderer, who's just confessed to a murder, could have a legitimate grievance that the police didn't bring him his coffee as they said they would.

Now, if the police don't want anything more from the murderer and seeing as coffee isn't a right, no one recorded the promise of coffee anyways and even if they did there's no damages or relevance to the confession and legal process etc., they could just walk away and say fuck the murderer and his coffee, I ain't doing shit for this sack of crap. So, the coffee remains a legitimate grievance of the murderer but in the grand scheme of moral things a broken promise of coffee is in no way comparable to murder and there's no legal consequence to breaching this contract.

However, let's say the police want the murderer to keep talking: where's the body? Who else was involved? What was the motivation? etc.

Now, the murderer says "I won't talk more until I get my coffee". I'm pretty sure any detective on the planet would get this murderer a coffee, even if they don't really want to be nice to the murderer. Why? It's a legitimate grievance that needs to be resolved in order to agree on a cooperative action to keep conversing about the murder.

Had the murderer said "I'll talk more, but police are wearing the colour blue, and I hate blue, and to compensate that I want to be let go, all charges dropped etc." doubtful any detective would view this a legitimate grievance reasonable and reasonable demand to resolve this grievance, to continue the conversation.

So, back the Russian and Ukrainian war. If you don't want to negotiate with Russia then there is no need to reflect on their legitimate grievances. However, if you do want to negotiate (want to convince the other party you're dealing with to do something using mere words) then resolving legitimate grievances (in one way or the other) is an essential part of the negotiation process.

The reason the word "legitimate" appears instead of just saying "grievance" is because in a negotiation people start high and settle lower; so, first off, there maybe a whole list of grievances and perhaps many are just padding the negotiation position and aren't really thought of as legitimate by the party presenting them (things they plan to let go of in basically horse trading). Likewise, some grievances maybe authentically felt by the counter-party, but our own side views them as illegitimate and will never satisfy them; but maybe it's possible to come to an agreement anyways if there remains overall enough "compensation" for letting go of the grievances. For example, right now Turkey is making all sorts of demands on Sweden to join NATO, and maybe they will "stick to their guns" or maybe they are just trying to maximise purely economic compensation (NATO: solve our inflation problem if you want Sweden) and so just throwing out these other grievances as it would be "impolite" for Turkey to directly say what they are actually after; so, if that were the case, the grievances are purely nominal and Turkey will just say whatever until their implied economic demands are met (and not by Sweden, but the the EU and US who could solve their inflation problem).

Of course, you can argue that Russia's grievances don't matter, even if some are true, as there is no reason to negotiate.

However, if you want to negotiate, they it's necessary to reflect on how the counter-party views things and what issues need to be resolved (for them, not for you) in order to reach an agreement (you negotiate with "the other" not yourself). Of course, it is the same for Russia negotiating with Ukraine and the West, and a successful negotiation is going to adequately resolve the grievances in the context of the other important factor which is leverage. The more leverage you have in a negotiation the more of your grievances you can seek to have resolved and the less grievances of the counter-party you need to care about. For example, perhaps 2 nuclear bombs being dropped on Japan for no military reason is a legitimate grievance, but they lost the war and had no leverage so the US could and did ignore that little detail.

Of course, if your goal is:

Sure, here I restate it again and bolden it: The end game for NATO/US involvement in this war doesn’t need to be to stop Russia or overturn its regime. But to inflict as much enduring damage as possible to Russian power (in terms of its economic system, its system of alliance, its capacity of military projection outside its borders, its its technology supply, its military and geopolitical status) to the point it is not longer perceived as a non-negligible geopolitical threat to the West. Outrageous right?! Yet if the endgame was stopping Russia, the quickest effective way would be for the West to force Ukraine to surrender to all Russian demands, or not even start a “proxy war” against Russia in the first place, right?! But that’s neither the Western endgame nor the Ukrainians’. So YES concern for the Ukrainian welfare is LITERALLY and REASONABLY compatible with not stopping Russia if that means Ukrainian surrender.
As always, I’m responsible for what I write, not for what you understand. — neomac

Then there is no reason to want Ukraine to negotiate with Russia, but rather it's better to just spread propaganda to increase the will for Ukrainians to fight even if they don't "stop" Russia and their country is completely wrecked as well as increase motivation of the West to supply arms and so on.

