Since you're so focused on these T-55s, here is literally the first video that came up in searching T-55's in Ukraine ... which describes how Ukraine is using T-55's.



A video which comes to the exact same conclusion as I presented above, that such older tanks cannot destroy modern tanks, but can still destroy other armoured vehicles and support infantry.

This is a false binary. I said that Russia cannot just waltz to the Moldovan border through hundreds of square miles of defenses and through major urban centers when they have failed to make any significant gains since last summer. Moreover, that Russia attacking NATO and opening up a second war through Belarus is preposterous. — Count Timothy von Icarus

None of these positions I was arguing.

However, it's not a false binary that one definition of a "better" army is winning on the battle field.

If you say it's going to happen, certainly you can argue that. However, actual arguments are needed to lend merit to such a position.

For example, The Nazi's and Japanese in 1944 still held more territory than they started out with, but were rapidly losing territory, suffering under strategic bombing and, most critically, fighting against larger armies and navies and airforces with larger populations and industrial capacity that would win any attritional warfare. There was lot's of factors that could be pointed to in 1944 to support the argument the Nazi's and the Japanese were on the pathway to defeat with little they could do about it (especially after D-Day).

Had the Nazis had a much larger industrial output, larger population, better access to oil, more soldiers, better control of the skies and oceans, then obviously the end result of defeat, even after D-day and fighting on two fronts, wouldn't have been all that clear if the Nazi's were in a position to win a war of attrition if the lines stabilised in the East and West.

This is the key point, if the potential for manoeuvre warfare is exhausted in this conflict in Ukraine (lines are simply too well built up and enough men mobilised to defend) then it's an attritional war which favours the Russians. Really strong arguments would be required to argue somehow Ukraine has an advantage and can "win" (whatever definition of winning you want to use that requires Ukraine winning battles and taking territory).

But all you seem to do is note deficiencies of and damage to the Russian military, which even if it's all 100% true and not a smidgeon of fabrication (which almost all the evidence we are talking about can be fabricated entirely or then misrepresented, such as dressing up a Ukrainian loss as a Russian loss, or implying a few ambushes or lost skirmishes are representative of the whole war), doesn't lead to any conclusions, if things are worse for the Ukrainian army.

However, as I mentioned, it's obviously in theory possible Ukraine has some hidden well trained and well equipped and supplied army assembled in secret by NATO which is about to enter the theatre and cut through Russian lines with ease using their NATO tanks protected by a vast fleet or NATO AA batteries and f-16s, that turn out to be far superior to any Russian defence. However, by definition such a hidden force we don't know about, so we can note that it's in the realm of possibility but there's currently no reason to believe it exists.

This is ridiculous. We can deduce "nothing," from the fact that Russia started the invasion with much more modern tank models and is now relying on early Cold War era equipment? We can obviously deduce that they don't have additional modern or even late Cold War Era tanks to use since they obviously preferred to use more recent equipment. — Count Timothy von Icarus

For example, yes, we can deduce nothing from the appearance of T-55's.

If they are just used as essentially stationary guns on fixed defensive positions, well why not use them? It's just common sense that a tank, even an older tank, can still fire at stuff and armour can still stop most munitions and shrapnel. If you place the tank behind further fortifications it can be just as well defended as any modern tank; of course, it cannot manoeuvre but if that's not what you're using it for then that doesn't matter.

Of course, it becomes a target for artillery, but it could take significant amounts of artillery to destroy a tank in a fortified bunker ... time that is both valuable and exposes their artillery to counter battery fire.

It doesn't matter how old these weapons are, you still have to deal with them, and pretty much anything that fires projectiles more modern than a musket can be of some potential use on hundreds of kilometres of defensive lines, hence Ukrainian's using Maxim machine guns.

Where modern and updated weapons are critical is in manoeuvre and precision, but that's not the kind of warfare that's happening right now. T-55 can still send rounds down range, can still hit buildings, can still blowup APC's, suppress infantry, engage older tanks, and can still critically damage even the most modern tanks.

And again, the Ukrainians are using WWI machine guns and WWII artillery and likewise any tank they have or can get, I believe a bunch of T-55s as well, so by your logic Ukraine is losing.

In a huge battle space such as Ukraine there is literally no reason to not position some functioning weapon somewhere if you have it.

They're now using old model T-55 tanks from 70 years ago. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Case in point, the Ukrainians are using the WWI era Maxim machine gun which is even older than the T-55. So, do we therefore conclude Ukraine is certainly going to lose for using even older equipment?

Obviously not. The reality is that a lot of weapons produced even over a hundred years ago are still better than nothing, especially in a defensive role in fixed positions along hundreds of kilometres of front and secondary and tertiary lines, an old machine gun or an old tank is not really wasting any space and is better to have than not.

In short, we can deduce absolutely nothing from the mere appearance of old weapons systems in the war theatre ... and the Maxim machine gun, which the Ukrainians are using, wins this competition in any case.

As goes the mother-load of sanctions against Russia, so goes US global authority. China has played a pivotal role in using its economic might to mitigate the expected damage that the sanctions were expected to cause Russia. As a result Russia's foreign reserves were restored, its inflation rate is at historical lows and its' GDP virtually at prewar levels. This stare-down, more than any results on the battlefield has fractured the aura of Western invincibility. — yebiga

I wouldn't go so far as to say Russia surviving sanctions in itself somehow destroys US hegemony, but it certainly does form a strong experience and alternative economic network for other countries to be more belligerent, if not hostile, to US interests.

There's definitely some signs this is occurring, certainly a lot of talk of trading in other currencies, but it will take some time to see if it is more than just talk.

The non-western world may have reached an event horizon. Whilst, over in Washington and throughout the advanced western world we struggle with systemic racism, equity, inclusion, gender dysphoria and argue over how the climate is changing. — yebiga

I have mentioned a few times that (regardless of ones personal politics) most of the world is ideologically far closer to Putin than the West, and even farther from the "Woke West". The world is in general authoritarian outside the West (even in those non-Western states that are democratic).

To what extent Western policy makers and talking heads thought the world would unite around the Western banner I'm not sure, but to the extent the belief was genuine it was completely delusional and has significant geopolitical consequences.

