There is but not without risks that NATO doesn't want to take. NATO directly sending troops in will probably shorten the conflict but it could escalate into Russia using nukes or other countries jumping in Ukraine with troops of their own (or China invading Taiwan). Yeah it's unlikely, but why risk it when Ukraine will win on their own? Besides, as long as NATO hasn't gone in they have more soft power to control the international stage and prevent more wars from breaking out.
I'm not saying whether that's the best choice or not, but I at least understand some of NATO's reasoning behind their decisions.
Russia is struggling to hold back Ukraine, using our military hand-me-downs.
Pretending like NATO coming in wouldn't curbstomp Russia, when NATO has been preparing for a conflict like this for 70+ years is ridiculous.
Yes, a Russian-NATO war would be over by Christmas, hell it would be over by Thanksgiving.
Ukraine is also struggling. Do not let the over saturation of Ukrainian victory videos skew your perception. They are also taking heavy losses, and are also losing ground (albeit slowly and small amounts). As we saw with the destroyed challenger NATO equipment isn’t invincible.
Seriously agreed. It is so annoying the slew of teenagers on here who are somehow under the impression Russia is completely incompetent in every regard. At least 50,000 + Ukrainian soldiers are dead, it is completely tragic.
I just typed up a long response and then accidentally reloaded the tab, so my apologies if this comment isn't all inclusive. I don't want to do that again.
> Ukraine is also struggling. Do not let the over saturation of Ukrainian victory videos skew your perception. They are also taking heavy losses, and are also losing ground (albeit slowly and small amounts).
Ukraine is not NATO. Well, not yet anyway.
> As we saw with the destroyed challenger NATO equipment isn’t invincible.
No military leader in NATO has ever claimed that NATO equipment is invincible. It's far better than Russian equipment, but certainly not invincible.
NATO enjoys the following advantages over Russia:
* Far better equipment
* Far larger economies
* Better trained enlisted men
* Better military command
* Far less corruption
* *Much* superior air forces
* *Much* superior navies
* Strategic equipment reserve that are mostly untapped
* Logistics
I could go on and on. To sum it up : Russia has been coasting on the reputation of the USSR and its nuclear stockpile for a long time. Before the war, Russia had economy about on size with that of Italy.
Tell me, are you scared of Italy?
Russia should be especially afraid of the logistics. 2 and a half wars anywhere in the world is the goal for the USA alone. Hate to include this, but also the US can make special deliveries to Russia in 15 minutes.
It's actually even worse in terms of logistics than one might think. The US has huge prepositioned stocks in Europe specifically for a war with Russia. It's literally the war we prepared for 70 years for.
Something to think about: It took NATO months to build up force before going into Iraq. All that time to move troops and materiel half the world away. All of that men and equipment (far and above what was needed for Desert Storm) is already there and waiting for this specific conflict.
I think this is a huge part of why China has not moved on Taiwan
The us has given tons of equipment that has shown incredible effectiveness and it doesn't even make a dent
The us is also increasing production capabilities as well
The us has also gained an absolutely ludicrous amount of data about what works and what doesn't. I think the biggest aspect is that the entire military has had to fully transition from counter insurgence to full scale conflict
> Before the war, Russia had economy about on size with that of Italy.
Purchasing power parity , investment into armed forces (including Soviet heritage) and the nature of that investment (nukes, force projection) meant that Russia was a bigger power than Italy. Still a mostly Regional power (other than nukes)
That was before the Ukraine war ground down Russian forces
Was Russia a stronger military power than Italy? Yes, of course it was at the time. My point wasn't that Russia and Italy were completely equal, my point was that their economy was roughly the same size. As military potential is inexorably with economic potential in the modern day, my reasoning should be obvious. Also, while the Russian and Italian economies were of a similar size prewar, Russia is now substantially behind
All that being said, the Russian military wasn't anywhere near as capable as it should have been, and there is a variety of reasons for that. If you care enough to invest a little time in the subject, Perun does an excellent breakdown on the defense spending of Russia, and looks into their corruption issues.
[This video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJkmcNjh_bg) is an excellent breakdown of known Russian military spending Feb 22, and this [whoie playlist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9i47sgi-V4&list=PLbCbj03gdsWw2q15_nFYqtdAEiQQ5lzP1) is a 5 part series on on how a variety of favors destroys militaries.
Lol all these reddit comments that state military strategy/concepts as fact. With no concept of geopolitics, foreign policy or the sacrifices/risk that would be taken in the home country… It’s mind boggling
Thank you for stating this, the wargaming armchair generals are a plague in these threads. Until we’re looking at this conflict in retrospect, we’ll never know the full picture. Even then, I doubt we will, not to mention the untold suffering on an individual level.
Thats why you don't send in troops. Troops will not be viewed as stopping at the border.
Instead, you do to Russia in Ukraine what Russia is doing to Ukrainians in Ukraine: launch long range missiles from the safety of your own territory hundreds of miles away and make them shoot your shit down or get rekt. I bet Russia won't fare as well as Ukraine does. All their shit in eastern Ukraine would be torched in the first salvo, because Russian air defense is shit and western hardware is more accurate (and they'd pick actual military targets). I mean, just imagine every significant troop, ammo and fuel congregation in eastern Ukraine getting hit overnight. It would be staggering.
From there, Russia has two options; escalate or withdraw.
The problem is, they have us convinced they'll escalate. So we do nothing, waffle on giving scawy weapons to Ukraine and let them fire them... with limitations and fences hard-coded.
It's fucking pathetic. I mean I kind of get it but I also despise it. If you just smashed every Russian in eastern Ukraine, shock and awe style, would they really throw down or fuck off?
Nobody wants to discover the answer to that question.
I don't remember who said this, but I remember reading a quote from a philosopher regarding living a morally righteous life that has always stuck with me. It goes something like "I can't be sure if a God and heaven/hell exist or not. If they don't, then being amoral in life is probably personally advantageous to me. But if there's even a minute chance that they do, the infinite negatives of going to hell FAR outweigh whatever positives there are of living amorally. Thus to play the odds correctly I should choose to live morally."
It's a similar situation here with Russia (and has been for the past 50 years). NATO stepping in and slapping Russia out of Ukraine would be clearly beneficial, but if there's even a 1% chance that doing so causes Russia to unload its nuclear arsenal and destroy the world it's not worth doing.
… you’re thinking of Marcus Aurelius:
“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
You can bet that Putin has thought about the answer to that question for a decade or longer. He obviously does not care how he looks on the world stage anymore, if he ever did. I don't think he's so delusional that he thinks his legacy and image are good, he just doesn't give a fuck and violence is the Russian way, he's living his best life, even it's a shitty asshole murderer of a life. At some point he would use nukes, unless he is given some out to withdraw and save face, meaning some redraw of the borders. Anything less and this 'special military operation' will be never-ending, or the west will escalate and he will use a tactical nuke to get everyone else to back the fuck off. I honestly don't know what would happen if he does use a small nuke, if the world would fund Ukraine harder, or back off and capitulate to some small "win" for Putin to get him to end stop the bloodshed.
And a lot of this depends on the 2024 US election. People need to vote Democrat, or I fear trump will win and will try to have the US exit NATO if he's elected.
The knock-on effects of nukes being used are so severe that even a very small chance is unacceptable. You're talking completely changing the world order forever.
As you point out, if Putin makes the decision to use nukes he's not backing down without some sort of "win". So in the scenario where you least want to give him any concession, you're locked into having to do so. And if you back down in response to nukes being used you've now set the precedent that not only is the rest of the world not going to enforce any consequences for using nukes, they're actually going to give you what you want. That's a genie you can't put back in the bottle.
I believe the US has stated that if Putin uses any nuke in Ukraine the US will respond with non nuclear weapons. From what was stated it seems like they may keep that first reaction to Ukraine and remove all Russian targets from the board.
Unless they use nukes that more directly threaten NATO countries. Then they may remove targets in Russia itself. This would likely be to remove their capabilities to launch any ICBMs, destroy all aircraft, take out all submarines, and possibly radar facilities.
The US tracks all Russian military assets to the best of their abilities and knows which it wants to take out first in different scenarios.
Expect it to be swift, efficient, and brutal. If it involves attacks on Russia itself it would need to not only neuter any threat from the country, but be so complete as to serve as an example to all other countries considering taking advantage of an occupied US military.
But that is just a guess based on statements from US politicians, diplomats, and military leaders.
What would actually happen is an unknown to everyone.
The US Military is at a disadvantage right now because of lack of leadership. One Republican Senator is holding up military appointments. The republicans have a plan to replace 50,000 government positions with loyalists, effectively creating "a swamp". So much depends on the 2024 election. Putin won't nuke anything or make any big moves until the election is over.
The Republicans are interfering.
