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

Again, how do you actually prevent a Russian victory?

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

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

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

This argument is nonsense built on-top of nonsense.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You do realise any means necessary includes nuclear weapons?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Of course, if your goal is:

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

You put words into my mouth. — Paine

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

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

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

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

I don't care about your life work.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I haven't made any predictions. — Paine

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

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

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

I am an old carpenter and stone mason. — Paine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Definitely agree.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ukraine had a pretty sizeable army before the army:



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You are confusing the ability to take the initiative and make large scale offensive maneuvers with the ability to defend it's territory. — ssu

This was maybe true at the very start, and had Ukraine sued for peace then, it would have been significant Ukrainian agency just as you say, both the fighting and negotiating (especially if the US disagreed and wanted more fighting to bleed the Russians).

Ukraine had a significant stockpile of weapons and equipment, and I agree (wherever it came from, mostly soviet days) it was (at the time) the basis of independent decisions action.

However, in the months that followed essentially the entirety of the Ukrainian original armour fleet and other heavy weapons were destroyed and a significant part of its officer corp killed, and munitions stockpiles fired, transitioning to complete dependence on the US / NATO to simply maintain current lines, much less make any offensive operations.

Just treading water required thousands of rounds of artillery and other munitions a day as well as attrition of vehicles, and now also the electricity grid (requiring thousands of generators to try to cope with, which again Ukraine is 100% dependent on the US for).

Policies can and do come into existence after events. It's quite likely that ideas of a full-scale war with Ukraine came to existence after the astonishing success of capturing Crimea. In fact, the easiness of this brilliant operation can perfectly explain just why Putin would think that a 10 day operation is all what is needed to solve the Ukraine-problem once and for all. — ssu

I'd have no problem believing this is true.

It could have been the policy just to avoid an embarrassing result in the next round.

A lot of decisions revolve around avoiding embarrassment, so it's entirely possible the US planners did not think seriously beyond just trying to make sure Russia couldn't so easily take more of Ukraine, leading Putin to conclude, due to these actions being a threat and overconfidence from Crimea annexation, to "Putin would think that a 10 day operation is all what is needed to solve the Ukraine-problem once and for all".

Generally in large institutions, people have all sorts of elaborate theories and analysis and plans, but the logic and sequence of decisions is fairly simple, since a lot of people need to agree for anything to actually happen, and the complex analysis just explains why given people support given decisions at certain times (even if it's all mutually incompatible on the whole).

Hey guys!

Have noticed that the war between Ukraine and Russia actually has gone on since the year 2014?

And again the hubris of Ukrainians not having any role here... :smirk: — ssu

Ukraine is 100% dependent on NATO, in particular the US who calls the shots in NATO, for arms, intelligence, training and planning support, and bankrolling the entire government

Once you are completely dependent on a party, you are that party's pawn, whether you like it or not, whether you are convinced you want what they want or not. If the US changes policy, Ukraine has zero leverage to do anything about that, and if Ukraine complains about something (like not speaking at the World Cup) it doesn't matter what Ukraine wants, what matters is what the US wants.

Ukraine is a vassal state to the US, entirely propped up by US support and financing both by the US and by other European countries (on the insistence of the US), there is no way to argue that.

Because Ukraine's interest are not the same as the US interest, obviously bad outcomes for Ukraine (but acceptable to the US) are entirely possible.

Denying this is just not facing the potential cognitive dissonance of looking squarely at the suffering of Ukrainians right now.

2014 was clearly a US backed coup (we even have the audio of Nuland candidly calling the shots in Ukraine). That's not agency.

Furthermore, anti-Russian Ukrainian policies since, by factions or the government, since 2008, and especially since 2014, are in the context of Ukrainians truly believing they'll get into NATO ... if NATO knew that wouldn't happen, which Zelensky tells us NATO told him, that's a pretty big manipulation of Ukrainians. Again, being manipulated makes you a pawn and not a king.

Two other things worth considering in explaining why the policy isn't all that coherent:

Cancel culture is now the preferred method of the elites to censure society, as it is de facto corporate power over speech. It's not online rage (whether genuine or fabricated) that is the actual mechanism of discipline but being fired by the corporation you work for or then suspended / demonetised / de-platformed by the corporation you work for.

However, anyone can be cancelled anytime, for what they are recorded as saying or even alleged to have said, and the rules of the cancel culture aren't really clear. What is clear is that any dissenting opinion of any kind runs the risk of getting you cancelled (if you are not already in a marginalised niche). If you want your risk of being cancelled to be zero, you need to have zero dissenting opinions from the corporate-mainstream.

So, when the war breaks out, there is fear and hesitation on anyone in a position of influence in any of the European or US institutions or mainstream media or even social media, to offer any criticism, but especially within the political institutions making the decisions. Everyone in these institutions will fear any dissent gets the cancelled if not now then in the future. Whereas before cancel culture the realpolitik, economic, as well as "what do we owe Ukraine?", realities may have been discussed in a fact-of-the-matter way by decision makers, it could very well be that once the social media pressure builds beyond a certain point, everyone falls in line and it's impossible to mitigate any risks, much less outright disagree with the policy. Indeed, that it's self-harmful, even irrational, can be proof-pooding that the motivation is truly just.

In parallel to cancel culture, essentially suppressing any critical analysis, at the bare minimum within, political institutions to arrive at coherent policies, there is also the essentially pure game theory problem, when everyone believes the other parties policies are an irrational bluff.

For example, US believes Russia's policy of threatening to invade Ukraine is an irrational bluff (and too bad for them if they do it!), and Russia believes Europes policy to risk losing access to Russian gas is irrational (and too bad for them if they do it!), and Europe believes Russia's threats are irrational because they pay them so much for the gas and the "time of tanks rolling across the fields of Easter Europe" are over anyways. Likewise, Russia may believe US policy, even if they do sell LNG to Europe, is irrational because the US does actually need its European allies and this will foment disagreement and resentment (such as Macron wondering why the US doesn't sell them gas at the same price in the US ... where's the solidarity?). Russia sees Ukraine as irrational for risking and then entering a war of total destruction of Ukraine, whereas Ukraine sees Russia as irrational for risking and entering a war that is super costly and embarrassing on the world stage. And, of course, both the US and Russia have thousands of nuclear weapons so can easily perceive anyone messing with them as irrational.

When everyone believes everyone else is irrational and bluffing, no ones policy is actually rational, especially if at someone point everyone needs to commit to their irrational bluff to prove they weren't bluffing to begin with (even if they were).

↪boethius I'm open to the possibility, but I fail to see a coherent plan behind letting Russia conquer (parts of) Ukraine. — Tzeentch

I think we can agree it's not all that coherent.

One driver of NATO expansion is simply you need to be in NATO to be able to buy certain weapons, but also you're obviously not going to be buying from Russia (even though that has happened, such as Turkey buying AA systems, it's at great US protest), so it's a good arms-client relationship for the US.

I would guess the main reasoning behind the policy is simply that the war on terrorism has to end sometime, so who's the next enemy?

