Probably Putins goal just grind up all able bodied Ukrainians until no one left to fight. He has about 2 million reserves he can call up.
Regardless of how much money we give Ukraine its likely that ultimately Putin will win. So maybe its best the focus is NATO building up a big enough deterrent in botdering countries similar to post war West Germany.
This might mean a new iron curtain and cold war but unless NATO decides to join Ukraine and actually commit to fighting Russia (which I do not want) then not sure what options we have.
It is Possible I am looking at this too simplistically.
It has pretty much been that since the beginning. The only real surprise was the dismal combat readiness of the Russians in the beginning. But, unfortunately, combat is the best teacher and readiness improves with experience. The Russians are very good at attrition, and have no real problem accepting losses on the way to exhausting their opponent.
Its impressive the Ukrainians have stalled the Russians this long but I agree with you they are just to going to accept their losses until Ukraine is exhausted.
Yep. Itâs an attitude that goes back thousands of years. When you have four times as many soldiers as the other guy, even if you lose your own men at twice the rate that you are killing theirs, you win.
the longer it lasts the more likely Russia âwinsâ. after that, there will be bombings, fires and assassinations in ukraine for decades.
all of it could be avoided if we just gave them what they needed to win instead of just enough to not lose (which is a guarantee of eventual defeat). thereâs still time, but not much.
Yes, we need to give Ukraine nuclear weapons and ICBMs.
Of course, the US most of the rest of the world would likely end up as a radioactive wasteland, but defending the right of NATO to continue to expand eastward is worth the sacrifice.
As far as conventional arms, the US has already blown its wad. Ukraine is running out of artillery shells because NATO has exhausted its stocks and has lost the industrial capacity needed to make enough to support the war in Ukraine. The aid package working through congress will not do anything to change the outcome of the war.
I actually agree with neocons about framing events in events in eastern Europe in terms of the domino theory and the dangers of appeasement.
Aggressive expansionist powers are never satisfied until they have complete world domination. Give them an inch and they take a mile, and efforts to appease them only create a big war in the end.
Of course, that framing makes sense when you realize that NATO has become an aggressive, expansionist alliance since 1990.
Carlsonâs rule of about Washington insiders applies: They always do what they accuse others of doing.
That clip is from Peep Show which is a fantastic british comedy show. Highly recommend it. On YT you can find the American version pilot show which is abysmal. Thank god it never got greenlit.
Clearly you have not read the speech. Putin addresses NATO expansion multiple times, and NATO expansion has been a core issue for the Russians for decades.
Here are two examples:
You deceived us - when I say âyou,â I donât mean you personally, of course, but the United States - you promised that there would be no NATO expansion to the east, but this happened five times, five waves of expansion. We endured everything, persuaded everything, said: no need, we are now our own, as they say, bourgeois, we have a market economy, there is no power of the Communist Party, letâs come to an agreement.
. . . At a meeting here in the Kremlin with the outgoing President Bill Clinton, right here in the next room, I said to him, I asked him, â Bill, do you think if Russia asked to join NATO, do you think it would happen?â Suddenly he said: âYou know, itâs interesting, I think so.â But in the evening, when we had dinner, he said, âYou know, Iâve talked to my team, no-no, itâs not possible now.â https://www.miragenews.com/full-text-transcript-of-tucker-carlson-putin-1171489/
The Russians disregarded their own doctrine at the beginning of the war.
Russian war doctrine was always based around the idea of âdeep operations.â Find weak points in the defending force, use overwhelming artillery and close air support to bust holes, and then pour in infantry and mechanize units into the breaks and attempt to push deep into the enemyâs strategic rear. Itâs how they planned to fight NATO throughout the Cold War in the Fulda region of Germany, using captured NATO airbases to support the advance.
And they completely disregarded it. Now they are having to do extreme modifications of the traditional Russian methods of warfare, with the high casualties, because they donât have the overwhelming firepower the USSR had in the 80s.
They tried to multiple times, but the US believed that might makes right.
The US policy is that Russiaâs security concerns are irrelevant. NATO expansion is essential, and Ukrainian national sovereignty is sacred.
Of course, Israelâs security concerns trump any issues about national sovereignty of Iraq or Syria or the Palestinians. See how it works?
Russiaâs policy of appeasement arguably allowed them to buy time to rebuild their nation so they could defeat NATO on the battlefield, so it may have helped them in the long run.
Thing is that the Russians are in no position to win a war against the entirety of NATO. At best they could fight us to a standstill in Russia itself and hope that General Winter makes the difference up.
They are in a position where they could never beat NATO, but they are in a position where they would hope that the casualties for NATO would be so high that the participating countries would drop out one at a time.
Itâs not the worst place to be in to be honest. The North Vietnamese achieved such a scenario in the 1960s against the United States and it ultimately worked out for them. They just have to make sure theyâre willing to sacrifice more than we would.
Also, Russiaâs old security concerns were mostly â â â â â â â â â None of the former USSR members were in a position to launch a preemptive war against Russia. And NATO has never shown any interest in trying to do such a stupid thing, with both sides having a lot of nuclear weapons. NATO was never a threat to Russia.