Apparently. There is a hilarious level of faith in this supposed "real Russian military," that is just waiting to take the gloves off. How many pairs of gloves must they have had on this point? — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is not the hypothesis, at least on this forum.

The hypothesis is things are not going better for Ukraine, and evidence seems to suggest far worse.

There are two sides to the conflict. Even if all your examples of Russian criticism are true ... there has to be some reason to believe things are not just as bad for Ukraine.

The way the Western media evaluates and presents the war is as if they presented only the picture of the face of one boxer after every round and just pointing to cuts and bruises conclude this boxer is getting a beating and will certainly lose. Obviously, all this does is beg the question of how the other guys doing.

If the Ukrainian military was just "better" then it would not be the case that Russia woul be occupying any part of Ukraine right now.

The criticism of Russia from the point of view that they aren't winning "hard enough" and "easy enough" is still Russia winning.

In any big conventional war each side has battles they win and battles they lose.

Now, we don't have all that much reliable information from the front line, but the reason to assume Russia can sustain things longer than the Ukrainians is that they are simply bigger with a bigger population and more capabilities. For example, that Russian airforce has not established total air superiority is not the same as saying their hundreds of more planes than Ukraine isn't an effective tool.

As I mentioned in a post above, my guess would be the conflict transitions into a frozen conflict with neither side able to carry out major offensives.

However, as discussed with @ssu there isn't much historical example to support that conclusion, and the nature of the fighting maybe intrinsically "unfreezeable" with simply too many drones and too much artillery and missiles. Losses would need to get to a sustainable level for the conflict to start to freeze. Indeed, even before the age of drones, frozen conflicts usually have either a formal cease fire or then some natural barrier, usually both. There's of course the Dnieper river but it does not seem politically viable to retreat to there, so if Ukrainian forces just stay in Eastern Ukraine and their losses aren't sustainable then it's unclear to me how that plays out.

Now, if you say there's some brand new 200 000 strong army well trained on an island somewhere in secret that is coming to burst through Russian lines with tanks that Russia has no weapon that can penetrate them and it's simply total carnage all the way to the Azov sea, that is hypothetically possible.

So we'll see if this new Ukrainian offensive we've been hearing about gets under way, but at least with the information that's available online, whatever problems the Russians have ... the Ukrainians also have those problems just less sustainable because they are a smaller population.

Furthermore, the factors in Ukrainians favour summer / autumn year, mainly that Russia had not yet mobilised and so the original roughly 200 000 strong force was stretched over a long line (in addition to the impact of sanctions and general disruption to Russian society of starting a massive war), sparsely defended without many fortifications ... is no longer true this year.

It is very difficult to see any factors in Ukraine's favour at this point in the war that would lead to routing the Russian our of Ukraine, or ever being able to do so.

There's the Western tanks, but I have not seen any analysis that these are significantly more effective than Russian tanks, many are older models (I believe there are a bunch of Panther 1's throw in there for example), many are having their armour downgraded as we speak, and whatever advantages these tanks may have seem countered by the lack of much experience operating these tanks and the immense logistical complexity of fielding a hodgepodge of different tanks.

Certainly better than no tanks, but does not seem a potential game changer but rather simply propping up Ukraine so as to avoid a total collapse.

Me personally? Nope. — jorndoe

Then we're in agreement on the fundamental morality of these situations.

We're all helpless pawns here. — EricH

I fear this to be true.

Let's not forget that Putin instigated the invasion, enlarging the world's largest country (perhaps temporarily), and might well be the one individual that can end the war today. — jorndoe

The conflict started in 2014 and was Ukraine that attacked Russian speaking break away regions and the threat to Russia's naval base in Crimea due to a coup in Ukraine.

Of course, doesn't necessarily justify simply taking Crimea and propping up the separatists and then a full scale invasion last year, but it's pretty much the exact same doctrine US used to invade Iraq and also pretty much the same thing as the Western supported Saudi invasion of Yemen (following a coup that the Saudis and we Westies claim is illegitimate, justifying invasion).

I have no problem with the idea all these invasions are immoral, but if you support the US right to invade Iraq as "preemptive defence" or then the Saudi invasion of Yemen "because coup! illegitimate!" then you need to present some moral theory where "when we do it it's ok" that doesn't reduce to "meh, interests".

Hypocrisy does not make a thing in itself true or false, good nor bad, but does take the edge off moralising about it.

China has been playing the situation carefully. They want good relations with the US. Xi does, anyway. The balloon launchers apparently have other plans. — frank

The several hundred billion dollar question in this situation is how intent Xi is on conquering Taiwan.

This is why my question about Russia being a proxy to China's force projection is in the form of a question. It depends on what China is trying to achieve.

If it really does want to take Taiwan in the short term, then agreeing to or even encouraging Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a geopolitical master stroke if China takes advantage of the US pivot to Europe and can and does conquer Taiwan.

Not to say China somehow engineered the situation from the beginning, US was on a collision course with Russia anyways, but rather clever geopolitical opportunism.

If China has zero intention of conquering Taiwan anytime soon and just wants to continue their economic growth for a decade or two, then the war Ukraine brings a lot of economic benefits to China such as a significant protected market for Chinese engineering services and obvious cheaper access to resources.

They're a stabilizing force for Russia at this time, at the price of Russia's future submission to China. Biden has pitted himself against Putin's regime. Xi says no. — frank

I think submission is too strong a term. Russia still has a lot of leverage in terms of resources, some key military technologies as well as thousands of nuclear weapons. Russia has also tripled trade with India which serves as a hedge against over reliance on China.

Certainly the war benefits China and removes Russia's arbitrage position selling to the West, which is bad for Russia all else being equal ... but all else isn't equal and the war also removes the West's influence in Russia as well as weakens the US' geopolitical and reserve currency position.

We'd need to know what Putin and Xi are actually intent on accomplishing to evaluate their decision making. For example, if Putin wanted to put Russia in a more authoritarian direction, the war obviously accomplished that too.

Neither — frank

Well, consider the Chinese point of view, especially if what you say is true and that China is now the main player.

Of course, doesn't exclude Ukraine having it's own reasons to want to be a proxy force, likewise doesn't exclude Russia wanting to throw it in with China, but if Russia depends on China to sustain themselves economically and survive sanctions, presumably China has reason to.