It's easy to say "China's the near-peer-competitor" but it's a lot more difficult to demonise China as the new "other", due to their economic leverage. Whereas Russia is more doable.

The thought process could have simply been we're setting up Russia as the new enemy and focus of attention for when the war on terrorism ends, but they may not really have thought through how Russia may react to these policies.

I think what's clear is that the idea was to have a tense but balanced relationship with Russia, and especially find a way to sell Europe LNG.

So, if imagine myself as a policy analyst, or even card carrying neo-con, to the US intelligence and administration, recommending this pathway, my idea maybe not to harm Europe economically, or even Russia really, and I may not even have in mind a total war in Ukraine, but more ... just scare the Europeans a bit, get them to buy more arms and more LNG (perhaps just in the name of "diversifying"): what's good for US arms and Gas is good for the US, QED.

In parallel to these macro economic issues, US intelligence operations in Ukraine was also clearly in retaliation for Russia saving Asad.

So, how all these forces mixed within the US government and NATO more generally (and Biden's son sitting on a board of a gas company and whatever the biolabs were about and so on--just seems an absolute cesspool), and then with Russia and Ukraine, I could definitely imagine results in this outcome without anyone really having planned it, nor even viewed as remotely plausible or even preferred (at the time) when considered.

In particular, the desire to sell LNG to Europe maybe a problem that really had no short term solution until the war started, so it could have seemed like a blessing from the lord and too good to be true or giveup or mitigate the risks in anyway, and the policy then sort of takes on a life of its own.

The remarkable thing is that during those four administrations the United States policy has been constant, unchanged. That is no coincidence.

Additionally, the United States must have expected full-scale war because that's what they sought to prepare Ukraine for for years, through all kinds of military aid, from training, equipment, to joint military exercises, etc. — Tzeentch

I agree it's not coincidence, just that it may not have been completely thought through, or then arming Ukraine post-Russia invasion was not the original plan.

Letting Russia conquer Ukraine, fomenting dissidence and sanctioning Russia would be an equally reasonable contingency in the case of a full invasion.

Certainly the US could not know ahead of time Ukraine would fight and not capitulate, so, in the least, they planned for both possibilities.

So when @ssu points out the US offering refuge to Ukrainian leadership, this may have been genuinely part of the plan "Ukraine is conquered by Russia".

However, certainly the US policy since 2008 has, at minimum, zero problem with provoking Russia into invading Ukraine, but I would guess the idea was that this would be a net-loss to Russia even if they took the territory (and need to deal with Ukrainian insurgence / nationalists for years). When US officials and policy wonks kept saying "we can give Russia's their Afghanistan" before and at the start of the war, they may very well have had that in mind, of Russia winning the conventional war and then needing to deal with an insurgency and dissidence and it's more than they can handle, and, for certain, pretext for the sanctions, selling gas to Europe.

That Ukraine fought tenaciously to halt the conquering and the massive social media response and so on, may have been unexpected and seen as a new opportunity after the war started, or that they were pushing for total war but wanted to be sure Ukrainian leadership was really committed (so offering the refuge is a way to evaluate that).

Evidence for this would be that the US / NATO didn't flood Ukraine with the ATMG's and Stingers before the war, so what exactly was the plan could have been pretty ambiguous (even to the US administration and bureaucracies).

Likewise, the US could not have been completely sure of Europe's reaction to the war. Germany and France could have opposed supporting Ukraine, or been vocal about the need for peace from the beginning or resisted sanctions etc. in one way or another, in which case plan total war via Ukraine may not be feasible. The current predicament maybe a case of being victim of one's own success, in that Europe was totally in with essentially no dissent, Ukraine was fighting well with what they had, total exuberance for war in Ukraine, Europe and the US, so everything was peachy at the time. The problem that creates being how to calibrate the harm you want to do to Russia, but not more, and then end the war when it becomes a net-liability rather than an asset.

Definitely seems to me the US has achieved all it would like to achieve in the war so far, but there's no easy way to end it.

The Zaluzhny interview could be indication they're willing to just do it. But I think we've been close to peace before when a new cycle of escalation is triggered and that goes off the rails, so could be a similar situation this time.

The Economist is Western media, one of the most visible. Evidently, its competitors, such as the NYT, are not going to talk much about a scoop that escaped them. In general, American news outlets tend to ignore non-American ones -- it's part of their exceptionalism. — Olivier5

Ignoring an issue does not imply "has never been mentioned once" it just means paying little attention to it.

If you're ignoring someone or something, there's a spectrum to it, in particular if we're talking about large institutions.

But, please, post any analysis in mainstream media about this interview made today or in the last few days, certainly would be interesting to see.

If I search Zaluzhny in the past 24 hours on google, the top hits are:

1. https://vpk.name
2. Twitter (just linking to general search of Zaluznhy in twitter)
3. https://www.president.gov.ua
4. Medium
5. https://kyivindependent.com
6. https://infographics.economist.com
7. https://www.ukrinform.net

Which is not something I would predict of a topic of interest for the main stream Western media. I'm pretty confident that if a mainstream publication was talking about it, google would put it pretty near the top. And the economist.com page on it isn't even new content, just posting the an 8 second audio clip of the interview.

The Economist is ignored by the Western press, really? — Olivier5

I don't see much discussion about this interview in Western media, seems to me very much "last weeks news" that was pretty much ignored.

Something can appear in Western media and still be ignored by Western media generally speaking. Lot's of pretty "big deals" appear once in the New York Times or somewhere and then are pretty much never discussed again, or it's a topic of the current news cycle and just goes away in the next.

When a topic is focused on in Western media it will have plenty of followup, different people's reactions and takes, questions to politicians and officials, analysis by scholars and so on, which can go on for weeks, months, or years.

For example, for 2 decades there was constant focus on the topic of "terrorism"; interviewing generals, academics, journalist opinion, analysis of policy (too much, not enough), all sorts of speculations, documenting and re-documenting their crimes, talking to victims, reporting people think it's really bad in various forms, etc.

After the withdrawal of Afghanistan, the issue is basically now completely ignored. BBC reported on some starving children in Afghanistan, but there wasn't much discussion about it, not a topic that was focused on. The word "terror" or "terrorism" appears 0 times on CNN, CNBC, BBC, The Guardian, Reuters front webpage (as of writing this), whereas Ukraine or Ukrainian appears on the front page on CNN 6 times, CNBC 4 times, The Guardian 22 times, and Reuters 4 times.

Interestingly the BBC does not have Ukraine as front page news on their website today (nor any analogue like "Kiev" or "Zelensky") ... could be the first time this has happened since the start of the war; make of it what you will.

Lol, Scott Ritter, really? Well, shit seeks its own level. — SophistiCat

Any issues with the actual analysis?

It definitely seems to me that Zelensky is being pushed to the side, didn't even get to address the World Cup as he wanted, which, seems to me, the US would have made happen if it wanted; Qatar being a 100% US security dependent.

The interview is also quite extraordinary in its revelations, it's not some sort of "get to know the general" puff piece.