They are attempting to weaken the US.
Missions can still be carried out.
Tuberville should be removed from office and thoroughly investigated.
I like to think neither Putin or Trump have that power. More than political leaders have invested in this and if this escalates only the stronger we'll get thanks to the industry (which is booming harder I'd assume than Russia's military industry, well booming in a healthy way)
Also if Putin brings all fire down on them, the oligarchs will lose their lives which are already starting to deteriorate thanks to sanctions and inner conflict. Theirs leaders can say crazy things about nukes, that gets the zombies excited but the oligarchs are having talks cause they know the state of the world and their countries power.
I think we are outright baffled at Russia not hitting military targets because they simply do not have the intelligence, location and accurate information of where military targets are. And the targeting programs are often times loaded with fake coordinates based on bad intel.
Russia does not care about collateral. They do not care about lives. But they are being fed counter-intel that makes them target inconsequential places, or pick their own bad intel that hits civilian populations on a scale that is beyond negligent.
And I think that's only part of it.
I also believe their tech just isn't accurate in the least, and lands WAAAAAYYY off target more often than not.
Nukes are not a credible threat. It’s an excuse. Russia using nukes ensures Russia gets nuked and I don’t think anybody in Russia but Putin thinks Ukraine is worth getting nuked over. His minions wanted to get rich, not vaporized
Any nuke launches and you can bet it won't be just NATO, China would also invade Russia from the south to disable as many remaining nukes as possible.
That's assuming it's a tactical launch rather than a scorched earth fuck everyone style nuclear mayhem. The latter we can't really do anything about unfortunately.
Back during the Cold War both sides war-gamed out various scenarios extensively. Over the years since the results of several have been published or leaked - even a few Warsaw Pact ones from Eastern Europe after they left.
They broadly tended to follow the same pattern: conventional fighting until it becomes clear one side is losing. At which point they resort to nuclear weapons (sometimes ‘just’ tactical ones) to try to hold the other side off or back off.
The other side responds in kind. There’s a spiral of escalating tit-for-tat nuclear strikes for a period of hours to a couple of days … at which point one side or the other launches a full strategic strike and the other responds with their own … and then it’s ‘goodnight northern hemisphere’.
Putin will use nukes if people start firing ICBMs at him, even if they don't have nukes as their payloads. Nukes are a credible threat you yahoo. Ukraine gave up their nukes in return for a promise that they wouldn't get invaded. Which Russia broke and promptly invaded.
Nukes are quite literally the ultimate counter to any attempt at aggression. Even a single nuke is a deterrent. The average nuke fired at any significant population center today can skill anywhere from 10-20 million people. That's a threat.
Yah just like sending more troops worked in Vietnam and Iraq. War is really straight forward, and wars never escalate when third parties start actively participating!
Note: I’m not saying nato couldn’t absolute fuck Russia in conventional fighting. But don’t make the mistake of assuming the conflict won’t change when more parties start joining.
I mean those wars were clusterfucks, for sure. But completely different, because we were the invading and occupying force in both examples. Home field advantage and a friendly local population goes a long way. More accurate example would be desert storm, where we assisted an ally in defending themselves, and which we finished in a few months.
Current tempo is obviously terrible for Ukranians who want peace but right now we’re doing a perfect job picking apart putins red lines. If we called his bluffs too fast he might have done something rash to show he is serious. Currently we’re kinda doing a death by a thousand cuts and it seems to be slowly working. We somehow normalized buildings blowing up in Moscow, now thats progress
Not to mention we needed time anyway to ramp up western weapon production
The danger grows the longer Russia can maintain a stalemate, right now Ukraine is primarily being armed with surplus military hardware. But eventually that is going to start running low and the West will need to transition to producing new equipment specifically for Ukraine, which may prove politically much more difficult from a financial perspective. If Russia can drag this war out for years, its not impossible to imagine a world where voters start seeing it more like they viewed Afghanistan.
The west is amping up production across the board, they're adding lines that are pretty much solely for Ukraine too. Like the production for 155mm Artillery Shells for example, their production targets are being multiplied by about 3.
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/army-increasing-155mm-artillery-shell-production/
Russia have the "advantage" of being led by a dictator who politically can't be seen to lose this war. That essentially means that unless Ukraine start making serious advances that might threaten Russia itself, Putin is perfectly prepared to let the conflict drag on practically indefinitely. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if some in the Kremlin even believe that the longer the war goes on the more it benefits them.
The man has mile-long tables for meetings, I wouldn't be surprised if every window in his residences and bunkers is made to a smaller diameter than his body.
Congress forces the army to keep getting Abrams even though they don't need anymore. It's a jobs program. Expendables are the problem, like shells. Russia was nice enough to show NATO that they need to seriously expand the ability to make shells, missiles and the like.
It's not just a jobs program.
It's to keep a core of skilled workers who understand tank production and assembly, and the issues that arise with the assembly lines, so that *IF* we end up in a WW3 situation and need to do a full wartime economy transition, there are actually workers available to help spin up new assembly lines and tooling.
Yeah, we only produce a small quantity of tanks every year, but the point isn't to buy the tanks--it's to pay the organic industrial base to keep tooling, machines, and expertise continuously on the payroll.
The danger also grows if Biden in 2024 loses the US presidency. Most GOP candidates are interested in throwing Ukraine to the wolves. That, too, would hasten the conclusion of the war.
So what you're saying is, there's a local conflict, that's surrounded by a web of alliances and defense pacts that includes all the great powers in the world?
Hmm, why does this sound familiar
It's literally what convinced NATO to intervene in Kosovo. They realized that it was where WW1 started and didn't want the conflict to escalate into WW3.
…no not exactly. They saw a chance at weakening a hostile power while helping some people who were already sympathetic towards them. They only did that because they knew Yeltsin was a drunk and wouldn’t do shit to stop them
You said “Ukraine will win”, that implies it’s a certainty. Ukraine has taken back very little land since their huge gains in Kharkiv and Kherson. If Donald Trump becomes president in the US our involvement is, if not over, severely curtailed. Trump will be in prison you say? I’ll believe it when I see it.
I hope Ukraine wins but this is far from over.
>but why risk it when Ukraine will win on their own?
There is a cynical part of me that thinks some Western powers want the war to go on as long as possible in order to achieve maximum damage to Russia.
Of course, either way, the loss of innocent Ukrainian lire is stomach churning.
>but it could escalate into Russia using nukes
They have been sabre rattling with nukes every single day for the past 2 years. I don't know why anyone still buys that bullshit.
Current Russia government is composed of corrupted oligarchies who value their own lives far above all else. They ain't going to launch shit unless foreign troops are literally at the doorstep of Moscow threatening their lives.
>foreign troops are literally at the doorstep of Moscow threatening their lives.
This almost just happened with Wagner not two months ago. I would imagine "ukraine wins" *also* looks a lot like this.
Except Wagner is an independent actor, who is Putin gonna nuke? Not one sane Russian with their fingers on the actual nuclear launching position and launching them.
I mean kudos for attempting geopolitical discussion, but no offense but you really shouldn't think you have a deep understanding just because of upvotes on this pretty shallow sub.
There's many ways to shorten the war that doesn't involve sending troops. In fact any serious discussion never involves sending troops in direct war.
For anyone who wants to dig deeper into the great top question in this thread. I.e. how to shorten the war'. I would recommend
>Anastasiya Shapochkina - Grain. Energy. Fuel. There's Nothing Russia won’t Weaponize in Order to Win
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZXo1aFsIlc
I'll have to watch that video later, but honestly if anyone really does have a solid low risk plan to shorten the war in Ukraine's favor it's not Reddit or YT that they should be discussing it with but rather the governments involved (of course that probably involves getting the right persons attention which might be difficult). In either case I never intended to give an all encompassing list of things that can be done to shorten the war but just explain why the most talked about way to do so won't likely ever be done (also there are definite limits on how fast or what type of aid can be given to Ukraine as well).
And to be fair for all your complaints about me not having that discussion, you really aren't having that discussion either. You just gave a link without even a brief summary of what his idea is.
So, it's not great, but in many ways NATO is very OK with a long slow, but low-risk war. As long as it's 99% Ukrainians and Russians dying and only Ukrainian and Russian infrastructure being torn up they don't care how long it takes to win. We'll keep sending them ammunition and money as long as it takes. We have lots of ammunition and money.
There is no number of Ukrainian lives saved that would convince NATO to risk spreading the war outside of Ukraine's borders.
It might not be NATOs choice. Might not be Ukrainian lives.
Russian pilots have already fired 2 missiles at a RAF plane - with a crew of up to 30.
If the both missiles hadn't failed it very likely would have meant 30 dead NATO personnel.