Would China be so bold with these recent exercises without the Ukraine war happening?

I think the most significant player on the scene now is neither the US nor Russia. It's China. Russia is now dependent on China. The way Xi behaved when he visited Russia broadcast his domination of the whole region. — frank

Yes, totally agreed the Russian war effort is completely dependent on economic support from Xi.

Xi launching the "exercise" to surround Taiwan is also further critical support, teasing a two front war.

Indeed, one question I posed to the pro-US policy side to this debate is whether this was a US proxy war against Russia, using Ukraine ... or a Chinese proxy war against the US, using Russia.

I’m talking about future plans of course and I’m not denying the historical rejection of Ukraine’s NATO membership. — invicta

In which case it's not speculation but basic inference that the policy is not to let Ukraine in.

What you're proposing is an entirely speculative scenario where that policy changes. Now, definitely just because it's speculation doesn't mean it won't happen, you can argue the why and how, but the position that the future will resemble the past is not speculative, it's the default epistemological position; it's the idea that it won't, that the sun will not in fact rise tomorrow or Ukraine will in fact join NATO, which requires the burden of evidence.

Without strong evidence and arguments that the policy will change, the reasonable position is to assume that it won't change.

NATO or No Europe and US will support and supply as long as the Ukrainians are willing to fight for their land and go to toe with this foxlike enemy that Putin really is. — invicta

The problem is there may simply be a limit to what Ukraine is able to do on the battle field.

Russia not only has a much larger population, but as importantly, has more capabilities: more artillery, more planes, more bombs, more missiles, more types of drones, more electronic warfare suites.

Along with conventional attritional fighting (which does not favour Ukraine), there is a learning race going on between Russia learning to adapt to Ukraine capabilities and tactics and vice-versa, as well as each side learning to deploy their capabilities effectively and perfecting their tactics.

For a bunch of mathematical reasons, having more capabilities (things you can do that your opponent is simply unable to) is a massive advantage in this learning competition. At some point, the Russians may learn to adapt to Ukrainians tactics and capabilities (which are limited in configurations, due to having less of them, meaning Ukraine may not be able to adapt to the adaptation) while learning to efficiently deploy their own capabilities and tactics. At some point, the Russians may find a configuration of tactics and capabilities that Ukraine simply is unable to adapt to.

Running out of ammunition, such as artillery shells and AA missiles, greatly accelerates this process.

Maybe Ukraine has some big surprise in store, has secretly trained a large army with hundreds of tanks and aircraft and thousands of missiles that NATO has assembled in secret, but if that's not the case, it seems to me at least, the war has reached this learning inflection point where Ukraine cannot deal with Russian advances and cannot carry out their own counter-offensives.

At least all the reports I read of the different kinds of missile strikes, the overwhelming artillery advantage, glide bombs and increased effective use of electronic warfare, it's really difficult to imagine how Ukraine is able to deal with it in a sustainable way.

This sounds like speculation at this point, NATO’s stance is flexible especially during this conflict. As the Russians are clearly playing dirty then NATO expansion in this front seems the only logical step at this point. — invicta

Noting that NATO has not let Ukraine join for decades is not speculation.

Speculation would be the idea that NATO would let Ukraine in all of a sudden to punish the Russians ... after winning and Ukraine loses?

Think it through, if the goal was protecting Ukrainian sovereignty, NATO would have just let Ukraine in anytime since 2008 or then the US and UK just act unilaterally and send in their troops to protect Ukraine from invasion.

That doesn't happen because that's not the goal.

Your arms dealer is like your meth dealer: maybe you need the meth to keep going but he's not your friend.

From a trade perspective a Ukraine that will bounce back and flourish once more in farming and other agricultural industries is not just better for the whole of Europe but beyond and could prove to be fertile in other areas too. — invicta

Agreed. Definitely peace is far better for everyone than war.

From a military POV the Russian move that occurred will set Russian back decades as they will be unable to modernise technologically and so militarily for years to come but only relying on its nuclear deterrent as defence. — invicta

This is highly debatable.

First, China can supply most engineering services and products the West can, and second Russia has comparable technology and capabilities to the West in key areas: missiles (in particular AA missiles where Russia seems to exceed Western capabilities), submarines (maybe the US' are better, but Russia still has a bunch), and, most importantly, nuclear weapons.

Historically, fighting a war, even a costly one, and winning results in a far stronger military and arms industry than at the start of the war. Even the disastrous American civil war (where the US didn't even "win" anything) is credited as placing the US on the path of military super power, which then gets boosted by being on the winning side of WWI and WWII.

Indeed, the common adage among war planners is that a military that doesn't fight any wars gets lazy and soft and "battle tested" is where you want to be with your equipment, training and doctrines.

If I had the choice I would rather fight the Russians at the start of this war than now. Maybe things will just fall apart randomly any day now as has been continuously predicted by Western media since day one, but that's not the historical pattern. Indeed, the largest army ever assembled was the Soviets at the end of WWII and that was after sustaining some 20-30 million killed, mostly soldiers.

Indeed, the benefits of war experience is so high that Germany is able to make a second world war after losing the first! That's how powerful these effects are.

What I think is important for Europeans and Ukrainians to consider, is that the more adversarial our stance towards Russia becomes, the greater their territorial ambitions will become. — Tzeentch

Totally agreed.

Though I highly doubt any direct conflict with NATO, as long as NATO is a thing, but conquering all of Ukraine is certainly something being considered.

In terms of further into the future, Russia's concerns I would guess are more being invaded, for their resources as climate change starts to collapse global supply chains, and so the current war is good strategic positioning, mainly securing the Azov sea and preventing any buildup East of the Dnieper, as well as "war hardening" the Russian economy and society and war materials production.

That is if the Russian war planners are looking into the future, it would be preparing Russia as a target of resource wars, not waging their own.

We are heading, fairly rapidly, to a global scenario of planetary scale crop failures and large parts of the globe currently inhabited no longer being inhabitable, hundreds of millions of climate refugees (at any one time, a few billion deaths overall), the break down of the global trading system and general chaos.

At best.