He literally states that Ukrainian will inevitably lose the war if it doesn't receive significant increase in assistance of heavy weapons, which are not on their way and may not even be enough (just that if the West put in another 300 tanks, 700 infantry fighting vehicles, and 500 howitzers then it's invested for double or triple or quadruple those numbers). He then references a military commander's concessions speech, Mannerheim, to the Soviet Union / Russia in a similar circumstance.

Especially considering Zuluznhy doesn't speak much to the press, it is even more difficult to believe this was just off-the-cuff remarks that the US administration did not approve of.

Now, it maybe pretty much ignored by Western media, but for certain Ukrainians paid careful attention to this, as well other policy makers in Europe and Russia. The interview is basically saying the writing is on the wall for Ukraine and some sort of concession speech is coming "if" significantly more equipment doesn't arrive which aren't on their way.

Of course, could all be part of some subterfuge to make the Russians believe Ukraine is giving up, when they aren't giving up! Or then just the private musings of the General without any indication of a policy change whatsoever. But that's difficult to imagine.

However, I would agree that interview doesn't commit anything, but I have a hard time imagining the interview was planned without the idea of setting up these options. I'd also be willing to believe that setting up a concession speech, Zelensky resigning, compromise with the Russians is coming from the Ukrainian side if they see there is simply no more viable path to victory, in which case the US is managing the process with controlled statements in the Western press rather than some confusing speculation engine of random remarks to Ukrainian press.

Just a side note, Zelensky doesn't necessarily need to resign, but could just become a figurehead, and the actual negotiation done by Zuluzhny. Then a Ukrainian election and Zelensky steps down from politics then. This is also a usual way to do these things. A lot of the conflict is portrayed as basically personal issue between Zelensky and Putin.

That simply isn't "an instrument of US / NATO policy". — ssu

Yes, if the priority is to harm Russia, and not "defend Ukrainian sovereignty" then Ukraine is an instrument of this policy.

You can argue that the real objective is just a concern for Ukrainian well being and Sovereignty if you want.

Just remember that the first thing when Russia attacked was for the US to ask if the Ukrainian leadership needed help in evacuating from Ukraine. That's how much they believed in this "instrument of US / NATO policy" you try to depict. — ssu

It's entirely possible that the policy came into existence after seeing the Ukrainians fighting back successfully enough to halt the invasion.

Although I completely agree with

The Americans have purposefully steered towards this conflict since at least 2008.

Now they have their conflict, and they spin a yarn about Ukrainian sovereignty. — Tzeentch

There's been 4 US administrations since 2008, and I'd be willing to accept the idea the US more-or-less stumbled into this conflict without really a military plan if Russia did a full scale invasion (they may have been satisfied with Russia conquering Ukraine, having a big headache to deal with trying to manage it, and slapping tons of sanctions on Russia).

Which is how proponents of this policy usually frame it: know one could believe Ukraine would be so good and Russia so bad, and suddenly there was this opportunity to bleed the Russians! Is usually how it's presented.

The policy of arming Ukraine "whatever it take, but not really" may not have been pre-planned, which would explain why US keeps having this "let's negotiate ... but haha, no, but actually yes! peace would be good, but talk to Zelensky!" and completely inconsistent in the logic of weapons supplies, rather than some clear and coherent position on these issues.

Also, I wouldn't disagree that fighting back initially is a good idea, preferable to complete capitulation, even if the cost is not trivial (thousands dead). However, it's after doing that when a smaller party has maximum leverage: the leverage is basically "you might ultimately be able to win, but the cost will make it not-worth it and there are significant risks". For example, in the first weeks of the war, the Kremlin would not know how the sanctions would play out, if their lines would hold (or then be able to withdraw from losing positions without being totally encircled), if Ukraine / US had some insane surprise, what the domestic political reaction would be to the war and sanctions and so on, if mobilisation would work / be accepted by Russians, if the whole thing could just spiral into a nuclear conflict the Kremlin doesn't actually want either and so on. There's not only the cost even if you win, but all these other risks and if the cost of 2 weeks of war to Russia isn't that much, then it doesn't have to get much in a compromise to show it was "worth it". Likely, due to all these risks, when the Russians offered to be out of Ukraine the next day, if Donbas was independent and Crimea recognised as Russian and Neutral Ukraine, it was entirely genuine and clearly the minimum the Russians would accept.

The longer the war drags on, the more all these risks at the start either go away or then get clarified (or then just now familiar and no longer feared as much, even if the risk is actually the same).

However, if the priority is Ukrainian sovereignty then what follows from that is an honest discussion with Ukraine of what would be a reasonable compromise to end the war on the best conditions possible, given the limitations of Western support and also the cost in itself of more war (some plausible cost-benefit analysis for Ukrainians, not the West). Additionally, if the priority was Ukrainian sovereignty and welfare, the West would use its economic leverage to help negotiate the best outcome, or then just have used its economic leverage before the war to try to avoid the war (such as Nord Stream 2; of which the logic of refusing to open it was not that the project wasn't mutually beneficial to Europe, or clearly a basis of peace for Russia, but simply that US wants to "contain" Russia, which is by definition promoting conflict and not peace).

And this is clearly not how the US and NATO are making decisions, but the only consideration is what harms Russia the most while not escalating into nuclear war, meaning Russia losing would be going to far. To sweep all the moral issues of this position under the rug, US and NATO just yell "Ukraine wants to fight! Ukraine wants the weapons!" but this moral hot potato does not somehow dissociate our actions from the consequences of our actions.

To recapitulate your intellectual failures so far: — neomac

emotional blackmailing, — neomac

That you perceive my pointing out the cost of your "endgame" for NATO, who you support, as emotional blackmail, is just demonstrating your cognitive dissonance about your own position.

Harming Russia by arming the Ukrainian army, comes at to Ukrainian welfare, and if harming Russia is the goal the cost to Ukraine could be far in excess of what would be in Ukrainian-self-interest (with or without us deceiving them about it, we would still be responsible for the outcome).

If you want to support harming the Russians, and not just a little bit but until they are no longer a threat to the West, then this requires a commensurate cost to the Ukrainians, a "moral dilemma" in your own words. Pointing out the cost is just reality, not "blackmail", and your perception that the reality is blackmail, is delusional.

slippery slopes, strawmans — neomac

What slippery slope, what straw man? You can't be more clear what your position actually is, and then you double down on it to be even more clear:

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

It's not outrageous, it's exactly what US / NATO are trying to do, and they are pretty clear about it.

Lot's of geopolitical "moves" require the sacrifice of some country or people's wellbeing for the "greater good". Talk to the Vietnamese, talk the Kurds, talk to our liberal "friends" in Iraq and Afghanistan, talk to the Libyans and Syrians (again, our "friends" there, not to mention just average person there trying to get by).

And, indeed, it is typical of any war that it is waged on land and among civilians that do not benefit from the outcome, either way, especially if their dead. Sacrificing here or there, this person or that, for the polities benefit and not their own, is an entirely normal process in any war.