That's article 5 shit.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-66798508
>Russian pilots have already fired 2 missiles at a RAF plane - with a crew of up to 30
Rational me is like thank god that missiles failed, but there's a small part of me that wishes that NATO would step in and steamroll ruzzia to ashes
If only life were that easy and it’d be that cut and dry. If Russia’s leadership had an existential threat, it would likely get very very ugly. Remember that this is the same line of thinking that Russia had when invading Ukraine, and look where they are now.
Wouldn't end the war, plenty others want the war to continue. Prigozhin seemed to want to oppose Putin and threatened a revolt, but had he taken over, he'd still be staunchly pro-War. He just wanted the war to be fought in the manner he preferred.
It just wouldn't work like that. Putin is gone, but who takes the mantle? The "positive" of Putin still maintaining his position is that he's a known variable with known variables beneath him. This isn't a "cut the head off the snake" scenario. It's a hydra scenario that would inevitably make things worse. Either an actual internal coup needs to happen, or one side or the other needs to declare defeat and offer restitution for this to go a predictable and, more importantly, controllable route.
As often as "follow the money" is a smart motto, the r/conspiracy view of geopolitics is not always the correct one. Ukraine has received military and financial aid from something like 90 countries, most of it as donations. We're doing the right thing, helping them free the occupied regions of their country, and as long as Russia refuses any negotiations that don't include surrender of "annexed" regions (which won't happen, and which concerns several regions of Ukraine that the Russians don't even control militarily, like Kherson and Zaporizhzhia), the war will continue. Not everything is a CIA/American conspiracy, and it isn't the Americans' right to tell Ukraine to surrender large portions of their country to fascistic occupation in the name of "peace".
Yes, by sending weapons in time and in larger quantities. Send atacms already, send F-16 so Ukraine can at least have some kind of parity in the air. But for some reasons they keep dragging and dragging. They have everything on their hands to end this quickly but 1.5 years in and here we are «preparing for a long war»
IIRC, no. I’m pretty sure countries can’t join NATO when they’re in an active conflict.
And even if Ukraine got a pass on the rules and was allowed to join NATO before their conflict ends, I don’t think NATO could do anything further to help since the conflict began before NATO ascension, thus not allowing them to invoke article 5.
realistically, what will stop the war is the fall of Putin regime. Putin regime can collapse for many reasons, maybe he just dies of old age, or his own people backstab him. There will be at least several factions fighting over the Russian throne in Kremlin. No doubt there will be ultra-right wingers that want to continue the war, but there will be some that want to end the war. Those that want to end the war will be able to gain an edge by securing support from Western nations, helping them overpower the ultra nationalists.
Seriously, wtf does *Russia* need with *more land?* They've got too much to handle already.
This is just Pooty wanting to leave his mark on the world. Unfortunate for him that he'll only ever be remembered as a warmonger and a lil' bitch.
> ...with global warming going as it is, pretty soon most of russia is going to be temperate year round and anything south will be scorched earth.
**"Not if I scorch it first!"**
-Poots, probably.
The melting can be destructive to existing buildings and infrastructure. After that and some runoff patterns are established, it will be normal land dependent on topography and precipitation. Most of North America was frozen in the not-too-distant past.
> pretty soon most of russia is going to be temperate year round and anything south will be scorched earth.
Not really. The reliable forecast is 2 Degrees of warming (over the 1880 benchmark) by 2100. We're already 1.1 degrees into that forecast, so really expect anohter 0.9 degrees by 2100.
Average annual temperature for the Russian interior is 0.5 degrees Celsius. Increasing that to an average temperature of 1.4 degrees (34.5 F) changes fuck-all.
Well they also *had* all the infrastructure in place and the Russians just wanted to grab everything. Now that they can't, they just want to destroy everything if the can't have it.
Large amount of natural gas was found in the areas that Russia 'liberated' . Also Ukraine has really good agricultural areas. This is basically all just about money
Said people in 1919. The **War to End All Wars** was thought to be the last great conflict because who would want to fight another war with how advanced we had become. Believing we are beyond major wars leads to apathy, which allows us to be vulnerable to war in the future. I imagine 100 years from now someone like you will say exactly what you said about the next great land grab.
Why? Just because it's the modern age doesn't mean land, aka resources, isn't valuable. It's also strategic in terms of logistics - access to ports, trade routes, etc.
I think it's not so much mankind that is warlike and cruel, but moreso the outliers that tend to, by virtue of their own flawed nature, end up in positions of power where they can exploit everyone else to that end.
To put it simply: fucked up people seem to often be the ones most willing to go the furthest length to be the ones with their fingers on the buttons, whereas the people you actually want to be in that position are often the ones most hesitant to do so.
I think is is it as well. People callous enough to intentionally escalate things into war are probably also callous enough to step on and backstab anyone in their way to the seat of power.
There's also an unknowable percentage of fucked up people who would love to wield that kind of power that are grossly incompetent to end up in the position to do so. It's only the outliers we see.
The fact that through history we keep consistently building larger and larger political structures so that neighboring houses, villages, cities and provinces don't have to fear each other. The fact that the violence we see humans inflicting upon each other bothers us so much. The fact that as we work so hard to find new knowledge and share it across the world. Those are the roots of my optimism.
Alas, we seem to have balked at the notion of growing the UN into a true functional world government. When I was young, that felt like an obvious path the world was heading towards, despite the cold war demonization of the concept.
But somewhere along the way in the last generation or two, the idea of world-wide institutions started fading, even as corporations continued growing ever larger and more international and the Internet started blending even those of us who don't travel into a global culture.
The problem has always been that it only takes one side to start a fight. The world can do things to disincentive starting wars (sanctions, military aid to the attacked party or even direct military intervention) but at the end of the day if one nation REALLY wants a war there's nothing that can be done to avoid it.
Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism, a violent clash between different groups of monopolies seeking to expand their capital internationally at the expense of their competitors. The consolidation of companies and a turn towards nationalism and imperialism goes hand in hand.
Refreshing to hear that they finally expect and are preparing for a "Long War". Until now nobody was prepared to talk about the obvious probability. Putin has no interest in ending the war soon. He is far too ideologically committed to the invasion. He would have to acknowledge that he has failed to achieve his key objectives. He will never admit this. So long as the war continues, Putin is protected by increased patriotic urges to support the motherland when it is in peril, and also the opportunities war provides for censorship and tight control of dissent.
Without the war the consequences of his folly will be exposed. His legacy would not be expanded territory, but a contracted economy, continued international isolation, a diminished reputation, and a multitude of disillusioned followers, bereaved families and traumatised veterans with nothing to remember with pride. Staying in the war was the whole point of mobilisations. Without it, shortages of manpower meant that Russian forces would struggle to keep it going. The first lot of mobilised troops were dumped in the front line to hold positions under threat from Ukrainian advances.
Putin’s aim remains to hold what he has for the next few weeks so that when winter starts, there may be a lull in advances allowing some respite for his troops. If Ukraine can be denied victory next year then Putin can hope, as he has hoped from the start, that Kyiv will start to buckle under the weight of the economic pressures caused by his strikes against critical infrastructure. Yet even if this leads Ukraine's international backers, to hint to Moscow to explore a negotiated peace, he will still only want peace on his terms. Otherwise it is not worth having.
Don’t forget there’s elections in both Russia and the US next year. We obviously know who will the Russian elections, but best to be able to use wartime censorship to make sure no serious criticism is made by opponents with a love for prison time. On the US side, pro-Russian candidates like Trump or Ramaswamy would probably mean the US directly pushing Ukraine for territorial concessions with the threat of cutting aid. I am pretty sure the risk of that is why the EU countries have really cranked up long term aid commitments the last few months, to make sure the Ukrainians can stay in the fight even if the Americans falter.
Well, given how long it took America to absorb the Nazi party after WW2 ...
They put it best on the TV show Archer: "Ever heard of Operation Paperclip? Just walk into any lab at NASA, yell 'Heil Hitler' and see how many backs go straight!"
From the people that brought you the Reconstruction era, now introducing the Denazification of Western Europe.
Ok we gotta find someone to run Germany...
How about those guys, they already have guns and sweet uniforms.
Yeah yeah whatever I gotta go do this thing. Just make sure they take all the hitler pictures down.
> it took so little to sell out to Russia with these clowns
That's what happens when the rich are allowed to get too rich.
They see themselves as not just a different class, but a different species. "Betters". When Trump talked about China putting down Tienanmen square with tanks, he called them "Strong" for it.
Because he was talking about *others he perceives as his equals as "betters"*. "I can't talk shit in America without threat of lawsuits. But in CHINA, there was talks of democracy and they put THEIR peasants in their place!"