The current war is a terrible move if you believe the US led Western model of business as usual is "where it's at", but if you can read the writing on the wall then everything that has happened within Russia are things you would want to do if you had carte blanche to "brace for impact". Of course, it would be politically impossible to do those things without having a war.

To what extent Russian war planners consider the obvious future I don't know, but the Kremlin obviously does know about climate change as they keep investing in Arctic infrastructure far ahead of time. Additionally, they don't even need to do their own analysis, the pentagon and various other European militaries regularly come out with the hard facts of what climate change means in terms of defence implications, so all Russian war planners have to do is read Western war planners thoughts about the matter; which, presumably, they do at least read.

I see a way for Ukraine to still emerge victorious but having to concede territory only short term and momentarily and in so doing joins NATO aka US army branch in Europe. — invicta

The problem is NATO doesn't let Ukraine in ... which they could have done any day since 2008, or even 1991.

No one in NATO actually wants some insane escalation with Russia that results in the use of nuclear weapons, so we don't see that escalation.

For the past year the total fantasy has been peddled that somehow NATO can "avoid escalation" (which they don't really hesitate to say to explain policies like no-tanks-for-you!) but also Ukraine will win.

But what is the definition of escalation at the end of the day?

Ukraine winning.

That's what would cause Russia to behave differently, such as deploy nuclear weapons, so if you're trying to avoid those actions then you're trying to avoid what would cause those actions and so, in this case, trying to avoid Ukraine winning.

Ukraine winning is not and has not ever been the policy, at least in military terms.

I'd be willing to believe that some neocons actually believed sanctions may collapse the Russian government, or society as a whole, and actually wanted that, but it doesn't seem to me that the war planners managing the war part made any real effort to help with that, otherwise there wouldn't be an ammunition problem.

This is the only way and they must be brought to reason to do so and that is the collective will of the Ukrainian people to do this. — invicta

It also requires NATO's will to invest further on behalf of Ukraine rather than insofar as it serves US interests, which is not a controversial explanation of US foreign policy ... in literally the history of US foreign policy until now.

Nice read. An analysis that is both rational and not corrupted by the typical cartoon narratives that immerse all our collective sources of information. — yebiga

Thanks.

It's also nice that essentially pure propaganda positions without any evidence at all (like Russia will lose due to their own incompetence, or sanctions will collapse Russian society any day now) have largely exited the debate, even in the Western media.

But why stop short of following your own rational arguments to their logical conclusion?

Not only was this war against Russia never ever winnable but...

The only conceivable path to some kind of victory for the USA was a vague hope that the combination of kinetic war and economic sanctions might cause a coup in Moscow and a coup that by chance was compliant to western demands.

This theoretical possibility was always a reckless gamble. And yet, this calculus was the singular rational idea underpinning the western strategy in this war. But by May/June of 2022 it was clear that there was not going to be any coup that might favour western interests. The Russian public was not only not in revolt but had displayed a distinctly anti-western fervour - so that even if a coup did occur it would likely be something hardline and more militaristic. — yebiga

It's not clear to me if war planners in NATO thought this was ever likely.

Also, NATO doesn't escalate enough the kinetic war part of such a strategy; whole reason for my musings on the ammunition shortage is that it does not fit the apparent objective.

It could be the white house thought this was possible and did the sanctions part, but the pentagon never really followed through on the kinetic part (otherwise there would not be an ammunition shortage and you wouldn't suddenly discover by surprise you could send tanks this whole time).

For, there is always the context of nuclear weapons, and too much escalation would likely lead to their use, which the US would not have a good response for.

As I've mentioned, the core geopolitical reason for the conflict is the status of the USD in world trade.

The war creates a fractured multi-polar world rather than a fluid multi-polar world. The reason the US would want to manage a transition to a fractured multi-polar world is to reduce the risk of being replaced of sidelined to zero.

Without war the US would be facing the real risk of becoming irrelevant in the globalised trade system it created and underwriting the stability required for the USD as "a service to the world" to be replaced entirely the time be replaced militarily as well.

The war significantly weakens the West and accelerates multi-polarity, but at the same time keeps the US as the top dog in the Western system.

Macron seems to have figured that out recently and is like "merde alors" all of a sudden.

Sanctions on Russia are also a form of market protectionism, tightening the US grip on Europe while also making a new market for US gas. The US guessed, correctly, that European leaders would be too weak and clueless to do anything about it and they would prefer the fantasy film version of reality that this is somehow World War Two ... 2 with a happy Western ending at the end.

It was game over as soon as Russia was in a position to annex the contested territories because NATO won't go to war against Russia for Ukraine, which would be the only conceivable way to reclaim them. It's not a movie. The bad guys win sometimes. The challenge now is for the West to engineer a situation where this doesn't look like an abject loss. I stick to my idea that a reduced Ukraine gaining NATO membership is this compromise. Russia gets its land bridge and NATO gets to fully hem it in. Ukraine gets to sacrifice just its arms and its legs rather than its head too. Sad, but... — Baden

Indeed, it's not a movie.

This would be a good outcome for the West, but I doubt is possible.

The time to leverage the capacity to fight irrationally to the death is before fighting irrationally to the death, not afterwards.

Negotiation is of course still possible but Ukraine would need to offer deep concessions. The problem of the path of fighting irrationally to the death is it quickly locks the policy in as the sacrifice quickly becomes too great to compromise.

It's basically war diplomacy 101 that you leverage the cost of further fighting as soon as possible, even if you would lose and it's not "rational", it is still a cost the opposing side will need to pay and so motivates a compromise. But the key word is compromise.

However, if you want to lock in sanctions and make them irreversible, transition the EU to US gas, fracture the global financial system to keep the USD relevant, prevent the Euro becoming a peer currency competitor, then you need to make sure Ukraine keeps fighting even if there is no logic (for them) whatsoever to do so, and just accept some temporary negative PR when Ukraine starts to break down ... which, sadly, is easily managed in this day and age; it's not like anyone remembers the Afghans. They can just take the L and we all forget about it.

Well, the people in the Pentagon aren't dummies either. My guess is by now they have fully realized Russia's plans to take it as slowly as it needs to in order to avoid an insurgency. Perhaps the Pentagon even understood this before the war fully got underway. If we can conceive of these ideas, so can they. — Tzeentch

Yes, maybe we're overthinking their overthinking, but ammunition is just so basic to war fighting that it's difficult to believe it's just been overlooked.