The reason it's controversial in this war is because we're not even fighting it, Ukraine may lose anyways and even if they have some sort of "win" it may easily be at an unreasonably high cost. If it was all just to virtue signal without any coherent workable plan to actually "beat" Russia, then this Western attitude (of which the policy of the leadership entirely depends) has caused immense suffering for nothing.

You support the policy, the cost to Ukraine is immense, face the reality and explain how it's worth it so far, how the same or multiple times more cost would be likewise worth it, or even the entire destruction of Ukraine would be worth it if Russia is harmed enough.

For months the cost to Ukraine was simply denied, casualties super low, easily winning, Russian army incompetent and will collapse any day etc. so everyone in the West could just ignore the "moral dilemma" of what this policy is costing Ukraine.

Now that the "bill is coming due" people in the West want to just ignore it and if they see it a little bit: Ukraine! Ukraine! Ukraine! Ukraine chose this path!!

The truth of the situation is simply that nuclear blackmail works. The situation would need to be nearly inconceivably more extreme than what is happening in Ukraine for it not to be reasonable to submit to nuclear blackmail.

And, because nuclear blackmail works, US / NATO policy is not to "escalate" beyond a certain point: that point being Russia actually losing the war.

First, it’s not “my” endgame. Making it personal would be misleading even if there was no intellectual dishonesty involved, because it may confuse my understanding of certain geopolitical dynamics with my taking position toward them. These are 2 distinct things. My understanding how the chess game is played by a couple of players is one thing, my siding with any of them is another. — neomac

You're really now trying to say you're just engaging in objective analysis without a horse in the race?

Moving the goal posts all the way from:

Putin and China are questioning the West-backed world order. The West must respond to that threat with determination. That’s why Putin unilateral aggression must fail in a way however that is instrumental to the West-backed world order. If this war is not just between Russia and Ukraine, then it’s not even just between the US and Russia, it’s between whoever wants to weigh in in establishing the new world order, either by backing the US or by backing Russia. — neomac

All the way to "My understanding how the chess game is played by a couple of players is one thing, my siding with any of them is another."

We debated your support for "the West" in this war in Ukraine for many pages.

You present your actual arguments in clear terms "Putin unilateral aggression must fail".

It's "your endgame" because you're the one proposing it:

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

"Putin must fail" and you propose an US/NATO endgame that "doesn’t need to be to stop Russia".

You then literally just say the exact thing I just says, just you're issue is my "framing".

Again you are conveniently framing the issue as it suits your narrative. Ukrainian lives (namely casualties) are not “The instrument to ‘inflict as much as enduring damage as possible to Russian power’” but the collateral damage of Ukrainian decisions to fight back Russian aggression, direct damage inflicted by Russian decisions on Ukrainians, and indirect collateral damage of Western decisions to support Ukrainians in fighting back Russian aggression. As collateral damage is Ukrainian lives, this poses a moral dilemma of course. — neomac

Collateral damage to Ukrainian lives would make sense if NATO was fighting with Russia in Ukrainian territory, then Ukrainian lives lost would be unfortunate collateral damage.

That's not the case, NATO isn't fighting.

Ukrainian lives (especially the soldiers) are the instrument of US / NATO policy in this fight, and the collateral damage would be civilians and structures that the Ukrainian military kills, wounds or damages as an unintended consequence of warfare.

Soldiers dying is not collateral damage.

However, even if you want to call it that, you recognise the main issue which is all this death and destruction in Ukraine "As collateral damage is Ukrainian lives, this poses a moral dilemma of course."

Why is there a moral dilemma? Because achieving the policy objective you set (and US / NATO doesn't have much problem admitting to) of inflicting enduring damage on the Russian military is not the same objective as Ukrainian welfare, which I have zero problem saying can involve some fighting (the first weeks of fighting is certainly preferable to total capitulation and humiliation, but it's after demonstrating your honour on the international stage, is the optimum time to sue for peace and accept a compromise as a smaller nation) but (regardless of when peace is sought) fighting for the welfare of Ukrainians is a much more constrained criteria than fighting to harm the Russians. Saying "they both want to fight the Russians so they both want the same thing" is simply totally wrong: "fighting the Russian insofar as it's in the interest of Ukrainians" is a very different objective than "fighting the Russians insofar as it damages the Russians".

This is why "the US / NATO fighting to the last Ukrainian" has been a focal point of debate since the beginning of the war, because, obviously, if the goal is simply to maximise damage to Russia then what follows from that would be "fighting to the last Ukrainian". It's a way of saying the objectives of Ukraine and US / NATO are not the same, which US / NATO don't really have a problem saying.

For example, saying Putin and Russia must "pay a cost" for breaking the international "rules based order" is exact same idea, maybe with slight "narrative framing" differences. It is not saying "we must ensure Ukrainian welfare is the top priority, which may require compromise with Russia", but it clearly means the priority is damaging Russia so the war is costly, which means pouring arms into Ukraine as they are doing the fighting, which means Ukrainians are the instrument of this policy, not the beneficiaries. The beneficiaries are all who benefit from the "international rules based order" and if the entirety of Ukraine is sacrificed for this policy then "mission accomplished".

Let’s examin the density of your intellectual squalor as illustrated by this arbitrary accusation.
First, I expressed my preferences and the reasons of my siding with the Western support to Ukraine in previous posts, so there was no need for you to invent such pathetic slogans about my preferences (BTW why love one and hate the other? I could be adverse to both powers yet hate Russian hegemony way more than the American one). — neomac

Even more ridiculous that after stating "My understanding how the chess game is played by a couple of players is one thing, my siding with any of them is another" you state a few paragraphs later "I expressed my preferences and the reasons of my siding with the Western support to Ukraine".

Can you not read and understand your own statements? You are "siding with the West" and you propose an "endgame" that is sufficient for the West (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) ... so i.e. an endgame you support.

Second, I’m arguing that Western support of Ukraine is both strategically and morally defensible (actually more than the opposite view for avg Westerners) so your attack ad hominem is irrelevant wrt such arguments. — neomac

Sure, but as you yourself admit there's a "moral dilemma" in the Western support of Ukraine for the purposes of harming the Russians, as it is not the same thing as supporting Ukrainian welfare.

So, if Ukrainian welfare is sacrificed for a goal that is not Ukrainian welfare, the moral responsibility for our policies cannot just be then shifted to the Ukrainian leadership and "Ukrainian people" (insofar as we equate them with Ukrainian leadership), we are still responsible for our own policies and what we are trying to achieve. Just because you want to kill someone doesn't mean I am justified in giving you the weapon to do it. Even if you were justified in your desire to kill (say self defence) and I was justified in helping you do that, even then it does not justify any form of lethal support. As @Isaac pointed out, self defence vis-a-vis your neighbour doesn't justify nuking the whole city. As the provider of lethal support, I'd still be responsible for the outcome and how my actions contributed to the outcome.