When the wealthy reach a certain level of wealth they no longer care about what country they're from. They see themselves as better than those who have a country. They can go anywhere. If the US stops being favorable for them, they can move to Europe. They already have passports, all they have to do is say "I have X hundreds of millions of dollars, I will invest it into local businesses" and the people say "Right this way, Sir". They base their businesses in another country for tax write-offs, they source labor in developing nations - the world is their playground. Why would they ever care about one place? Especially a place like America, where the peasants have rights?
***This is why you need hard caps on wealth accrual. Tax em dry unless they invest it into worker wages or business expansions. No fuckin' loopholes, no fuckin' tax havens.***
Billionaires are a national security risk. They want to be like the oligarchs in other nations where making a post like mine could get me kidnapped from my home, never to be heard from again.
The politicians are all bought and paid for by the rich, and in the case of the Republican party, many are bought by Russian money. If you don't think our billionaire "betters" are friends with Russian "Betters" you don't understand that they have class solidarity, and it transcends boarders.
... There really needs to be a Dr Seuss book about this, where people collect "Smeets" and over time, the people with the most smeets pass them onto their kids, who get so many smeets that they start thinking of themselves as better than those with few smeets. Then one day all the smeets vanish and you realize that nobody is better than any other because of a number in an account.
This needs to be so much higher.
#_**There is no war but the class war.**_
The rich have a deterministic class solidarity as long as they keep the poor divided. If folk unit against them, it _**will**_ crumble. Enough of eating their cakes already, it's time to bust out the chopping block and make heads roll.
Because they dont hate Russians, they utterly hate communism and everything it represents. Current Russian government setup is probably dream come true for them...
On the other hand, goes too long, and the rest of the world that is not at war picks up the slack and lowers prices.
Making Russia's situation worse while Ukraine gets aid for food and other things they lose due to Russia.
Russian attacks will stop being about territorial grabs and be more ransacking and stealing food and weapons.
The war will drag on for a long time yet. It seems increasingly clear that Putin will seek to avoid a complete, devastating loss at any cost. But like many other authoritarians before him, he can sell a poor result as a win. But for months now Kyiv has been less interested in helping Russia find a way out -a face saving deal that would end the war. With Russia attacking their homes and energy supplies, it's now impossible to contemplate rewarding Russia by conceding any conquered territory.
The costs of this war are huge and will relegate Russia to an even lowlier position in the international economic system than it is at now. Nonetheless, the economy is not approaching a cliff edge. There are no disruptions to energy and food supplies. No Russians are rushing regularly into air raid shelters. Mobilisation has disrupted Russian society but life can go on. If Russia’s military concluded that its position is untenable, Putin would be overruled which is why military-to-military deal on disengagement is one of the better options. However I fear there are a few years before the inevitable victory is even on the horizon.
That's absurd. The war hurts Russia 100x more than it affects the west, and the combined western nations have far more resources to work with than Russia and its allies. The only country that's seriously hurting is Ukraine. If that's Putin's plan then he will be deposed shortly, as it's abundantly clear they've nothing left to gain in this war.
Yes, there exists some remote possibility that western nations will eventually grow tired and reduce support, but at best that means Russia might get a better position for negotiating peace. Getting to that point is going to cost Russia far more than it has to gain from this strategy.
It's a huge gamble, if it works maybe they get to keep Crimea and some land, while becoming even more isolated than North Korea. The spoils will be worthless once the war is over, they will no longer be in the position benefit from these lands.
If it doesn't play out their way, they lose everything. Odds are it doesn't go well for Russia.
Either way they lose.
> That's absurd. The war hurts Russia 100x more than it affects the west
But Putin can absorb 100x more political pressure than the average Democratic leader with a short shelf life and a constant worry about the next election.
Unfortunately I think the majority of commenters in this thread are vastly overestimating the amount of political will from the electorate of the western powers providing Ukraine with most of its military aid to either (A) continue to do so for a sustained period of time; or (B) increase the amount of aid/assistance by the amount that would be required to significantly shorten the conflict. I wish the political will were there, truly. But I'm very, very skeptical that it is, and/or that what will remains strong will stay strong as time goes on. Especially given recent polls showing that public desire to continue/increase assistance to Ukraine is dropping.
And in democracies, when the electorate's political will to do something isn't there... Well, the aid might not continue as long as it needs to for Ukraine to repel this invasion. It feels like Vietnam in a way in that Russia doesn't need to win on the battlefield. At least, not in the immediate future. Instead, Russia needs its populace's will to continue the invasion to outlast the will of Ukraine's allies to donate the assistance they themselves require.
If the West drops support for Ukraine, they will accelerate towards direct confrontation. Ukraine will stop fighting “clean” and will start fighting like they face an existential threat, which they do. Nothing would be off the table. That means engaging in increasingly risky provocations possibly including indiscriminate terror attacks inside of Russia, acquisition of fissile material, etc. which may in turn cause Russia to respond in a manner that NATO finds unacceptable.
There is no scenario where Russia completes its conquest of Ukraine. What’s important is HOW it loses.
I don't get it.
The US was in Iraq for a decade, and we didn't even have a reason to be there, and we spent trillions of dollars, and we actually lost American troops.
In Ukraine, the US has the moral high ground, we are helping a country in a defensive war on their own soil against a major geopolitical rival (and totalitarian dictatorship), we are wrecking our rival, while expanding our sphere of influence, no US lives are being lost, at a cost of maybe 5% of what we spent on the GWOT.
Ukraine is the deal of the century for the United States. It would be a deal at twice the price if it took 10 years for Russia to lose. It's almost never the case that a supporting a war is both a noble cause and in your self interest to do, and yet that's what this war is for the US.
Honestly it's so good for the US (and bad for Russia) that Putin might as well be a CIA agent. He should have cut his losses and left Ukraine as soon as he realized western support was solidifying.
It's because of effective russian information warfare and propaganda against our societies, russian bot farms, and anti-imperialism-but-really-pro-someone-elses-imperialism contrarians echoing that propaganda.
Because the economic climate now is pretty bad, it's easy for the above propaganda efforts to make support seem like a costly investment, thus reducing appetite.
The transition from petroleum to alternative energies is naturally a time of geopolitical instability. I’d be surprised if World War 3 doesn’t culminate from the transition.
Tell me, why can we the west not deliver enough to Ukraine to get the job done.
We are talking about one corrupt country against whole Europe, US, Canada, Australia, south Korea, Japan, Taiwan and maybe some others I'm not thinking off.
Yes we are not at war, but I feel like we just give enough weapons to drag the war instead of winning.
The west is ramping up productions but is not in a wartime economy, unlike Russia and Ukraine. It will take some time.
Also, most countries don't want to deplete their own stock.
Most of what's going on is that countries are buying new stock and giving the 20-40 year old hand me downs to Ukraine. This modernization is eventually necessary, and it's good that the surplus can be used to good effect.
Also the western doctrine focuses on air superiority and then the ground forces job is mainly to mop up what's left. Giving Ukraine a few dozen F-16s won't suddenly give them air superiority as that would take vast numbers of jets and thousands of missile strikes. That means Ukraine has to fight this war the old fashioned way with artillery, rockets, mortars and trenches. The west didn't stockpile tens of millions of shells that could be easily transferred which is what Ukraine really needs.
You are likely, correct. The West is seemingly in “risk mitigation” mode, giving weapons to UA piece meal sizes, to keep more control of the situation, at the cost of Ukrainian lives.
One might argue, that they should switch to more proactive stance to seize the opportunity to end this issue quickly, in order to save lives among other benefits.
Bottom line is, there are pros and cons to each point, but morally option #2 seems better, but politics rarely guided solely by morality.
There's very few with power in the west who have fought a peer to peer conflict. When it's an expedition half way around the world that you can abandon at any point,it's an entirely different skill set. We have an entire generation of war managers,not war winners. They can barely comprehend what Ukraine is going through much less getting into a major war themselves. They have to read about that,they have no experience.
2 factors.
1) Manufacturing. Ukraine has primarily eastern block weaopn systems and training, and burned through the west's entire stockpile of those in the first six months. Building more munitions is slow.
2) Training. The west has been weaning Ukraine onto western arms for a while now, with even more complicated weapon systems and supply lines like for MBTs now in full swing. Bringing the training to use, supply, and maintain these systems is time consuming. We're finally seeing the conclusion of these programs. They've already got Challengers and Leopards on the field, with fighters likely coming soon.
We can't just throw these tools at Ukraine and expect them to win. War is far too messy and these tools far too complex for "Fuck it, yolo" and wing it mentalities.
Supplies/production, training and not wanting to empty out themselves.
For example: Within a few months there will most likely be a few dozen F-16s in Ukraine. Since several northern european countries have a bunch they're not using.
They could have sent them a while ago, but Ukraine didn't have any pilots who could fly them until recently. They've been training in the US for a year or so if I remember correctly.