So, it's understandable that you are unable to follow any conversation about the steps of negotiating a resolution to the conflict, as you do not want the conflict to end until "as much enduring damage" is inflicted on Russia.

And again, "not stopping the Russians" includes an immensely costly the war for the Ukrainians and then simply losing the war. This is not compatible with Ukrainian welfare. Even in a losing position, one party to a war still has the leverage of being able to inflict more damage and can use that to get more concessions than total military defeat.

And if you want some analysis of equally credible people who say Ukraine is "winning" in some sense (but maybe at a great cost), this is also excellent analysis:



So feel free to argue something or then just point to whoever in all this analysis you agree with, so others can do the work of arguing on your behalf.

You keep making rebuttals to arguments I am not making. — Paine

Ah, I see, you're just virtue signalling that you've found the extreme-right association after 420 pages.

Ok, well, if you want to make an argument rather than say nothing at all, the main reference in the Russia will win or then the actually trying to change that result will likely escalate into nuclear weapons being used in Ukraine is Mearsheimer:



Above is his speech in Romania, which at the time there was not insignificant cancel culture going around that "he talked to in Romania! He talked to Orban!

Is he not credible with is paltry professorship? Or is extreme right? If so why?

If you have no interest in arguing his points, what's your basis of that?

If you are interested in arguing his points, what's your argument with them?

Predicting Ukraine will win when they won't, is not "pro Ukraine" it's just wrong if Ukraine doesn't win. If you think Ukraine will win, ok, why, how, when?

You put words into my mouth. — Paine

This is just a general point, I don't say you made any predictions. I'm contrasting this "extreme right" of yours with the mainstream media.

The key word in an "if" statement is "if". So, just say you're not predicting Ukraine will win, and, to that extent, agree with the extreme right voices you reference that there is no reason to believe Ukraine will win, you certainly aren't predicting that.

However, insofar as your not predicting anything but just "extreme-right-reference-shaming" me obviously the alternative you have in mind is the mainstream corporate news (since, on this particular topic, the extreme left also doesn't like the Nazi's in Ukraine). However, if the mainstream media makes terrible predictions that don't come true on a topic, why would I increase my confidence in their analysis of that topic? Why wouldn't I see what others, so called "contrarions", have to say?

How would you guess that from my life of work? What is your life of work? — Paine

I don't care about your life work.

What I do know is that I post one video of a break down of a video that Forbs references (so vetted to some degree by a major organisation), with pretty much the bare minimum of analysis (such as the difference between a german army symbol and a Nazi symbol) that one would expect from a journalist, that Forbs doesn't do. The content of the video you can evaluate for yourself, if they're not Nazi saluting but just saying hello and the symbols are "ancient runes" or whatever and totally coincidence the Nazi's used them too, go ahead and argue that.

However, what does it matter that the bare minimum editing work was done by the New Atlas guy, and if Forbs isn't going to do it ... well why not the New Atlas guy?

But, even the Forbs article just gives rise to problematic questions, such as where did the Nazi's go? In this narrative that these groups "were Nazis ... but not anymore" ok, that would be great to know, but who (that is not a Nazi) does the dirty work of purging a Nazi organisation of undesirables? What was the motivation, what was their method of internal-de-nazification, when did this occur, where are these Nazis now that we know were there then ... but not anymore?