Whenever the cost to Ukraine of the Western policy is pointed out, essentially all the supporters of the policy here and elsewhere just throw their hands up and say "Ukrainians want to fight!" and seem to believe that completely unburdens them of the consequences of the policy.

But as you say yourself, there's a "moral dilemma". If you want to support this policy and argue in good faith, then solve the moral dilemma, rather than move the goal posts around for your own arguments so much that the "game" your playing is now entirely made of goal posts. We're literally walking on goal posts.

Can you show better how your accusation follows from your notion of “justification”? — neomac

I've accused you of moving the goalposts of you arguments around rather than just arguing what you actually believe (that the endgame is to "inflict enduring damage on Russia", which causes "collateral damage" in pursuit of that goal, that causes a moral dilemma).

I have argued the justifications you present are insufficient, such as a UN general assembly vote being some sort of "normative / legal justification", or, even if it was (which it isn't), then totally incompatible with supporting the US despite the US ignoring UN generally assembly votes all the time. More importantly for the actual debate we're having, the "normative / legal" argument isn't your actual justification but rather supporting the West, and US hegemony in particular, generally speaking.

There are four central issues to what you actually believe.

1. First being the justification of US hegemony in the geopolitical struggle with Russia, but more importantly China. Now, like yourself, I prefer to live in the West than in China or Russia, however, this is equatable with seeking hegemonic control / influence / containment of China and its neighbours. My approach would be a "lead by example" policy and not picking fights that get hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians killed and injured and destroying half or more of the Ukrainian economy, in seeking to harm Russia, which benefits China so seems to me entirely counter productive on the geopolitical hegemonic "chess game" in any case.

2. Bringing to the second point which is this policy really does advance US hegemony and Western leadership of the whole world.

3. And lastly, that the sacrifice of Ukraine to advance this policy is morally justified. At least the US was fighting in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan and there's at least honour to that and suffering the consequences of the policy. It is impossible to ignore the fact that when parties are armed to do the fighting for us, that this creates an intense moral hazard, moreover when any criticism of the leadership and war is banned in the country, we wholeheartedly condone and promote propaganda for "morale" purposes and winning the "information war" with Russia (i.e. we cannot even say there's some sort of informed consent) and (make matter morally worse) we produce a lot of the propaganda ourselves (encouraging belief that the side we need to fight can "win" when our military and civilian leadership may be fully aware that is very unlikely) leading to decisions on false pretences, and, also important, if pouring money and arms into the country is de facto bribing the leadership of that country who benefit immensely in both legal and illegal ways from all this money and arms pouring in.

4. That anytime the goal posts change to "Ukrainian sovereignty!" then why aren't Western armies in Ukraine defending this alleged priority?

These are not "accusations" but just what your position actually entails. If harming Russia is the objective, and Ukrainians are doing the fighting, and the West is arming and bankrolling and "advising", then it simply goes with that position that it's entirely possible, perhaps even likely, that this setup will result in Ukrainians fighting beyond their own self interest (which I have zero problem recognising involves some fighting).

In other words, we may have already (I would definitely argue this), and if not, may very well in the future, sacrifice Ukrainian welfare to pursue the West's priority in this situation, which is, to boil it down, "not letting Putin get away with it!".

Does “you cannot justify to others” mean that my claims are not justified until I can prove that everybody on earth agrees with me?! — neomac

"Justification" has a social function definition of justifying to others. If a judge asks for your "justification" for some actions, the request is to justify to the judge not yourself. When a justification is only to oneself, we say "self justification" to clarify that no one else is intended to be convinced by the argument.

For example, if you were caught taking something and this led to a trial, "I wanted it" is not a good justification in this context; this self-justification goes without saying and not the issue at trial (no harm in mentioning it, obviously you took the thing because you wanted it) so if you started your explanation with "well I wanted it" unlikely anyone would disagree, but a adequate justification in this context would be some right to the thing (there was a deal for example, that the counter party is now denying) or then some particular circumstance (some emergency, for example, or then you actually thought it was lost and took it to "return it" to the owner etc.).

That's just what the word justification means.

Of course, one can propose nothing is justified, there is no justice, all moral language is for the purposes of rationalising and manipulation. But, even in this position, the word "justification" still refers to the attempt to convince others your actions are just (only everyone, perhaps even yourself, is always deceived about it, there is no "actual" justification for anything, life has no purpose other than pursuing your inclinations and desires, which are accidental to your genes and upbringing and themselves not justified either, just nothing else to do).

Anyways, essentially no one, certainly not myself, argues that a position is justified only after a everyone agrees, which creates immediately the problem of why anyone would believe it's true if it's not true until everyone believes it's true. The "truth" (or then meaninglessness of the issue) of a justification is independent of anyone's belief about it. Your actions maybe justified and a judge and everyone else disagrees. Indeed, your actions maybe justified and you yourself are convinced it was actually wrong later.

The point of getting into the meaning of justification, is that what people propose as their justification maybe a lie. So, it is entirely reasonable to speculate as the real motivations behind what people do. Now, the actual (secret in this case) justification maybe true and following from that the lies about it are also justified, or then maybe both are not-justified. Or, the more confusing situation but entirely possible, is one uses a true justification to advance a hidden objective that is similar to but not actually the same or even compatible with the true justification.

For example, I maybe entirely justified in helping a traveller in distress, but if my true intentions are to simply gain this travellers trust for the purposes of stealing from them, then my actions up to that point only appear entirely justified but it is in actuality part of a deception. So, a true justification can also be a lie, that it only even possibly revealed in the future.

since you believe the following “Certainly we would want law to conform to our normative disposition, but until A. all people have the same values and B. little or no corruption exists, then that won't be the case” how can we possibly justify (in your terms) our position to others if they do not share our values or we can’t assure that little or no corruption exists? — neomac

We may not be able to, but we try nevertheless. For example, the Byzantine Empire would argue theology with the various caliphates they were in contact with. Neither side expected to convince / convert the other, but they would still make the attempt. Lot's of reasons for this: vis-a-vis the other party in the debate it can be simply a sign of respect to argue one's position, as it recognises the other party's arguments at least have the merit of being responded to, and it can also be for the purposes of just maintaining a polite dialogue with people you may need to deal with to avoid wars or do business etc. or then it could be for internal reasons of just impressing your own court with "proofs" that the heathens are wrong (or for all these purposes) or then just an obvious task of one's own theologians to prove the faith etc.

However, what's a norm, what's normative, and what's legal are not the same thing. Certainly the goal of society is to harmonise all three, and for some things that happens to be the case, but you cannot deduce one from another. Simply because something is a norm does not mean it it normative nor legal. From my position in corporate management, people break the law literally all the time with no consequences.

what do you mean by “require recognising legitimate grievances of the Russians”? — neomac

This was discussed at length near the very beginning of this discussion, but, in short, if you want to negotiate a dispute with a party the first step is to recognise legitimate grievances of the other party (i.e. grievances that you yourself agree are reasonable and can do something about). Generally, everyone has some legitimate grievances in any situation, and the more complex the situation the more legitimate grievances everyone has, if you want to negotiate a settlement then the first step is to layout all the grievances of all the parties on the table and see if everyone can at least agree those are all legitimate points of view. The other essential starting element is the leverage each party has. Based on these two things, perhaps it is possible to come up with an arrangement acceptable to all the parties that is preferable to further conflict.