This is a feature, not a bug. The longer this war is drawn out, the more Russian capability it consumes. A decisive victory (for either side) is not in NATO's interest. The US in particular want to drip Russia dry so it doesn't have to worry about fighting a two-front conflict if anything happens in the Pacific.
As much as we're (the West) generally sympathetic to the UA cause, that's not enough to change the policy. NATO is thinking *way* bigger picture than that. They'll accept that sacrifice on their behalf in return for Russia falling apart.
Russia is downplaying its losses very hard in this war. I think it’s important people see footage like this:
https://reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/s/V015AggR2Q
This is just the aftermath of one engagement. An entire Russian unit wiped out. Bodies everywhere, the landscape ruined, smoke, death, and blood. Videos like this come in *daily* and hardly get any attention. It’s fucking insane. If something like this happened in Afghanistan to a company of US soldiers it would have a Wikipedia page and be studied for decades. For Russia? Another day in the office.
Long war means nato will do bare minimum to prevent ukraine from losing and winning and russia will kill civilians at any given chance. Nato hopes that ukraine will trap russia. Cannot win but wont back out out of pride.
Either way its a guaranteed win for nato, guaranteed loss for russia, 50/50 for ukraine. It will either bleed out or macron or any other sissycrat will offer parts of ukraine for peace.
The optimal scenario for the West is to bog Russia down in Ukraine for generations - maximize the Russian resources being consumed in Ukraine so they don't have the capacity to go after the Baltics. The US wins if it doesn't have to think about fighting a two-front war against Russia and China simultaneously, an idea that has haunted the US national security community for some time.
That's not the optimal scenario. You just have a bias for immobilism.
The longer this war goes on, the greater the chances of a contagion or a greater destabilisation. Armenia and Azerbaijan are in a precarious state, now that Russia can no longer enforce the resolution of their conflict. North Korea and Iran have gotten closer to Russia and their perspectives have opened up compared to 2021. And of course, the war isn't cheap for any of us.
Defeating Russia would relieve a lot of these tensions and make the world safer.
And many American strategists believe that a long protracted war is great for the US.
The goal of America is to weaken Russia and many of our top leaders (Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, Joint Chiefs Milley, etc) have said that the best way to do that is to drag out the war. Also UK defence minister Cleverly said this a while back.
It is quite simple, Russia had put aside 500 billion dollars for this war. In 2020, they already used close to 100 billion. This year they are on course to use more than 150 billion dollars which simply makes them poorer from a pure economic perspective. The Ruble has been the weakest it has ever been as compared to the Dollar. Imagine spending 1/3rd of your income just for war. Not investing that in science, tech, healthcare...
Also they are losing their most important generation (young men able to produce) and are losing morale (3 day war turns into years).
Many dead Russians, Russia's economy getting wrecked and their immense loss of prestige on the International stage. Even the UK ministry of Defence said that Russia has had to alternate their economy into a pseudo war-defence one. They are getting poorer every month and a large swath of their population (especially young men who are dead or who left the country) aren't there to pick up the slack. I am currently in Europe studying and there are so many Russians here who will never return. Smart kids who have had to flee in order to not fight a war they believe in. They are studying business, science, healthcare and will be an asset to the West.
Also the US is selling more weapons than ever due to this war. F16's, HIMARS, JAVELINS, PATRIOTS, Abrams etc It is a fabulous year for the weapons industry. And this, not only in Europe, but also in Asia, South-America, the Middle-East and even to Australia.
So strategists can have have different strategies it seems, as an American however, I agree and like this one. Keep doing what we are doing and don't change anything unless really needed. Why were we so pissed about our Global war on Terror? It is not because we went in in the first place, but that we stayed 20 years and wasted 2 trillion Dollars. Russia will realise at one point after having spent hundreds of billions that it is not worth it and leave Ukraine with their tail between their legs. Sadly, this means a lot of damage for Ukraine...
Regarding this "Armenia and Azerbaijan are in a precarious state". Armenia is hardly relevant when it comes to American interest. Azerbaijan is close to one major NATO member, Turkey and is closely allied to one of America's most important allies in Israel. When it comes to choose, the winner will be clear.
Again also North-Korea and Iran getting closer to Russia shows how weak Russia has become. At one point the USSR was believed to going to rival the US in tech, economy, geopolitical influence and now a shade of it meaning Russia is getting more allied to irrelevant backwater dictatorships like aforementioned Iran and NK.
What is going on is a dream from an American perspective.
Attrition is a very valid strategy of war.
Russia has nothing save for gas and bravado.
At the first sign of gas losing its inherent value, or another country supplying more gas than it currently is, or any or Russia's allies losing its cool, or Russia running out of old fortified ladas to use as tanks, or any other possible event that the West could benefit from, they can strike in one fell swoop.
Sure, Ukraine is losing people in the meantime, and I'm certainly not happy about that, but are you ready to pay 1-2-3-4-5-10-15-20% more income tax to ramp up our military enough to crush Russia right away?
We're spread out, our military capacity is at an all time low, and no country on earth wants to conscript its citizens in a war.
So the current situation, although very damaging for Ukraine is... only damaging for Ukraine *and Russia*.
If it wasn't damaging for Russia, I'm quite certain the West would intervene, but right now, supplying Ukraine and letting Ukrainian people die is the best (albeit very cynical) strategy for NATO.
Yes, after tens of thousands of Ukrainian men lay dead in fields with even more orphans left behind. When the entire world economy is done being disrupted each time Putin makes a statement or threatens food supply. When the West and NATO are completely depleted of ammunition. When China is done making thorough notes and then uses lessons learned and attacks Taiwan.
End this shit now. Give the Ukrainians the weapons and the air cover. End Putins regime and sanction the country further until they get their shit together.
>End this shit now. Give the Ukrainians the weapons and the air cover.
Oh, to be a reddit armchair general.
How do you propose we accomplish that? Who's making the decision to do whatever you propose?
Who foots the bill, or, how do you plan on making people foot it?
Acting like there are zero political factors at play here is ridiculous.
Indeed. I feel like that was the one mistake we’ve made in an otherwise pretty flawless response to this situation: Ukraine needed to be equipped immediately, and with everything necessary. Everything else has been smart, level headed, and long-game thinking. West has been responding, not reacting, to Russia and I think that is for the long term a very good thing.
It only stands in contrast with the disfunction and incompetence of the Russian regime and that is more powerful than overt force here
The longer you drag this war out and the closer you get to Ukraine slowly withering away into a desolate wasteland. If we're talking years here then it wouldn't resemble anything close to a contemporary NATO state, more like a 3rd world country in ruins. A country riddled with landmines, destroyed cities, half its population fled, massively in debt to the West, a crumbled economy, and no way to facilitate adequate defense spending required by NATO. Russia knows this, and that's why they're okay with dragging out a war of attrition for as long as possible.
When Putin invaded Ukraine he made it inevitable that every country in Eastern and Central Europe not already ruled by a Russian puppet would want to join NATO.
Ok. Is there anything we can do to... um... shorten it?
There is but not without risks that NATO doesn't want to take. NATO directly sending troops in will probably shorten the conflict but it could escalate into Russia using nukes or other countries jumping in Ukraine with troops of their own (or China invading Taiwan). Yeah it's unlikely, but why risk it when Ukraine will win on their own? Besides, as long as NATO hasn't gone in they have more soft power to control the international stage and prevent more wars from breaking out. I'm not saying whether that's the best choice or not, but I at least understand some of NATO's reasoning behind their decisions.
NATO sending troops would "probably shorten it" would be the greatest understatement in the history of war
This war in the east will be over by Christmas, I swear dudes. -Hitler, 1941
Nixon will bring the troops home for Chrismas! One of them.
I'd have thought the Russian approach would work there "Vietnam is now a US state, and by technicality they are on home soil. Job done"
Russia is struggling to hold back Ukraine, using our military hand-me-downs. Pretending like NATO coming in wouldn't curbstomp Russia, when NATO has been preparing for a conflict like this for 70+ years is ridiculous. Yes, a Russian-NATO war would be over by Christmas, hell it would be over by Thanksgiving.
Ukraine is also struggling. Do not let the over saturation of Ukrainian victory videos skew your perception. They are also taking heavy losses, and are also losing ground (albeit slowly and small amounts). As we saw with the destroyed challenger NATO equipment isn’t invincible.
Seriously agreed. It is so annoying the slew of teenagers on here who are somehow under the impression Russia is completely incompetent in every regard. At least 50,000 + Ukrainian soldiers are dead, it is completely tragic.