However, for you, just associating the person who did the bare minimum journalist work on the issue with the extreme right, and not even explaining what's so extreme right about him (and is Trump extreme right? ... isn't he just mainstream right as a a literal President? which pretty much anyone on the American right is going to defend, so is the idea we can't listen to what any republican says ever?). Otherwise, usually the "extreme right" accusation was people like Nazi's, which obviously the New Atlas guys doesn't like (and we have that in common, so why wouldn't I agree with him on this issue that Nazi's are bad, and Nazi symbols on NATO military equipment isn't a good look for NATO ... why would it be a good look?).

What makes you a fanatic of cancel culture is your idea that you can just start a circle jerk of "extreme right" if even the slightest association can be made with any reference whatsoever and certainly you believe that to be critical thinking.

Now, multiple your fanaticism by literally hundreds of millions of people with various bot farms as force multipliers forming an online mob that can get people fired, maybe you just like to participate in the virtue-signally, but certainly you could empathise with someone who's job would be on the line if they said something "controversial", such as, despite apparent short term success, and even if it really is success, Ukraine may not be able to "defeat" Russia in the war, may choose simply not to make that point.

I haven't made any predictions. — Paine

I never said you did, I was pointing out the value of considering what someone who has made accurate predictions says, maybe they have some insights into the forces driving events, even if you disagree with their politics.

Indeed, the whole reason I try listen to voices from every political persuasion is because people from every political persuasion are involved in and co-determine what happens (to larger and smaller degrees).

For example, the storming of the Capital building in the US came as a shock to a lot of people on the left, but it seemed pretty natural to me having listened to what they were saying, and then basically doing exactly what they said they were going to do. I wouldn't say it was some sort of well orchestrated plan, but we're in an epoch of online mob forces.

I am an old carpenter and stone mason. — Paine

You're in the true adherent to cancel culture category.

However, even when would-be-critical thinkers see what the online mob can do, they hesitate to speak their mind.

Every political system we've seen based on severe censorship eventually loses its grip on reality and starts making terrible decisions.

I remember some of that messaging from the Syrian conflict. — Paine

The Syrian conflict that didn't overthrow Asad as mainstream media promised and where Al Qaeda was literally a moderate faction of the "rebels".

Again, in terms of predicting events, how does accurate predictions make one less credible and totally wrong predictions make one more credible?

No matter what you want to happen, there's what actually happens.

Predicting Ukraine will win when they won't, is not "pro Ukraine" it's just wrong if Ukraine doesn't win. If you think Ukraine will win, ok, why, how, when?

And, for certain, accurate predictions are better for Ukraine than wrong predictions, as they help make better decisions. No one benefits from a wrong idea about the future. Of course, things are uncertain, which is what analysis helps try to clarify the extent that's possible.

In this recent exchange with and I think it's quite illuminating the effects of cancel culture on analysis and decision making.

Neither rebut anything, nor even bother to try to prove their allegations. What's their definition of "extreme right" and what makes people extreme right and why would it not be an ad hominem in this case etc.

And, on the subject of Nazis, they simply don't bother to address the main stream media (bbc, vice, guardian, reuters) reporting on these organisations before this year, don't even try to explain where these Nazi's supposedly disappeared to, the mere fact that only the "extreme right" or the "extreme left" needs to be linked to making making the same point, and everything can be dismissed.

Although I agree that some people close to decision making are "in the know", there is still a vast array of bureaucracies with people either fanatical adherents to cancel culture, like out friends and , or then afraid of career repercussions so not saying anything.

The effect of this on institutional processes I is something to contemplate as a major driver of events.

We are basically at the level of reification of social media causes du jour.

Another of his sources is Brian Berletic, aka Tony Cartalucc — SophistiCat

Before I posted 6 videos from BBC to Vice, investigating the Nazi's in Ukraine, and all concluding there is definitely Nazi's in Ukraine, with weapons, institutional power and even their own "youth camp".

Of course, main stream media doesn't investigate that kind of thing anymore, so people on the fringe do it, why expect otherwise.

In the case of the New Atlas video I posted, it's just breaking down a Forbs article that is a laughable level of apologetics, and just shows the source video of Azov guys going by on Western armoured vehicles with hitler salutes and Nazi symbols.