If you ignore someone's grievances then they are unlikely to accept anything you propose. Now, "legitimate" is prepended to "grievances" as maybe someone grievances are simply unreasonable (at least to you) and you can do nothing to solve them. "Legitimate grievance" is something you yourself agrees the counter party has a point about and an agreement would need to resolve, compensate or address in some way.

The position that Russia is 100% wrong about everything and has no legitimate points or grievances, is simply the position of refusing to negotiate and the choice of more warfare, which maybe justified, but the West and Zelensky like to present demands obviously Russia would never accept and just deny any problems on their own side. Like the very real Nazi's with significant influence, whether there is enough to justify invasion or not, it's clearly a legitimate grievance that the West should also have a problem with. Also expansion of NATO is also a legitimate grievance, considering NATO is quite clearly an anti-Russia organisation. Engaging in the self-justification of NATO expansion, just insisting that of course it's anti-Russian because Russia is the threat and countries want protection from Russia and getting into NATO and expanding NATO closer to Russia is not a threat to Russia because NATO's intentions are pure, people can do ... but, if you don't intend to negotiate. Obviously, my "anti-you" alliance will be perceived as a threat from your point of view. That Westerners can say we place these missiles closer to Russia but that's not like "a threat" to Russia is dumb if the goal is to negotiate with Russia.

A negotiated peace would be by definition a compromise. An uncompromising peace is what's called a surrender. So, listing uncompromising demands that Russia then obviously rejects, is a convoluted, bad faith way of saying there is no desire for negotiation, the surrender of Russia is preferable, for the purposes of propaganda. The problem is if you can't actually force Russia to surrender then this sort of language prolongs the war.

The problem the West has created by encouraging Zelensky to be uncompromising and make delusional statements while also insisting all negotiation must be with Zelensky, without the other powers involved at the table, is that basically any compromise on anything is now a Russian in Zelensky's framework.

Peace negotiations can be dealt with as quid-pro-quo without recognising any legitimate grievances, like a prisoner exchange, so why would this be required as a first step for a peace negotiation? — neomac

In order to engage in a quid pro quo, you need to recognise those are in fact legitimate grievances (such as return of prisoners) to then arrive at an agreement about it. Your own side negotiating needs to do this process at least internally (hear what others have to say, what they want, etc.). Whether something is recognised explicitly in public is a form of compensation, and is not a requirement as you say. However, anyone doing any actual diplomacy with Russia (with an intention of resolving the conflict) would need themselves to evaluate legitimate grievances that are reasonable to address in a settlement, and likewise anyone simply analysing the situation and trying to what sort of resolution the war is possible must do the same (to have any chance of proposing some practical insights).

Is it something that needs to be officially recorded anywhere? With what potential/likely legal and propaganda cost/benefit and strategic implications?
What kind of “legitimate grievances” are you talking about and in what sense you consider them “legitimate”? — neomac

As I explain above, the important recognition is internal to the negotiating parties (if they genuinely seek a resolution; if not you just say whatever you want). How these legitimate grievances are then recognised in an agreement can be through explicit recognition and compensation (but this is pretty rare in a settlement, as one of the benefits of a settlement is not recognising any wrong doing), so usually it's simply recognised in compensation and horse-trading, and between nations there can be entirely secret arrangements.

What kind of “legitimate grievances” are you talking about and in what sense you consider them “legitimate”? — neomac

The main on is of course NATO expansion. When Russia mentions moving missiles and forward operating bases and so on closer to Russia is a threat to Russia, that's obviously true. One of the quid pro quo agreements with Russia in the expansion of NATO was that missile bases wouldn't advance. The actual military threats are hardware and personnel, not the actual NATO treaty, so bringing countries into NATO is one thing, and actually advancing NATO hardware, systems and soldiers is another.

In terms of real military analysis, the central military justification for Russia war is that NATO installed a missile base in the Baltics. That NATO says it was to protect against Iran and is only missile defence is entirely meaningless if you want to negotiate an end to a conflict with Russia.

There is actually a stable form of NATO enlargement in making NATO bigger but not only moving little to no hardware closer to Russia but the Easter-European states themselves becoming more stable vis-a-vis Russia and also each other and both lowering their defence expenditures because they are in NATO as well as depending on NATO command structures to function so unable really to do any independent military actions anyways. For, previous to NATO expansion you can have disputes between East-European countries entirely unrelated to Russia or NATO but that then draft Russia and/or NATO into the conflict and the it growing into a regional conflict and getting out of control. Prior to NATO directly threatening Russia with advancing missile bases and proposing Georgia and Ukraine join NATO (and notice the combination of abandoning the quid pro quo of not advancing advanced hardware will also wanting to expand right to Russia's border, is something any general would say warrants a war, and there'd be only political reasons not to go to war; this is a sad reality of NATO's actions over the last decades, that this war is totally provoked and any NATO member would evaluate things militarily exactly the same as Russia has).

So, obviously if NATO wants peace with Russia it will likely have to recognise it has to take a less threatening posture with Russia. Advancing missile bases is particular stupid if the goal is peace. Obviously, neutral Ukraine are removing the missile base would be one way of recognising this grievance. If you want Ukraine in NATO, then to convince the Russians you'd need to propose a lot more compensation for that, but that seems essentially an impossible deal, but maybe there's some sort of "NATO light" version or something.

There are definitely the Nazi's in Ukraine. As a Westerner I don't think that should be acceptable to the West, let alone the Russians. And if you look into the issue with reporting pre-invasion, these are definitely Nazi institutions with enormous power and influence in Ukraine. It should be, first of all, Western policy to not support and arm Nazi's. That Western media lauds these "ultra nationalists" as "the best fighters" that Ukraine simply needs, is even more outrageous.

The rights of Russian speaking minorities that, fact of the matter is, Ukraine started oppressing in total contradiction to the West's "values and policies" about minority rights, is also simply an entirely justified grievance, which is text-book prejudice due to ethnicity and language that the West claims to be against.

There have been war crimes also by the Ukrainians, but generally in a peaceful resolution to a war, all the warcrimes are ignored. As with any settlement, one of the main benefits is not admitting any wrongdoing.

We had trials against the Third Reich ... because we won. There was no trials of Western war crimes even if they were of comparable or worse nature than some convicted Nazi's.

Benefits of winning is also likewise not needing to admit any wrong doing.

Finally what kind of legitimate grievances against the Russians (notice how the negotiation requirements are framed around pro- and cons- for Russia, because they are the ones really need convincing not the West or the Ukrainians) is Russia required to recognize as a first step? — neomac

Yes, the negotiation from our Western perspective is mainly around the pros-and-cons for Russia, since it's them that we are negotiating with.