If they knew Russia was going for a 'bite-sized chunks' approach, then they don't have to do much in order for Ukraine to hold out for a long time, since it's already baked into the Russian strategy. I imagine the pacification of the occupied areas may take months, perhaps even years. — Tzeentch

In military terms I completely agree, but running out of ammunition has the political risk of collapse of the Zelensky regime with someone willing to negotiate with Russia.

So, maybe if that happens it's fine, just one way to exit, throw Zelensky under the bus, blame the Ukrainians for not being "plucky" enough to pull a victory out of a hat in dire circumstances.

Likewise, if the only meaningful policy priority was simply to separate Europe from Russian resources, commit Europe to American LNG, then that's obviously happened both with blowing up Nord Stream as well as getting the Europeans to put out a warrant for Putin's arrest. It would take decades for a Russian-European rapprochement to happen, Europe "got over" the transition from Russian resources, so maybe the war is just on zombie mode until it ends one way or another, no reason to escalate further with Russia as mission accomplished.

I don't want to toot my own horn, but the advance on Kiev having been a dual-purpose operation is a theory I've been sharing here for close to a year now. (And I still believe it is true, so we're in agreement there). — Tzeentch

Yes, it's pretty obvious that taking the land bridge was plan B for Ukraine not capitulating or negotiating, but lot's of people had this position since the first weeks of the war when Ukraine didn't capitulate. @Isaac and myself, and @ssu also agreed Russian generals had such a backup plan (but debate remained on how likely they thought they would need it as well as the FSB and Kremlin's evaluation, which honestly I'm sure how likely they thought Ukrainian capitulation and, more importantly, if they would have not invaded if they thought the current situation would happen; odds don't really matter if you're committed anyways).

My guess is that the situation is a lot more dire than western sources are letting on, and that even copious amounts of ammunition would not make any significant difference on the battlefield.

A lot of folks seem to believe the Ukrainian forces have "ground the Russians to a halt", but I think that's wrong. — Tzeentch

I agree. The narrative has moved from "Ukraine is winning" to "stalemate" as a transition to "Ukraine is losing".

However, even if copious amounts of ammunition now won't make that much of a difference, ammunition production has long lead times, so you would have had to have worked out this point in the war at the start of the war in order to decide not to ramp up ammunition production because it doesn't matter. The decision was made over a year ago, not today. And there's basically no military scenario where less ammunition is as good or better than more ammunition.

So credit to pentagon analysts who worked out Ukrainian sustainment is simply impossible beyond a certain point and so just no reason to produce more ammunition.

However, this contradicts the apparent policy to prop up Ukraine as long as possible without ever negotiating. Indeed, even if you did plan to negotiate you'd want more ammunition to increase your leverage, both in terms of terrain held at the ceasefire as well as the credible potential to be able to keep fighting. "We've run out of ammunition so now we want to negotiate," is not a good negotiation position.

So, there's no obvious answer to this "run low on ammunition policy", but certainly it was thought out, not some accident, at least by Pentagon top brass who obviously understand things like "rounds down range" is important to keep doing insofar as the war continues.

I've thought of a few possibilities, however:

1. It's part of the drip feed arms calibration to send equipment but then kneecap ammunition. If you don't want the Ukrainians to have any chance at all of defeating the Russians in Ukraine you control the ammunition they have and ensure they simply never have enough ammunition to sustain an offensive all the way to the Azov sea to cut off Crimea (which, to remind everyone, Russia would likely result to nuclear weapons if that were to occur; at the least, pentagon planners would make their decision based on that assumption). In return for this favour, perhaps Russia keeps an apparent stalemate that looks nice in the Western news (for example not open up another front on the rest of the thousand kilometres of border, which is all technically "the front"). Evidence for this is that obviously the policy is to drip feed arms, so the answer to "why not more ammunition?" may simply be the same as "why not tanks and fighter jets from day one?"

2. The decision to continue fighting is purely political for short term PR reasons and makes no military sense, pentagon top brass are simply undermining the White house's policy, by "forgetting" to produce more ammunition. The white house is full of myopic idiots led by someone with Alzheimer's, focused on the news cycle who don't understand anything about war fighting so we'll just go ahead and bake in a Ukrainian defeat from the get-go, ensure they can't do something too stupid by taking away the means. Evidence for this would be pentagon top brass literally stating Ukraine achieved all it could reasonably achieve militarily and it would be good to negotiate.

The pentagon does just do its own thing every once in a while, like the time it had its jihadist equipped and trained forces fight the CIA's jihadist equipped and trained forces in Syria.

3. Every war planning scenario in which Russia does not collapse internally results in Ukraine simply being unable to sustain the war effort under attrition conditions, and for "reasons" playing this out is a better option than negotiation. For example, it may simply have been a bet on Russian internal collapse, and if that doesn't happen then unfortunately it's just going to be tough watching the Ukrainian military get totally destroyed and Ukrainian society fall apart. However, I very much doubt pentagon war planners actually want to bet on Russian internal collapse, and managing the ammunition is a war planners thing. So this sort of turns into scenario 2 in that maybe the white house was willing to bet Ukraine on an internal Russian collapse, but the pentagon didn't really support this strategy whole heartedly.

4. Shit happens. Nothing is ever organised 100% efficiently. Can't exclude this option entirely when it comes to military affairs. The argument against this is just that "how much ammunition do we need if the war goes to X date" is a pretty simple calculation to make. It's difficult to believe it's just an oversight, and given the lead times required if you calculate you'll need to produce more of anything at all in a war you want to get that capacity online as soon as possible so it's there when you need it.

This was likely their plan from the start, since the threat of a Ukrainian insurgency was ever-present, and taking too much territory that they couldn't effectively control and pacify would be a guarantee for such an insurgency to materialize. — Tzeentch

I agree that there was never a plan to occupy more territory than the Russian speaking regions they currently have, but I'd also agree with @ssu that plan A was a negotiated resolution with Kiev. The purpose of encircling Kiev to bring the war to the capital and put the diplomatic pressure for a negotiation, and if not, then it occupies the large majority of Ukrainian forces (i.e. is also a giant fixing operation, as the capital is always the priority) while the Southern regions are occupied and pacified.