And in over 400 pages of discussion, no one has yet presented an argument that these Nazi's were nothing to be concerned about, other than to make the absurd claim that there's an equal amount of Nazi's everywhere.

As for Scott Ritter, I literally said preambled what I was repeating from Scott Ritter with "this is Scott Ritter's analysis", as I had not even read the article yet and if one was going to read into it, then Scott Ritters analysis would be accurate. I wouldn't be so confident Zuluhzny will be making a concession speech anytime soon, but I would put money on that option being setup with Zuluhzny speech so the there's some narrative coherence if it comes to that (both to the Western and Ukrainian audience).

Scott Ritter was literally a weapons inspector for the UN, and Colonel Macgregor a colonel.

Feel free to disagree with them, but the idea these two don't have expertise worth considering is laughable.

Now, both these guys analysing the war, and anyone else, who does not repeat Ukraine is "winning" are not welcome on the mainstream, so they literally do interviews everywhere from the extreme right to the extreme left. Why not?

The "other side" of the debate has been literally predicting Russian lines collapsing due to morale problems, and Russian economy collapsing due to sanctions, and running out of missiles and ammunitions and tanks and everything, and Ukraine taking less casualties than the Russians, and Ukraine's "winning the war".

None of which has come true in 9 months of the war.

Why would people that have made terrible predictions be more credible than people making accurate predictions.

Moreover, no one has a monopoly on analysis and prediction making, and I find the best way to keep an open mind is to just listen to as many points of view as possible.

Indeed, the only reason I got clued into a total war between Russia and Ukraine was even on the table, is because a Nazi predicted it in, if I remember correctly, the BBC video. And lo and behold it occurred, so even Nazi's can be right in predicting events.

Also, the people literally following the war everyday have a minimum of learning about their models and theories of the war. For example, most of the right wing analysts predicted Russia will hold on to Kherson. However, Colonel Macgregor predicted Russia would fall back to economise forces if they need to. So, what we learn is definitely the right is overconfident in Russia's forces, but that does not make their analysis not worth considering.

It's also interesting to listen to analysis from people with completely different world views, such as supporting Trump and denying climate change, which, in my opinion, they are totally wrong about.

Seems a bit surprising with the Nazi thing an'all ... — jorndoe

Azov is literally riding around making Nazi salutes with the Nazi iron cross and the SS wolf's angle painted on their vehicles.



As verified by Forbs ... just, we shouldn't be too concerned.

They say there "was Nazis" but not anymore ... but where did they go even in that narrative?

It's been said that Putin postponed the attack several times and that it was the FSB pushing for the attack and Gerasimov and the military being hesitant. That Putin then made a "putsch" at the FSB afterwards does reinforce that this may be so. (The FSB was in charge of Ukraine, unlike other countries.) — ssu

I have no problem with the idea such a narrative is true.

My position on this issue was that clearly the Russian military had a plan B of securing the land bridge to Crimea. The situation of "maybe we'll invade Ukraine" is also existing at least since 2014 and likely since 2008 so the idea things were not thought through and different contingencies planned for is not credible, which I don't think is your position.

The only difference I think we have on this topic is simply how what likelihood the Russian military, the Kremlin, FSB and Putin himself placed on certain outcomes (such as capitulation of Kiev or then military commanders).

I would, however, bet money that the nuclear deterrence relative the no-fly zone was preplanned (presenting Putin as unhinged etc.), likewise that they'd keep pressure on Kiev until the siege of Mariupol was completed, of course, in the event that Kiev does not capitulate.

Maybe they believed it was 80% likely Kiev would crumble or maybe 20% (worth a shot, and serves as a fixing operation if they don't accept the demands). And, as you say, maybe everyone involved believed something different about the odds.