The first step in negotiating a settlement is coming up with a compromise of the key issues that you think is acceptable to the other party, the "deal breakers". There can be a long list of minor stuff, in this case economic arrangements of how to rebuild Ukraine or then dropping sanctions and so on, but there's no point in addressing secondary issues if there's no possible compromise on the deal breakers.

The deal breakers in this war for the Russians are concerning NATO and Crimea. There maybe someway to negotiate the other big issues, such as Russian speaking rights in Donbas and so, in a way that de-annexes these territories (such as the proposed referendums to be part of Ukraine, autonomous in Ukraine or independent) or then simply recognises the annexation (such as another referendum to join Russia that the international community recognises).

There is, for certain, no compromise Ukrainians and Westerners would be happy about, but the alternative is more war, more death, and potentially Ukraine losing anyways, which people will just blame Ukraine for not "fighting hard enough" but people should be far more unhappy about compared to a compromise now or at any point previous in the war.

Which is why the issue of the cost to Ukraine of more fighting is simply ignored in Western media, and even in this forum: so that if Ukraine comes out a big loser in all this, well that's what they wanted, what are you gonna do, all we did was give some of the weapons that they wanted, as any friend would do.

Russia won't be more dangerous after the war, it will be defanged and humbled. Don't you look forward to that? — Olivier5

It could be, but that's far from certain.

Conventional war theory is that an army that is merely not-defeated (doesn't even need to win), is stronger after a war than before even if damage suffered during the war is severe. As I've mentioned, even militaries that lose and essentially forced to disarm, such as Germany after WWI, still have all the experience benefits enabling starting entirely new world war a few decades later in this case, but typical examples are the US army after the US civil war and Soviet army after WWII (some 12 million personnel despite some 9 million dead and 22 million wounded during the war; essentially 2 orders of magnitude greater than current Russian losses in Ukraine).

The reasons for this is that fighting an actual war is not only "real-world experience" necessary to get good at anything, but places significant meritocracy pressure on the chain of command, as well as orienting a large part of the economy to war materials and fighting.

It is very simplistic thinking to believe that short term harms inflicted on the Russian army translate to any medium or long term harms.

As for economic sanctions, I have trouble seeing any problems for Russia insofar as China is willing to supply them. People should keep in mind that nearly all our "Western technology" is fabricated and/or assembled in East-Asia, significant portion in China itself, and there's zero way to significantly obstruct Russian supply chains without China's active assistance.

Considering we've been calling China our rival, geo-political threat, needing a pivot or two, etc. for decades, I have difficulty imagining why China would suddenly assist us in what is, arguably, a Chinese proxy war to attrit NATO.

And this is not controversial opinion in geo-political analysis circles, the top "cold warriors" nearly all came out of retirement to warn the US and NATO that their actions in Ukraine are potentially counter-productive in terms of the balance-of-power, such as Kissinger.

Does cutting Russia off from the Western economic system (while still needing to buy their resources directly or through intermediaries) harm Russia? Or does it reduce our leverage in dealing with Russia? Leading to all sorts of trouble down the line.

Is Russia transitioning to (a large degree) a war economy where we've purposefully removed all potential pathways to "Westernise", even going so far as to ban Russian orchestras and sports teams etc., increase or decrease Russia as a threat to our interests?

Indeed, Kissinger just reiterated his position that peace is a preferable geopolitical choice.

I disagree with a lot Kissinger's decisions, but there is no denying his expertise on geopolitical issues as well as his priority being "US interests".

It's time for a negotiated peace in Ukraine, Kissinger says — Reuters

Notably, Kissinger also suggests international organised referendums as a means to solve the annexation issue (which I was the first to suggest, on this very forum, as far as I know).

Likewise, achieving the goal of breaking up Russia, potentially resulting in chaotic internal nuclear wars between factions, is not a reasonable goal to have, as I've also pointed out.

The Economist interviewed General Valery Zaluzhny, the head of Ukraine’s armed forces.

Now, normally I don't pay much mind to government or military officials' statements. You have to read between the lines to get a morsel of useful info. But Zaluzhny is no politico, and he is known for speaking candidly on those infrequent occasions when he speaks in public. And indeed, this interview is not what you might expect: "Rah-rah-rah! Crimea in six months!" Not at all. — SophistiCat

Scott Ritter's take on this interview is essentially as follows:

First, this is not some spontaneous off-the-cuff remarks by some low level commander.

He may very well be someone who speaks candidly, but this interview was certainly planned by the US administration (because it's to a US news outlet; if it was to Ukrainian journalists, then maybe in that case he's gone off script or just shit-happens kind of thing). In addition, Zelensky was there.

So, already the fact this interview happens and is Zaluzhny is the primary representative of Ukraine delivering critical information is pretty significant.

Why not Zelensky? Because he's talked himself into a corner of refusing all compromise, insisting Ukraine is winning, and going to win every single inch of territory back, including Crimea and anything less is unacceptable.

Unfortunately, in war you may simply not be able to achieve what you want, and this is Zaluzhny's central message, that 300 tanks, 600-700 infantry fighting vehicles and 500 howitzers would be required to take Melitopol, a key objective to pressure Crimea.

Not only does he state this, but he states Russian mobilisation has been a success and without this fairly massive infusion of equipment (if I'm not mistaken, larger than every single NATO country's vehicle fleet, with the exception the US; actually Turkey has 3000 main battle tanks, followed by Greece with 1200, and Poland with some 800, and then a Romania, Bulgaria, France and Spain have over 300, along with the US 8000, so numbers isn't a problem but these are mostly tanks that NATO does not want to provide), that Russia will win the war.

To emphasise his point, he reference Field Marshal Mannerheim's concession speech explaining Finland admitting defeat and signing the armistice with the Soviet Union.

Finland has been used as a model for fighting the Russians (in reality Soviets), but if that's the model, Finland loses the war. Of course, losing the war while retaining independence was potentially the best outcome for Finland, so it was definitely a "win" in that sense, but since it was simply impossible for Finland to "defeat" the Soviet Union, the only options are eventual defeat or then a diplomatic compromise (acceptable to the Soviet Union; what other people think doesn't matter if you're dealing with Soviet Union).

Now, the white house did not respond with "yeah, yeah, yeah, all that's on its way".

So, if defeat is inevitable, and it's impossible for Zelensky to negotiate, then Zelensky will need to be replaced. This is pretty standard politicking, as insofar as you believe more fighting in desirable, someone like Zelensky is good for moral by essentially maximising the cheerleading, then when further fighting is no longer desirable someone more "candid" can be selected to replace him and negotiate a resolution.

That Zelensky was still involved in the interview indicates to me that he'll likely be resigning, instead of being thrown under the bus. This will be the definite signal to Ukrainians, as well as the whole world, that Ukraine will negotiate a peaceful settlement.

Is essentially Scott Ritter's analysis.

Of course, nothing is totally certain in war, but I would guess the US administration is setting up the option for an end to the war along these lines with this interview and switching media focus to Zaluzhny. People in the West now know who Zaluzhny is and that he's a trustworthy straight talker.