If the West refuses, either because the US strongarms the EU, or because the EU remains ignorant, likely more Russian aggression will follow. Though even then it remains to be seen whether their aim is to take all of Ukraine, or only those areas which are strategically relevant - it's even possible that what they hold now is all they intend to take. — Tzeentch

Agreed.

Note that the US doesn't care about instability in Eastern Europe - it in fact believes it to be instrumental to their goals among which are unity and remilitarization of Europe. Ironically, Europe seems to be the key to peace. — Tzeentch

Also agreed, but the only problem in this logic is that if the goal is to prop-up Ukraine indefinitely you wouldn't plan on running into a ammunition problem. So could also just be that there's not really a clear overall plan. The support to Ukraine is delivered primarily through NATO, so maybe the US can't just show up and declare their purpose of keeping Eastern Europe unstable indefinitely; so lot's of different plans and ideas happen simultaneously, which, in the end, keep planning incoherent and things unstable.

This is something I have to degree with. The objective seems to prevent Russia from gaining an all out victory, but Ukraine not having the ability to defeat the Russians. — ssu

Yes we agree on this point.

I think in basic military terms it's certainly possible, as even if lines collapse in Donbas, Ukraine has lot's of fall back positions including a giant river.

Russia would need another go at Kiev for a chance at all out victory, which certainly doesn't feel likely but who knows.

The only problem with this theory is exactly what you mention next:

And likely after this year, it will be far harder for Ukraine to succeed as Russia will likely get it's wartime manufacturing running.

This war is simply a conventional war and the Western military industry isn't geared up or willing to commit to a war. It's been optimized to fight basically "colonial wars" with very costly weapon systems with low production quantities. Not to increase production on a huge scale. The only huge commitments we have seen are investments in the energy sector to replace the Russian exports. There actually for example Germany could act rather quickly. — ssu

While it seems clear the goal is to prop up Ukraine and never negotiate, the commitment to that long term seems low, as ramping up production of munitions doesn't happen and sooner the better and simply maintaining the status quo on the front requires constant supply of munitions.

There's report now of batteries simply running out of shells and having no resupply for days, and very little when it comes in. One counter narrative is the shells are being saved for the big counter offensive, which I guess is possible but is still not a good position to be in.

It seems to just be taken for granted by Western powers that they can't produce all that many shells.

This whole running low of ammunition is honestly a confusing part of the situation. It doesn't seem possible as an oversight, and that it's industrially impossible for the entire West to produce more shells seems implausible, and if it's a deliberate decision then it's difficult to make sense of. If it's policy, then my best guess is that it was calculated that Ukraine simply cannot sustain their operation beyond a certain date (in terms of casualties and all sorts of other supplies such as AA missiles) and there was therefore no use in increasing production of shells. Or then maybe it's all a ruse.

The fact is that Soviet Union lost the Afghan war, just as the US lost Vietnam and Afghanistan. That they withdrew (with Soviet Union in a less humiliating way than the US from Afghanistan) doesn't change the reality. Neither Moscow or Washington DC were in peril. — ssu

Yes, I agree these are not good parallels for the reasons you state. Empires withdraw when their reasons for the invasion in the first place was expecting an easy time and picking low-hanging fruit, but even then can easily be literally decades later.

The biggest long conventional war was the Iraq-Iran war, but neither side was significantly more powerful than the other.

If you would consider the Arab-Israeli conflict also a proxy war, there's the example of winning in direct military terms. But then both sides could be argued as being proxies. — ssu

I think what's more dissimilar as a parallel is that the Arab countries were not large industrial nations and entered into a trench-attrition phase of warfare. Maybe it is a somewhat a parallel of the first phase of the Ukraine war, in stopping the encirclement of Kiev, that a smaller force can put up a fierce defence.

In addition to there being no close parallel, there's also the drones and missiles. The Western media seems to assume that it's essentially WWI style stalemate, because there are trenches, but I'm not sure that's a good assumption is my basic point with this reflection. It could be, but I also think it's also entirely plausible that Ukraine reaches a point of exhaustion and things start to unravel quickly; the main argument for this would be that Russia works out effective use of all it's capabilities and Ukrainians simply can't deal with it at some point. It is the learning curves on different capabilities that may simply arrive at some overwhelming synergy; especially if Ukraine also runs out / low on shells and AA missiles.

It seems it will have little impact on the war maybe now Russians have confidence and confirmation to retreat. — invicta

The summary from the BBC is possibly the dumbest true statements I have ever read in my entire life.

It seems it will have little impact on the war maybe now Russians have confidence and confirmation to retreat. — invicta

I'm not sure what you mean here.

Putin if he doesn’t feel the noose tightening round his neck will at least change it for a looser fitting noose for now. — invicta

Think about where this sentiment comes from, because there is zero evidence Putin is under any domestic pressure or then oligarch pressure at all. Since the start of the war, Putin's popularity has increased, and pretty much all his notable critics within Russia are criticise him for not winning the war hard enough, not mobilising soon and big enough, not using nuclear weapons already etc.

Throughout this whole conflict Western media has developed a representation of the average Russian as some sort of mythological reflection of our own feelings about the war, basically to the point of assuming Russians think Russia is the enemy because we think Russia is the enemy. This is really far from any reality we have any evidence for.

Putin would be in danger if there was some total collapse of the Russian military in Ukraine. This was maybe-sort-of-possible had the West organised some sort of heavy weapons surprise (and a lot more heavy weapons than they have given even up to now) in Ukraine (also taking advantage of the initial impact of sanctions pressure / disruption to society) last year, but the weapons drip feed policy ensured there was zero chance of that, because that's not the goal.

To continue my military analysis, which, to remind everyone, so far been pretty accurate: such as

1. Predicting Ukraine would not be able to compete on the battlefield without armour (the whole javelins and other shoulder launch missile will defeat euphoria was has proven to be completely delusional for the reasons I expounded on),

2. That Russian morale would not just randomly collapse leading to being routed out of Ukraine, based on the idea Russians have internalised Western beliefs and feelings about the war (why would they?)