I'm not so sure that there even then was a moment to sue for peace. Remember that in the south and east Russia was gaining ground as Ukraine concentrated on defending Kyiv. And Putin wasn't going to talk to the drug using neo-nazis — ssu

Russia made the offer publicly, there were negotiations in Belarus, one narrative is that Zelensky was really close to accepting when Boris Johnson arrived to convince him otherwise.

Now, what are the sources of this story I have no idea, but it's honestly difficult to imagine Boris Johnson going into a theatre of war (in which the UK is not at war) for any other reason. Nevertheless, I don't like to assign fact to unsourced and/or unverifiable narratives, especially when propaganda is flying in every direction.

Yes. Basically Ukraine went through it's stockpiles of artillery ammunition quite quickly and then afterwards Russia enjoyed fire superiority. And obviously then was very dependent on Western assistance.

I think the simple fact neither Ukraine or actually the West was ready for such a long war fought with ammo consumption of WW1 or WW2 level. The West has basically looked at short conventional wars. The conventional wars in the Middle East (which are somewhat comparable) lasted only some days. Only basically Russia has hoarded old stuff and ammunition for such a conflict. Yet neither Russia or even the West have a military industry to produce huge amounts of munitions. At least yet. — ssu

Definitely agree.

The assumption of the US is that they do everything with air power, which is definitely much better than artillery if you have air supremacy, which the US definitely assumes they will get in any conflict.

There's also value / weight ratio, as bombs and shells are super heavy, so if you're fighting on the other side of the world, a bomb (especially guide bombs) are going to be more valuable to transport to the war theatre than artillery shells. Bombs are way more flexible in where they can land but also cause way bigger explosions. Indeed ... when the US wants to fire shells at a place for effect, they even have a plane for that.

Other NATO countries just assume any conflict with Russia would be nuclear, and money is better spent elsewhere than a WWI style artillery plan.

As for producing more munitions, I think the fact the West has not really tried to significantly scale up, is a good indication of where this war is going.

Where Ukraine needs that ammo is if makes large scale maneuvers. Then it has to attack Russian forces whereas if it is on the defensive, it can just pinpoint the fires to needed points. And even without artillery (or little artillery), Ukrainian infantry still can defend. — ssu

The problem is that you need artillery to suppress enemy artillery (the other option being air superiority, but Ukraine doesn't have that).

Fact of the matter is, Russia is pretty well optimised for this kind of conflict. Its whole doctrine revolves around denying air supremacy and then relying on an artillery advantage.

It sounds bad to us Westerners that Russia doesn't have air supremacy and are still taking losses / can't fly wherever they want, but this is exactly what Russian doctrine is built for.

Absent air supremacy of either side, artillery is just so amazingly good, and even drones are mostly just a force multiplier for artillery, and the only defence against artillery is your own artillery for counter-battery fire as well as shelling advancing formations.

As we've seen, tanks are vulnerable without infantry support, and not only can artillery hit tanks (maybe not penetrate but still damage / disable) but artillery suppressed infantry. The only way to suppress artillery is with air or artillery.

What Ukraine can do is lay a lot of mines, but this only slows down an enemy and doesn't win any battles in itself. Where Russian partisans are generally wrong is that Russia is keeping lines static on purpose to draw more Ukrainians in, whereas I think the mines are a bigger factor in Russia's slow pace of advancement when they do advance (if they could advance faster that would be great to moral and propaganda, and I don't see less Ukrainian casualties in such a scenario).

Which is an additional reason why we may see another offensive elsewhere than the current lines, as the easiest way to avoid mines is to go around them. There are not really any good counters to mines except for the fact that the enemy can't literally mine the whole country as they'd then need to go through their own minefields to get anywhere.

This popular narrative of "a motley group of Ukrainian defenders" that eviscerated Russian armored columns "with shoulder-fired antitank weapons" was challenged in a recent report by RUSI. They maintain that, contrary to popular belief, most of the Russian losses during their failed Kiev push were inflicted by conventional Ukrainian artillery. — SophistiCat

Ukraine had a pretty sizeable army before the army:



It's not talked much about because it was essentially all destroyed, and it's awkward to ask "what happened to the the 12000 armoured vehicles, 2500 tanks, and 2000 artillery pieces, if they're all gone and you need more ... how does that square with winning?