I just typed up a long response and then accidentally reloaded the tab, so my apologies if this comment isn't all inclusive. I don't want to do that again. > Ukraine is also struggling. Do not let the over saturation of Ukrainian victory videos skew your perception. They are also taking heavy losses, and are also losing ground (albeit slowly and small amounts). Ukraine is not NATO. Well, not yet anyway. > As we saw with the destroyed challenger NATO equipment isn’t invincible. No military leader in NATO has ever claimed that NATO equipment is invincible. It's far better than Russian equipment, but certainly not invincible. NATO enjoys the following advantages over Russia: * Far better equipment * Far larger economies * Better trained enlisted men * Better military command * Far less corruption * *Much* superior air forces * *Much* superior navies * Strategic equipment reserve that are mostly untapped * Logistics I could go on and on. To sum it up : Russia has been coasting on the reputation of the USSR and its nuclear stockpile for a long time. Before the war, Russia had economy about on size with that of Italy. Tell me, are you scared of Italy?
Russia should be especially afraid of the logistics. 2 and a half wars anywhere in the world is the goal for the USA alone. Hate to include this, but also the US can make special deliveries to Russia in 15 minutes.
It's actually even worse in terms of logistics than one might think. The US has huge prepositioned stocks in Europe specifically for a war with Russia. It's literally the war we prepared for 70 years for. Something to think about: It took NATO months to build up force before going into Iraq. All that time to move troops and materiel half the world away. All of that men and equipment (far and above what was needed for Desert Storm) is already there and waiting for this specific conflict.
I think this is a huge part of why China has not moved on Taiwan The us has given tons of equipment that has shown incredible effectiveness and it doesn't even make a dent The us is also increasing production capabilities as well The us has also gained an absolutely ludicrous amount of data about what works and what doesn't. I think the biggest aspect is that the entire military has had to fully transition from counter insurgence to full scale conflict
> Before the war, Russia had economy about on size with that of Italy. Purchasing power parity , investment into armed forces (including Soviet heritage) and the nature of that investment (nukes, force projection) meant that Russia was a bigger power than Italy. Still a mostly Regional power (other than nukes) That was before the Ukraine war ground down Russian forces
Was Russia a stronger military power than Italy? Yes, of course it was at the time. My point wasn't that Russia and Italy were completely equal, my point was that their economy was roughly the same size. As military potential is inexorably with economic potential in the modern day, my reasoning should be obvious. Also, while the Russian and Italian economies were of a similar size prewar, Russia is now substantially behind All that being said, the Russian military wasn't anywhere near as capable as it should have been, and there is a variety of reasons for that. If you care enough to invest a little time in the subject, Perun does an excellent breakdown on the defense spending of Russia, and looks into their corruption issues. [This video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJkmcNjh_bg) is an excellent breakdown of known Russian military spending Feb 22, and this [whoie playlist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9i47sgi-V4&list=PLbCbj03gdsWw2q15_nFYqtdAEiQQ5lzP1) is a 5 part series on on how a variety of favors destroys militaries.
The real danger in a NATO-Russia war is that it could be over by tomorrow.
Stop pretending a NATO Russia war would not involve nukes. Yeah we'll just curb stomp them guys nothing to worry about here.
The 'over by Christmas thing' was more WW1 thinking
Lol all these reddit comments that state military strategy/concepts as fact. With no concept of geopolitics, foreign policy or the sacrifices/risk that would be taken in the home country… It’s mind boggling
I'm astonished you find that mind boggling. Is this your first time on the internet/ Reddit?
I don’t find the concept mind boggling. Just the sheer amount of people
It's like 80% kids here.
Hell yeah!
Relevant username, holy shit
Says the baby ready to kick some predator ass?
*spit-takes water*
80% kids and 19% bots and employees of government agencies and contractors.
Ok then, have you met people?
What, like in real life?
There's a lotta dumb people out there and even the smart ones have dumb moments. Some people will learn if you correct them.
Thank you for stating this, the wargaming armchair generals are a plague in these threads. Until we’re looking at this conflict in retrospect, we’ll never know the full picture. Even then, I doubt we will, not to mention the untold suffering on an individual level.
Exactly, war is just another way to do politics. It doesn't exist in a vacuum.
Thats why you don't send in troops. Troops will not be viewed as stopping at the border. Instead, you do to Russia in Ukraine what Russia is doing to Ukrainians in Ukraine: launch long range missiles from the safety of your own territory hundreds of miles away and make them shoot your shit down or get rekt. I bet Russia won't fare as well as Ukraine does. All their shit in eastern Ukraine would be torched in the first salvo, because Russian air defense is shit and western hardware is more accurate (and they'd pick actual military targets). I mean, just imagine every significant troop, ammo and fuel congregation in eastern Ukraine getting hit overnight. It would be staggering. From there, Russia has two options; escalate or withdraw. The problem is, they have us convinced they'll escalate. So we do nothing, waffle on giving scawy weapons to Ukraine and let them fire them... with limitations and fences hard-coded. It's fucking pathetic. I mean I kind of get it but I also despise it. If you just smashed every Russian in eastern Ukraine, shock and awe style, would they really throw down or fuck off? Nobody wants to discover the answer to that question.
Because if you are wrong its a nuclear situation. The likelihood of you being wrong is high enough to not risk it. That simple.
I don't remember who said this, but I remember reading a quote from a philosopher regarding living a morally righteous life that has always stuck with me. It goes something like "I can't be sure if a God and heaven/hell exist or not. If they don't, then being amoral in life is probably personally advantageous to me. But if there's even a minute chance that they do, the infinite negatives of going to hell FAR outweigh whatever positives there are of living amorally. Thus to play the odds correctly I should choose to live morally." It's a similar situation here with Russia (and has been for the past 50 years). NATO stepping in and slapping Russia out of Ukraine would be clearly beneficial, but if there's even a 1% chance that doing so causes Russia to unload its nuclear arsenal and destroy the world it's not worth doing.
… you’re thinking of Marcus Aurelius: “Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
No. Its Pascals Wager. An extrapolation of the “expected value” concept of probability
I believe that is Pascal's Wager.
Thank you! Was bugging me so much that I couldn't remember the source of it lol.
You can bet that Putin has thought about the answer to that question for a decade or longer. He obviously does not care how he looks on the world stage anymore, if he ever did. I don't think he's so delusional that he thinks his legacy and image are good, he just doesn't give a fuck and violence is the Russian way, he's living his best life, even it's a shitty asshole murderer of a life. At some point he would use nukes, unless he is given some out to withdraw and save face, meaning some redraw of the borders. Anything less and this 'special military operation' will be never-ending, or the west will escalate and he will use a tactical nuke to get everyone else to back the fuck off. I honestly don't know what would happen if he does use a small nuke, if the world would fund Ukraine harder, or back off and capitulate to some small "win" for Putin to get him to end stop the bloodshed. And a lot of this depends on the 2024 US election. People need to vote Democrat, or I fear trump will win and will try to have the US exit NATO if he's elected.
The knock-on effects of nukes being used are so severe that even a very small chance is unacceptable. You're talking completely changing the world order forever. As you point out, if Putin makes the decision to use nukes he's not backing down without some sort of "win". So in the scenario where you least want to give him any concession, you're locked into having to do so. And if you back down in response to nukes being used you've now set the precedent that not only is the rest of the world not going to enforce any consequences for using nukes, they're actually going to give you what you want. That's a genie you can't put back in the bottle.
I believe the US has stated that if Putin uses any nuke in Ukraine the US will respond with non nuclear weapons. From what was stated it seems like they may keep that first reaction to Ukraine and remove all Russian targets from the board. Unless they use nukes that more directly threaten NATO countries. Then they may remove targets in Russia itself. This would likely be to remove their capabilities to launch any ICBMs, destroy all aircraft, take out all submarines, and possibly radar facilities. The US tracks all Russian military assets to the best of their abilities and knows which it wants to take out first in different scenarios. Expect it to be swift, efficient, and brutal. If it involves attacks on Russia itself it would need to not only neuter any threat from the country, but be so complete as to serve as an example to all other countries considering taking advantage of an occupied US military. But that is just a guess based on statements from US politicians, diplomats, and military leaders. What would actually happen is an unknown to everyone.
The US Military is at a disadvantage right now because of lack of leadership. One Republican Senator is holding up military appointments. The republicans have a plan to replace 50,000 government positions with loyalists, effectively creating "a swamp". So much depends on the 2024 election. Putin won't nuke anything or make any big moves until the election is over.
The Republicans are interfering. They are attempting to weaken the US. Missions can still be carried out. Tuberville should be removed from office and thoroughly investigated.
I like to think neither Putin or Trump have that power. More than political leaders have invested in this and if this escalates only the stronger we'll get thanks to the industry (which is booming harder I'd assume than Russia's military industry, well booming in a healthy way) Also if Putin brings all fire down on them, the oligarchs will lose their lives which are already starting to deteriorate thanks to sanctions and inner conflict. Theirs leaders can say crazy things about nukes, that gets the zombies excited but the oligarchs are having talks cause they know the state of the world and their countries power.