3. Most importantly, Western policy is to drip feed weapons into Ukraine enough to prop up the Ukrainian military but remotely not enough to threaten Russian defeat in Ukraine, much less on Russian soil.

4. The Russian military and high command is not incompetent and will just randomly lose due to bad decision making.

5. Ukraine does not have the force capabilities to cut the land bridge (which is the critical strategic step, and offences elsewhere, such as Kherson and Kharkiv, only mattered if they led to cutting the land bridge, which they didn't). And the reason to predict Ukraine doesn't have the force capabilities is the simple symmetry between Russian and Ukrainian problems on the battlefield ... just a lot worse because Ukraine lacks entirely whole categories of capabilities. I.e. the only reasonable prediction would be that Ukrainian offences result in the exact same stall as Russian offensives did.

As well as other predictions such as sanctions wouldn't collapse the Russian economy (even islands can withstand far worse sanctions).

All predictions vehemently argued against by US policy proponents, on this forum and elsewhere, to justify the US policy position at various times. For, at the start of the war, no one wanted to escalate into a full scale war we have now where tanks and planes and so on need to be poured into Ukraine, so it was essential to believe that Javelins and other man portable arms (and the "pluckiness" @Isaac definitely found the right word for) could somehow defeat Russia in military terms ... and since that wasn't really believable that it doesn't matter because sanctions will collapse the Russian government, and if that didn't happen then morale will be so low of these Russian soldiers doing something the West disapproves of and is wagging their fingers about that they'll just give-up on mass.

All entirely delusional beliefs at the time, and it's good to remind ourselves of why they were necessary: negotiated peace was the only rational option for flesh and blood Ukrainians (not some heroic mythological amorphous mass of willpower, without any distinguishing personalities having any worth or consideration, ready and willing to sacrifice themselves for a Western WWII nostalgic trip down heroes lane), and Russias offer of giving up claim to Crimea and independent Donbas was obviously far, far better option that a long and total war in Ukraine. No one really disputed that, which is why the only way to make the policy rational was with the idea victory would be easy.

Now that a diplomatic resolution is no longer even an idea (which people should remember that it was at the start of the war and for months, even the most ardent pro-US talking heads would discuss the idea of a negotiated resolution and the different talks that happened at various points), we are in the classic scenario (since a while) of the costs being so high for each side that neither can compromise.

A entire year after supplying tanks would have made a major difference (at the start of the war obviously) the West has finally supplied some tanks. My prediction on this is too little too late. If hundreds of Western tanks, with well tankers having trained in the West since the start of the war, joined the Ukrainian offensives last the summer, maybe that would have been a big difference, actually cut the land bridge for example.

Tanks supplied now, at best, will maintain Ukrainian lines (in the sense of keeping the slow pace of defeat, hopefully to a crawl). Certainly, far from irrelevant, but 100% inline with drip feed theory: prop up the Ukrainian military so they don't lose outright but don't supply or do anything that may actually seriously threaten the Russians.

In other words, Western tanks at best are keeping Ukrainian force capability from attritting further, but there's zero reason to believe such equipment now actually increases Ukrainian strength compared to last summer. At best, I would argue, Ukrainians have a similar force than they had last summer ... and I would argue this at-best scenario is unlikely and what is likely is the attrition is starting to have an impact (not only in terms of casualties, equipment and ammunition, but there's starting to be reports of Ukrainian drone operators saying Russians are starting to perfect their anti-drone processes).

Compare this to the Russian side of having called up hundreds of thousands of troops that were not in theatre last year, build out significant defensive structures along the entire line in multiple layers, that weren't there last year, and all the learning of capabilities (that the Ukrainians don't have at all) such as anti-drone electronic and other capabilities, their standoff strike capabilities (ballistic and cruise missiles and glide bombs) as well as artillery tactics.

I.e. in terms of learning there is only even potential parity in capabilities Ukraine also has in similar quantity, such as infantry, but in capabilities Ukraine basically lacks entirely they do no learning at all and in areas where they have far less quantity (or then running out of ammunition) the learning they have done is not as significant.

Which is why the "Russians are incompetent" theory was so essential, as even if Russian capabilities weren't optimally deployed at the start of the war (which for sure was not optimal, which is a difficult standard to achieve, though obviously by now neither incompetently deployed), the more the war continues the more Russians would learn to deploy those capabilities effectively. People had this idea that if Russians fell into an Javelin based ambush or something similar once ... they would just continue to do that forever.

What we have seen instead of not-learning-from-damage, again entirely predictably, is the Russians learning from damage (whether they are "mistakes" given the context and information at the time or just the nature of fighting a war that sometimes your enemy wins here and there, doesn't matter in terms of learning to avoid damage in the future), such as consolidating their lines rather than expose weak points to being overrun by surprise attack or then special forces penetration of sparsely defended areas etc., moving to standoff strikes rather than expose planes and helicopters to shoulder fired missiles and other AA systems, and basically just attritting the Ukrainians with a massive artillery advantage.

Currently the direction isn't good with the slow fall of Bahkmut and from my interpretation of the West's actions is scrambling to try to at least arrest Russian advances, that an actual stalemate is the best case scenario for NATO (that the Western media keeps on repeating it's already a stalemate because this is Western policy, to just have a stalemate); however, what's currently happening is not a stalemate and it's anyone's guess how long Ukraine can maintain slowly losing before a complete collapse of command structure.

The world has never had a long war of this kind (WWI and WWII are really totally different situations, and there are few parallels with any of the post-WWII US wars or even Chechnya, which is arguably closest) so I would argue there are no historical parallels to base on in terms of evaluating military end-points. Frozen conflict is what happened in places like Korea, but the Korean war was a very different political and military scenario and totally different terrain.

However, generally speaking, when a small proxy force is propped up to fight a larger force, the larger force either leaves, the proxy force loses, or there's a negotiated peace (favouring the larger force). There are few, if any, examples of the proxy force simply winning in direct military terms, and in the case of the larger force leaving (Soviets in Afghanistan or US in Vietnam ... or US in Afghanistan) usually terrain and logistics favour guerrilla and insurgency tactics and the value of the land to the larger power is relatively low, quickly becoming a pride thing rather than making any military sense to continue fighting, none of which is the case in Ukraine.