However, all this equipment (even if only a part is in good working order) is going to do damage.

Where the javelins and stingers had a big effect is that Ukraine could harass Russian supply lines (that were stretched hundreds of kilometres through unsecured territory, especially the salient to East Kiev) and attack helicopters (that could otherwise fly around and destroy your artillery and armoured vehicles and tanks) with small groups of people all over the place. Any actual big battle (where the majority of losses occur) would still be mostly heavy weapons and artillery duels and not, as you say, a motley group of infantry standing up in the chaos with javelins; but 3-4 guys able to go out and blow up supply trucks and tank columns from kilometres away, has a big impact on the operation.

However, my point above was that if the US wanted to Ukraine to really "win" the war, then all these weapons systems would have already been in Ukraine; more to the point, why stop at javelins, why not already have supplied Ukraine with HIMARS, f-16s and so on, certainly train on any weapons system that maybe required, such as NATO tanks.

It's also repeated often that the US intelligence community own assessment would be Ukraine would lose within 72 hours, so maybe there was some "secret" analysis that said otherwise, but I have difficulty imagining anyone predicted the precise series of events required to get into a total war in Ukraine, much less caused all those events to happen.

↪boethius I'm not sure about cancel culture. That seems to be something that mostly threatens public figures, whereas the people who cook up geopolitical strategy that remains constant throughout several presidencies are almost certainly not public figures ("deep state" / elite, in the US also known as "the Blob" or the foreign policy establishment). — Tzeentch

No issues with your statement vis-a-vis the US.

The cancel culture aspect is to explain why Europe goes all in on the war and sanctions, which is a fantastic price.

European leaders (especially outside the France and Germany) are not better informed than a worldnews reader from reddit; they're mostly just banal bureaucrats that get up and read the headlines and get to work, manage scandals and to some extent governance, and score points against their political opponents when they can. Life is comfortable and there's no need to take anything too seriously.

NATO "takes care" of all their geopolitical concerns and military contingencies, which is another way to say the US does.

Why this matters is that the US could not have known for sure European leaders would fully back their policy in Ukraine, but it's an essential element.

The common narrative is that Zelensky was about to reach an agreement with Ukraine, but then Boris Johnson flew / train into an active war zone to convince him not to. An example of the narrative is as follows:

Russia and Ukraine may have agreed on a tentative deal to end the war in April, according to a recent piece in Foreign Affairs.

“Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement,” wrote Fiona Hill and Angela Stent. “Russia would withdraw to its position on February 23, when it controlled part of the Donbas region and all of Crimea, and in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.”

The news highlights the impact of former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s efforts to stop negotiations, as journalist Branko Marcetic noted on Twitter. The decision to scuttle the deal coincided with Johnson’s April visit to Kyiv, during which he reportedly urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to break off talks with Russia for two key reasons: Putin cannot be negotiated with, and the West isn’t ready for the war to end. — Responsible Statecraft

I have never heard of this Responsible Statecraft organisation before, but it's a good summary of the story and first hit on google.

I don't think the Americans' actions suggest they believed the Russians were bluffing, especially after 2014. They took the threat serious enough to intensify security cooperation with Ukraine. — Tzeentch

Bluffing about committing to a full scale invasion and getting hit with full sanctions.

I have zero recollection of anyone representing American foreign policy analysis ever talking about the desire to have a full scale war in Ukraine; however, they talked a lot, and for years, of their "nuclear option" of total sanctions and cutting Russia off from SWIFT and so on.

So, considering all the pieces that need to fall into place to have a total war situation (Europe, Ukraine and Russia all need to make key decisions, along with public sentiment also fully supporting the war; which, before February no one in Europe seemed to care much about), it seems more likely to me that the US support for Ukraine was to ensure there is at least some sort of war, in order to impose the sanctions the US wants and for them to stick.