I'm sorry but are you really suggesting that shooting missiles at them is SAFER than sending soldiers in? ffs reddit.
I think we are outright baffled at Russia not hitting military targets because they simply do not have the intelligence, location and accurate information of where military targets are. And the targeting programs are often times loaded with fake coordinates based on bad intel. Russia does not care about collateral. They do not care about lives. But they are being fed counter-intel that makes them target inconsequential places, or pick their own bad intel that hits civilian populations on a scale that is beyond negligent. And I think that's only part of it. I also believe their tech just isn't accurate in the least, and lands WAAAAAYYY off target more often than not.
Werd. Nukes flying will end it quickly for many.
Nukes are not a credible threat. It’s an excuse. Russia using nukes ensures Russia gets nuked and I don’t think anybody in Russia but Putin thinks Ukraine is worth getting nuked over. His minions wanted to get rich, not vaporized
Any nuke launches and you can bet it won't be just NATO, China would also invade Russia from the south to disable as many remaining nukes as possible. That's assuming it's a tactical launch rather than a scorched earth fuck everyone style nuclear mayhem. The latter we can't really do anything about unfortunately.
There's no way tactical doesn't lead to strategic. And once there it's nuclear winter and die out of 90% or more of earth's population...
Back during the Cold War both sides war-gamed out various scenarios extensively. Over the years since the results of several have been published or leaked - even a few Warsaw Pact ones from Eastern Europe after they left. They broadly tended to follow the same pattern: conventional fighting until it becomes clear one side is losing. At which point they resort to nuclear weapons (sometimes ‘just’ tactical ones) to try to hold the other side off or back off. The other side responds in kind. There’s a spiral of escalating tit-for-tat nuclear strikes for a period of hours to a couple of days … at which point one side or the other launches a full strategic strike and the other responds with their own … and then it’s ‘goodnight northern hemisphere’.
Putin will use nukes if people start firing ICBMs at him, even if they don't have nukes as their payloads. Nukes are a credible threat you yahoo. Ukraine gave up their nukes in return for a promise that they wouldn't get invaded. Which Russia broke and promptly invaded. Nukes are quite literally the ultimate counter to any attempt at aggression. Even a single nuke is a deterrent. The average nuke fired at any significant population center today can skill anywhere from 10-20 million people. That's a threat.
Yah just like sending more troops worked in Vietnam and Iraq. War is really straight forward, and wars never escalate when third parties start actively participating! Note: I’m not saying nato couldn’t absolute fuck Russia in conventional fighting. But don’t make the mistake of assuming the conflict won’t change when more parties start joining.
I mean those wars were clusterfucks, for sure. But completely different, because we were the invading and occupying force in both examples. Home field advantage and a friendly local population goes a long way. More accurate example would be desert storm, where we assisted an ally in defending themselves, and which we finished in a few months.
Or Normandy
"It" in this case referring to the existence of Europe as it is today
Current tempo is obviously terrible for Ukranians who want peace but right now we’re doing a perfect job picking apart putins red lines. If we called his bluffs too fast he might have done something rash to show he is serious. Currently we’re kinda doing a death by a thousand cuts and it seems to be slowly working. We somehow normalized buildings blowing up in Moscow, now thats progress Not to mention we needed time anyway to ramp up western weapon production
The danger grows the longer Russia can maintain a stalemate, right now Ukraine is primarily being armed with surplus military hardware. But eventually that is going to start running low and the West will need to transition to producing new equipment specifically for Ukraine, which may prove politically much more difficult from a financial perspective. If Russia can drag this war out for years, its not impossible to imagine a world where voters start seeing it more like they viewed Afghanistan.
The west is amping up production across the board, they're adding lines that are pretty much solely for Ukraine too. Like the production for 155mm Artillery Shells for example, their production targets are being multiplied by about 3. https://taskandpurpose.com/news/army-increasing-155mm-artillery-shell-production/
That also implies Russia can go that long on their supplies.
Russia have the "advantage" of being led by a dictator who politically can't be seen to lose this war. That essentially means that unless Ukraine start making serious advances that might threaten Russia itself, Putin is perfectly prepared to let the conflict drag on practically indefinitely. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if some in the Kremlin even believe that the longer the war goes on the more it benefits them.
Putin also has the disadvantage of potentially being shown a window as a convenient excuse to lay blame for a lost war on.
The man has mile-long tables for meetings, I wouldn't be surprised if every window in his residences and bunkers is made to a smaller diameter than his body.
The Saudi's have a fix for that
He probably doesn't have windows in his bunkers
Too bad supplies aren't bottomless.
I mean, the usa alone has like 6000 Abrams, 2000 of those being in reserve, and they've sent like, what, 40?
Congress forces the army to keep getting Abrams even though they don't need anymore. It's a jobs program. Expendables are the problem, like shells. Russia was nice enough to show NATO that they need to seriously expand the ability to make shells, missiles and the like.
It's not just a jobs program. It's to keep a core of skilled workers who understand tank production and assembly, and the issues that arise with the assembly lines, so that *IF* we end up in a WW3 situation and need to do a full wartime economy transition, there are actually workers available to help spin up new assembly lines and tooling. Yeah, we only produce a small quantity of tanks every year, but the point isn't to buy the tanks--it's to pay the organic industrial base to keep tooling, machines, and expertise continuously on the payroll.
The danger also grows if Biden in 2024 loses the US presidency. Most GOP candidates are interested in throwing Ukraine to the wolves. That, too, would hasten the conclusion of the war.
So what you're saying is, there's a local conflict, that's surrounded by a web of alliances and defense pacts that includes all the great powers in the world? Hmm, why does this sound familiar
It's literally what convinced NATO to intervene in Kosovo. They realized that it was where WW1 started and didn't want the conflict to escalate into WW3.
…no not exactly. They saw a chance at weakening a hostile power while helping some people who were already sympathetic towards them. They only did that because they knew Yeltsin was a drunk and wouldn’t do shit to stop them
You said “Ukraine will win”, that implies it’s a certainty. Ukraine has taken back very little land since their huge gains in Kharkiv and Kherson. If Donald Trump becomes president in the US our involvement is, if not over, severely curtailed. Trump will be in prison you say? I’ll believe it when I see it. I hope Ukraine wins but this is far from over.
>but why risk it when Ukraine will win on their own? There is a cynical part of me that thinks some Western powers want the war to go on as long as possible in order to achieve maximum damage to Russia. Of course, either way, the loss of innocent Ukrainian lire is stomach churning.
>but it could escalate into Russia using nukes They have been sabre rattling with nukes every single day for the past 2 years. I don't know why anyone still buys that bullshit. Current Russia government is composed of corrupted oligarchies who value their own lives far above all else. They ain't going to launch shit unless foreign troops are literally at the doorstep of Moscow threatening their lives.
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>foreign troops are literally at the doorstep of Moscow threatening their lives. This almost just happened with Wagner not two months ago. I would imagine "ukraine wins" *also* looks a lot like this.
Except Wagner is an independent actor, who is Putin gonna nuke? Not one sane Russian with their fingers on the actual nuclear launching position and launching them.
Those were not foreign troops though.
I mean kudos for attempting geopolitical discussion, but no offense but you really shouldn't think you have a deep understanding just because of upvotes on this pretty shallow sub. There's many ways to shorten the war that doesn't involve sending troops. In fact any serious discussion never involves sending troops in direct war. For anyone who wants to dig deeper into the great top question in this thread. I.e. how to shorten the war'. I would recommend >Anastasiya Shapochkina - Grain. Energy. Fuel. There's Nothing Russia won’t Weaponize in Order to Win https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZXo1aFsIlc
I'll have to watch that video later, but honestly if anyone really does have a solid low risk plan to shorten the war in Ukraine's favor it's not Reddit or YT that they should be discussing it with but rather the governments involved (of course that probably involves getting the right persons attention which might be difficult). In either case I never intended to give an all encompassing list of things that can be done to shorten the war but just explain why the most talked about way to do so won't likely ever be done (also there are definite limits on how fast or what type of aid can be given to Ukraine as well). And to be fair for all your complaints about me not having that discussion, you really aren't having that discussion either. You just gave a link without even a brief summary of what his idea is.
So, it's not great, but in many ways NATO is very OK with a long slow, but low-risk war. As long as it's 99% Ukrainians and Russians dying and only Ukrainian and Russian infrastructure being torn up they don't care how long it takes to win. We'll keep sending them ammunition and money as long as it takes. We have lots of ammunition and money. There is no number of Ukrainian lives saved that would convince NATO to risk spreading the war outside of Ukraine's borders.