The other piece of evidence I would add that would support this analysis, is that the US response to all the Russians shutting down the Ukrainian grid every 2 weeks and degrading it, is to send Patriot Missile systems.

These cannot possibly defend Ukrainian air space against this kind of an attack. Essentially nothing can defend against offensive missiles except your own offensive missiles.

Air defence only works against vastly inferior opponent that is unable to attrit your AA systems. The basic math is: offensive missiles are cheaper than defensives missiles, and the attacker can employ decoys which has no counter part in defence. Not only can you make smaller and cheaper decoys but you can also just produce cheaper missiles with minimal guidance and no payload (or replace with fuel) and then fly around and there's zero way to differentiate.

Not that anti-air is useless. It does make sense in defending point targets like military bases and air craft carrier with multiple levels of defence, but, even there, the point is you're also attacking and your AA is buying time while you carry out your own air attacks on the opponents assets. So definitely, if you attacked a US carrier group, your missiles maybe destroyed and yourself shortly after.

However, there is simply no way to employ Patriot or any other AA systems in a war of attrition against an electricity grid spread out over a vast area without being able to actually destroy the origins of these attacks (i.e. invade and conquer Russia). Indeed, even in it's intended use case of defending fixed points, if you weren't fighting back, and even if Patriot is 100% effective you would quickly run out of missiles and everything else and your entire carrier group would be sunk (what makes the carrier group dangerous is that it will probably fight back).

By comparing these 2 quotations, anybody can immediately notice your conceptual confusion, typical of a militant mind addicted to reasoning through slogans. In the first one you do not talk just about “stop Russia” but about “stop Russia from achieving it's objectives in Ukraine”. Yet in the second quotation, the “from” clause has vanished (it’s common for slogans to use ellipsis: e.g. “Yes we can!”, “Just do it!”, “Stop Russia!”). — neomac

Your words are absolutely clear:

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

No where in this is Ukrainian welfare or Ukraine "winning" requirement in your endgame, whatever definition of that they are using today, under consideration. Ukraine can both lose, and in the process suffer extreme harms, and your end game can still be accomplished if enough damage is inflicted on Russia.

The instrument to "inflict as much as enduring damage as possible to Russian power" is Ukrainian lives. In the world of "practical rationality" there is no military achievement in this context possible without sacrificing Ukrainian lives. So, if you want to maximise your military objective, which is harming the Russians in your "endgame", then that requires maximising the sacrifice of Ukraine. Even when in a clearly losing position and even when suffering far higher kill-ratios than the Russians and civilian and economic damage etc. fighting on another day will still inflict another day of damage to the Russians.

Predictably, you now try to move the goal posts to NATO and Ukraine, but again the harms to Ukraine in such a process can still be essentially total. Ukraine could be totally destroyed, totally sacrificed, in such a project and if the goal to inflict enough damage on Russia is achieved then perhaps Russia is indeed no longer a threat to Ukraine. However, if in the process "Ukraine", however you want to define it, is totally sacrificed and destroyed, clearly Ukrainian welfare has not been protected.

You just throw up bullshit and then move the goal posts around in typical pseudo-intellectual fashion.

However, you've made your position and priorities clear, which is an entirely coherent geopolitical position to take: you want the US to "win" in this conflict, Russia to be damaged enough to no longer be "a threat" and Ukraine can serve this objective. If your top priority is inflicting damage on Russia, then Ukrainian welfare is subordinate to that.

You can not serve 2 masters: you will love the one and hate the other. Clearly, you serve US interests in this conversation.

Which leads to plenty of interesting debate.

For example, I have serious doubts about your geopolitical theory considering China is the much larger hegemonic competitor to the US.

Is the US attritting Russian forces and weapons stockpiles and political capital using the Ukrainians ... or is China attritting the US weapons stockpiles and political capital using the Russians?

Are energy flows from Russia that once fuelled the NATO war machine in Europe diverging to fuel the Chinese war machine a good thing for the US?

Does the US need its allies in Europe in good economic order more than China needs its ally Russia in good economic order, is Russia even hurting economically more than Europe? Now and over the medium and long term.

Can your objective of inflicting "enough damage" on the Russians even be achieved, considering the war is 99.9% taking place in Ukraine and Russia has already increased it's population due to the annexes and refugee flows out of Ukraine:

Number of Ukrainian refugees recorded in each country:
1. Russia (2,852,395) — wikipedia citing the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees

And military stockpiles after a war (that you win) usually rapidly match and exceed the stockpiles that existed prior to the war (although perhaps not in this case, given the size of the Soviet stockpiles, but certainly Russia has the resources and production capacity to keep arms manufacturing going at a good pace both during and after the war).

As far as I can tell, regardless of how and when this war ends, post-sanctions-and-war Russia will be far more dangerous to its neighbour's and the West than the previous Russia-we-trade-with, and at the same time Europe will be significantly worse off economically.

The war is certainly good for US gas producers and arms producers, but equating these interests with US interest as such or "the West's" interest as such is a big mistake.

BTW, since you seem to care and know about the Ukrainian welfare more than I do, I still have to ask: how many Ukrainian lives did your online outrage save so far exactly? — neomac

I'll respond to this as well, as it's such a dumb strawman.

Obviously, my recommendation (my position in this argument) of a negotiated resolution to the conflict, which would require recognising legitimate grievances of the Russians (and also against the Russians) would be the first step in trying to find an acceptable compromise to the warring parties, would, if followed, result in an end to the war and saving Ukrainian lives who would otherwise perish in the trenches, explosions, from the cold in their apartments, disease, and all manner of evils which accompany a war if it was to continue (which it has).

What I can say, is that if my recommendation was followed at the start of the war (when Ukraine had likely the most leverage it would ever have) literally hundreds of thousands of people now dead would still be alive (not only in Ukraine but due to increases in food and energy prices worldwide that translates directly into more suffering and deaths).

Of course, it could be argued that whatever compromise would be required is not worth saving those lives, or that the Russian demands of an independent Donbas (at the time) and recognition of Crimea would be a worse state of affairs than the lives lost since.

It could be argued that what's important is:

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. — neomac

And so concern of Ukrainian lives is misplaced given what can be achieved if we encourage them to fight on, even perhaps without actually "stopping the Russians" and even if we know that to be the likely outcome.

But saying a peace settlement would not result in less Ukrainian dead, is just dumb. Obviously it would.

The benefits to a peace and compromise are less death, and the benefits to more war are achieving the fruits of war (mostly territory and national pride) at the cost of a lot of death.

Now, this is of course a debate between non-decision makers, so at no point do I have the power to directly translate my recommendations into "saving Ukrainian lives" by negotiating what I think is a reasonable resolution to the war; so proposing that as a burden of proof of some kind is just stupid. No where do I claim I've saved Ukrainian lives, and that's basically the text-book definition of a strawman to present my position as claiming that or somehow requiring to demonstrate that.

Had there been a peaceful resolution at any point in the conflict, perhaps then I could say my analysis contributed to that in some small way, but there is no peace and no lives have been spared.