Because everyone is just standing in line to attack Belarus. :D
What's the play here? — jorndoe

Most of what politicians say is for their domestic audience.

Belarus has been supporting Russia, so naturally the question arises of what Russia will do for Belarus.

Even if Lukashenko is a dictator, he still has to worry about PR and if he gets formal security commitments from Russia it makes him look like a more competent statesman (which is the image he wants).

And Russia's troops are already there, it looks good to have allies for the Russian audience, and signing these sorts of papers cost nothing, so it's an easy PR win. Maybe not so significant in the grand scheme of things, but at least easy.

No one was standing in line to invade Finland either and Finland is not about to open up a second front with Russia to help Ukraine, but Finland joining NATO played well with domestic audiences in the West.

Of course, one can argue in both cases that who knows what will happen in the future, but that's not what actually drives these sorts of processes. If long term thinking was relevant, we wouldn't have things like climate change.

That’s what I asked you because that is what Tzeench claimed “the western world under US leadership has been the most destructive force on Earth since WWII” and that is how you interpreted it: “The one that causes most death and misery”. — neomac

@Tzeentch's claim here is pretty easy to support.

We are literally in a 6th mass extinction event heading towards civilisational collapse that is entirely due to US policy and acquiescence of their fellow Western acolytes, not to mention pollution of various other forms as well as neo-colonialism and US imperialism (however "soft" you want to call it -- being smothered by a pillow can have the exact same end result as being stabbed in the chest).

Now, if you want to argue that the Soviet Union, China and India weren't and aren't any better and would have done equally bad or worse things (and did and do their best to help destroy the planet as second and third fiddles) had they been the dominant super power and setting the terms of world trade, I'd have no problem agreeing to that.

But the reality is that the dominant power since WWII setting most economic policies on the planet (what and how things are produced) has been the US, and the consequence has been destruction on a hitherto unimaginable scale.

Unsustainability literally equates to destruction, that's what it means: destroying the ecosystems we require for survival, not to mention a host of other species.

And global unsustainability has been a Western choice, championed by the US and supported by their vassals. The policies for sustainability are pretty easy and known since the 60s (public transport, renewable energy, less meat eating, sustainable fishing, strict care what chemicals are allowed in the environment and how much, and farming in ways compatible with biodiversity and soil protection) and since the 60s the policies critical to sustainability could have been easily implemented to create a smooth transition.

The War on Terror, and now this conflict with Russia and China, are sideshows to the main event.

Which, as I've mentioned before, is the counter argument to your actual position:

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?! — neomac

The West has no moral high ground. I wish it did, but it doesn't and so there is no justification to "inflict as much enduring damage as possible to Russian power" because there is no moral superiority. Our system is no better than the Russian system and arguably far worse (if only due to scale). Russian imperialism is a pretty banal reflection of our own imperialism, far from being in some different and worse category, and is far less destructive for the reasons @Isaac has outlined in some detail (mainly as it's regional and not global).

The West is not a responsible steward of global affairs and so there is simply not much moral differentiation that justifies sacrificing so many Ukrainians for the US policy of inflicting enduring damage on Russia, as you eloquently put it, which is debatable if that's even happening.

Unfortunately, the time of a diplomatic resolution that could have been easily negotiated is now long past and the conflict will likely continue until either the collapse of the Ukrainian military or then the conflict slowly freezing, neither side having the appetite or even capability for a major offensive.

My guess is that the conflict will slowly freeze, with lines not only far worse for Ukraine than Russia's offer at the start of the war but also without any actual end to the war there will be little repatriation of Ukrainians that left and likewise little reconstruction.

And notice how the BBC doesn't tell us which Filipino YouTube celebrity was running the show.

What are they hiding?

It's first of all important to remind ourselves of how exactly these leaks happened:

The documents were initially posted on a small private chat group of the Discord social media platform called Thug Shaker Central, with around two dozen members.

Some of these files were then shared on a public chat group, the earliest of these we've been able to identify appeared on 1 March.

More were placed there over the following days, and later shared more widely on other channels.

These channels aren't about politics or military intelligence, they're for players of the computer game Minecraft and another for fans of a Filipino YouTube celebrity.

In one of the channels, after a brief argument about Minecraft and the war in Ukraine, a user says "here, have some leaked documents" and posts several screenshots. — BBC

You see, when you join Thug Shaker Central you're not just joining any ol' sleeze den internet forum: You enter into a sacred pact with your fellow Thug Shakers to step up or shut up and if a fellow Thug throws down some jive turkey Minecraft nonsense like the crass newb that he is you don't hesitate one single fraction of a second to uno reverse that shit with some highly classified information that would embarrass your entire country and risk decades in prison if it got randomly spammed on the internet. But when your this deep in shaking the thug out of life that you're literally in the centre of it, you don't look back, you not only double down with your classified information to win the debate on the nuances of Minecraft mechanics but you do it like it ain't even nothing to you breaking the Espionage act. Just a Tuesday.

Absolute fucking legend.

As for the leaks themselves, what's gotten most of the attention has been transcripts of South Korean and Israeli officials discussing sensitive topics, presumably not knowing the NSA's in the room with them writing down everything they say, and also a bunch of information about Ukrainian force strength, equipment, casualties etc.

The CIA quickly came out and with their own uno reverse of all that shit, showed everyone who's the master, saying the docs were altered and the Russian casualty figures were actually the Ukrainian casualties and vice-versa. Basically a 10 to 1 ratio, so big if true either way (but since Russia fires about 7-10 times more shells and has all sorts of capabilities Ukraine doesn't have at all, and most casualties in this sort of warfare are due to artillery it's, at the very least, really difficult to imagine Russia suffering 10x casualties ... and a lot more plausible Ukraine is, though who knows and who knows what the methodology of these US intelligence estimates even was, without which estimates don't mean all that much).

But I don't know, for my part I'm not one to question Thug Shaker Central. Their word is their bond. No cap.

And to be honest, if you're leaking secret military intelligence information to win a Minecraft debate I'm pretty sure you have no time to alter the documents, you're in a situation that requires cat like reflexes.

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