This would just be applying the lesson of Crimea that if it's over too quickly, "fait accomplie", then the sanctions don't stick, Europe just keeps doing business with Russia.

And this analysis I definitely do remember reading, that the US would not want an invasion of Ukraine to end too quickly for these sanctions reasons.

Now, if you're trying to make sure a war doesn't end too quickly, you may, to your own surprise, get a much bigger war than what you imagined.

At least as far as the mainstream story goes, the US overestimated Russia's strength, thought Ukraine would fall.

So, in this context, if you just want to the war to last at least a week or two, time to use the chaos to push through sanctions and then scare Europe enough to buy hundreds of billions of arms, or then, if all goes well, last a couple of months to get Finland into NATO, you'd invest a lot in training and equipping the Ukrainians.

However, if the goal was to actually beat the Russians, Javelines (and hundreds of tanks and infantry fighting vehicles and NATO howitzers and self propelled artillery etc.) would have been sent to Ukraine before the war started.

So, it can be the US was aiming for some sort of balance, relatively minor geopolitical adjustments, Russia the new enemy so we can forget about Afghanistan and so on.

Of course, I would agree that to the extent the possibility of Ukraine entering total war was considered, that the US policy establishment would view that as a good thing, but I don't see much evidence anyone was pushing for it until the Ukrainians made the "grand stand" (with Zelensky handing out AK's on the street and everything).

Usually, primary objectives of the US policy establishment are talked about for years and years. For example, invading Iraq and Afghanistan (destroying Syria and Libya too) was talked about for years and years and years: why, how, when, what would be the pretext etc. before they happen.

And, in this case, bringing down full sanctions on Russia has been talked about by the US political establishment since US became a net-exporter of fossil fuels again, in particular producing a lot of natural gas. And even a limited war in Ukraine could achieve "gas diversification" from Europe to US LNG, but the fact that US can't possibly replace Russian gas is maybe evidence that US was aiming more for some adjustments than a full scale war.

The other major evidence is that the US policy establishment talks all the time about China being the main threat, so having a big war in Europe is contrary to the "pivot to Asia".

This maybe the essence of Putin's discussion with Xi, that if the war in Ukraine is a lot bigger than America expects, this will overextend them between Europe and East-Asia.

Generally, I am reluctant to accept explanations that rely on the big players on the world stage making irrational or ignorant decisions. I think more likely the opposite is true - that they know more than we do, and I tend to try and make sense of their actions through that lens. — Tzeentch

I definitely agree. Someone just following twitter and tictok and making decisions would be people like the Finnish prime minister, not a major power, but still in this situation you really needed nearly every European country to be fully on board, and dissent or logic for peace could have snowballed at any moment and put the breaks on the war.

However, even the great powers who have more information than we do, they cannot completely control events, especially as they are trying to foil each others plans.

So, certainly a big war in Ukraine was considered by the US, I just see no evidence that this was a preferred outcome before the war actually started.

I'd agree that they knew their actions would make a war inevitable, but a much more coherent policy would be "making Russia pay a price" with policy changes in Europe that benefit the US, but the war fairly limited in time and scope.

For, a limited war would have just been a repeat of Crimea annexation but the US get some of what it wants this round, mainly the sanctions.

And this is how the US policy establishment seemed to think about things prior to the full scale war, that there's going to be a Crimea "second round" in the Donbas and they need to do better than the first round, of Russia taking Crimea without a shot fired. All their actions prior to February 2022 I think are consistent with such thinking. To posit the US intended a full scale war seems to me to require too much knowledge or too much control of how all sorts of different parties would react in the span of about a week, which I don't think is plausible to do.

I think the US policy establishment was so exuberant about the war going big and the Ukrainians "holding ground" and wanting to fight the Russians fanatically and without compromise, because they were genuinely surprised by such a fortuitous turn of events.