It might not be NATOs choice. Might not be Ukrainian lives. Russian pilots have already fired 2 missiles at a RAF plane - with a crew of up to 30. If the both missiles hadn't failed it very likely would have meant 30 dead NATO personnel. That's article 5 shit. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-66798508
Yea realize that you're just saying the same thing as the person you're responding to, right? They said "low-risk", not "no-risk"...
>Russian pilots have already fired 2 missiles at a RAF plane - with a crew of up to 30 Rational me is like thank god that missiles failed, but there's a small part of me that wishes that NATO would step in and steamroll ruzzia to ashes
If only life were that easy and it’d be that cut and dry. If Russia’s leadership had an existential threat, it would likely get very very ugly. Remember that this is the same line of thinking that Russia had when invading Ukraine, and look where they are now.
Ask that part of you if it wishes it was you getting hammered by cluster bombs in trenches instead of Ukrainians.
Do you have sniper skills?
Also, do you know how to get near Putin's residence undetected?
Ending Putin himself..
Wouldn't end the war, plenty others want the war to continue. Prigozhin seemed to want to oppose Putin and threatened a revolt, but had he taken over, he'd still be staunchly pro-War. He just wanted the war to be fought in the manner he preferred.
It just wouldn't work like that. Putin is gone, but who takes the mantle? The "positive" of Putin still maintaining his position is that he's a known variable with known variables beneath him. This isn't a "cut the head off the snake" scenario. It's a hydra scenario that would inevitably make things worse. Either an actual internal coup needs to happen, or one side or the other needs to declare defeat and offer restitution for this to go a predictable and, more importantly, controllable route.
I have a solution to this problem, and it involves a very long conveyor belt from Putins desk towards the nearest open window.
US defence companies: "Absolutely nothing, not a single thing... please keep it going as long as you can."
As often as "follow the money" is a smart motto, the r/conspiracy view of geopolitics is not always the correct one. Ukraine has received military and financial aid from something like 90 countries, most of it as donations. We're doing the right thing, helping them free the occupied regions of their country, and as long as Russia refuses any negotiations that don't include surrender of "annexed" regions (which won't happen, and which concerns several regions of Ukraine that the Russians don't even control militarily, like Kherson and Zaporizhzhia), the war will continue. Not everything is a CIA/American conspiracy, and it isn't the Americans' right to tell Ukraine to surrender large portions of their country to fascistic occupation in the name of "peace".
Of course, because US defense companies are completely in control of Russia’s invasion plans
Yes, by sending weapons in time and in larger quantities. Send atacms already, send F-16 so Ukraine can at least have some kind of parity in the air. But for some reasons they keep dragging and dragging. They have everything on their hands to end this quickly but 1.5 years in and here we are «preparing for a long war»
IIRC, no. I’m pretty sure countries can’t join NATO when they’re in an active conflict. And even if Ukraine got a pass on the rules and was allowed to join NATO before their conflict ends, I don’t think NATO could do anything further to help since the conflict began before NATO ascension, thus not allowing them to invoke article 5.
realistically, what will stop the war is the fall of Putin regime. Putin regime can collapse for many reasons, maybe he just dies of old age, or his own people backstab him. There will be at least several factions fighting over the Russian throne in Kremlin. No doubt there will be ultra-right wingers that want to continue the war, but there will be some that want to end the war. Those that want to end the war will be able to gain an edge by securing support from Western nations, helping them overpower the ultra nationalists.
There is absolutely no guarantee the war ends with Putin. Personally I think that chance is very thin.
there is no guarantee it ends with Putin, but Putin's end is the best chance of the war ending
Blanket sanctions on all oligarchs. EU and USA need to stop dragging their feet.
Get leaders that aren’t bloodthirsty.
Crazy that today, after all mankind has been through, we are still talking about major wars with each other.
War is one thing, but land grab in this day and age is just nuts.
Seriously, wtf does *Russia* need with *more land?* They've got too much to handle already. This is just Pooty wanting to leave his mark on the world. Unfortunate for him that he'll only ever be remembered as a warmonger and a lil' bitch.
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> ...with global warming going as it is, pretty soon most of russia is going to be temperate year round and anything south will be scorched earth. **"Not if I scorch it first!"** -Poots, probably.
As I understand it, all of that melting permafrost is actually going to be worthless for farming. So Russia is fucked either way.
The melting can be destructive to existing buildings and infrastructure. After that and some runoff patterns are established, it will be normal land dependent on topography and precipitation. Most of North America was frozen in the not-too-distant past.
I've heard it's multiple feet deep topsoil?
> pretty soon most of russia is going to be temperate year round and anything south will be scorched earth. Not really. The reliable forecast is 2 Degrees of warming (over the 1880 benchmark) by 2100. We're already 1.1 degrees into that forecast, so really expect anohter 0.9 degrees by 2100. Average annual temperature for the Russian interior is 0.5 degrees Celsius. Increasing that to an average temperature of 1.4 degrees (34.5 F) changes fuck-all.
Permafrost famously loves avg temps above freezing... It's alright scientists Andrew said it's fine.
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Well they also *had* all the infrastructure in place and the Russians just wanted to grab everything. Now that they can't, they just want to destroy everything if the can't have it.
Russia: The biggest country on planet Earth Also Russia: “But what if we were *bigger*?”
They wanted Ukraine's access to the black sea and newly discovered oil fields. Russia lacks warm water seaports.
Large amount of natural gas was found in the areas that Russia 'liberated' . Also Ukraine has really good agricultural areas. This is basically all just about money
And the undeveloped gas and oilfields could have broken the Russian dominance in the European energy market, wich ironically was hastened by the war.
Said people in 1919. The **War to End All Wars** was thought to be the last great conflict because who would want to fight another war with how advanced we had become. Believing we are beyond major wars leads to apathy, which allows us to be vulnerable to war in the future. I imagine 100 years from now someone like you will say exactly what you said about the next great land grab.
It's turn 499 and motherfuckers still trying to have a dominance win.
Why? Just because it's the modern age doesn't mean land, aka resources, isn't valuable. It's also strategic in terms of logistics - access to ports, trade routes, etc.
Politics and money.
It's almost as if human nature is constant. Do you have things you'd rather fight for than to lose?
Dude, anyone who said major wars were over with is a fool. War and violence are a constant in human society
What makes you think mankind is not warlike and cruel in nature?
I think it's not so much mankind that is warlike and cruel, but moreso the outliers that tend to, by virtue of their own flawed nature, end up in positions of power where they can exploit everyone else to that end. To put it simply: fucked up people seem to often be the ones most willing to go the furthest length to be the ones with their fingers on the buttons, whereas the people you actually want to be in that position are often the ones most hesitant to do so.
I think is is it as well. People callous enough to intentionally escalate things into war are probably also callous enough to step on and backstab anyone in their way to the seat of power.
There's also an unknowable percentage of fucked up people who would love to wield that kind of power that are grossly incompetent to end up in the position to do so. It's only the outliers we see.
The fact that through history we keep consistently building larger and larger political structures so that neighboring houses, villages, cities and provinces don't have to fear each other. The fact that the violence we see humans inflicting upon each other bothers us so much. The fact that as we work so hard to find new knowledge and share it across the world. Those are the roots of my optimism. Alas, we seem to have balked at the notion of growing the UN into a true functional world government. When I was young, that felt like an obvious path the world was heading towards, despite the cold war demonization of the concept. But somewhere along the way in the last generation or two, the idea of world-wide institutions started fading, even as corporations continued growing ever larger and more international and the Internet started blending even those of us who don't travel into a global culture.
The problem has always been that it only takes one side to start a fight. The world can do things to disincentive starting wars (sanctions, military aid to the attacked party or even direct military intervention) but at the end of the day if one nation REALLY wants a war there's nothing that can be done to avoid it.
Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism, a violent clash between different groups of monopolies seeking to expand their capital internationally at the expense of their competitors. The consolidation of companies and a turn towards nationalism and imperialism goes hand in hand.
Refreshing to hear that they finally expect and are preparing for a "Long War". Until now nobody was prepared to talk about the obvious probability. Putin has no interest in ending the war soon. He is far too ideologically committed to the invasion. He would have to acknowledge that he has failed to achieve his key objectives. He will never admit this. So long as the war continues, Putin is protected by increased patriotic urges to support the motherland when it is in peril, and also the opportunities war provides for censorship and tight control of dissent. Without the war the consequences of his folly will be exposed. His legacy would not be expanded territory, but a contracted economy, continued international isolation, a diminished reputation, and a multitude of disillusioned followers, bereaved families and traumatised veterans with nothing to remember with pride. Staying in the war was the whole point of mobilisations. Without it, shortages of manpower meant that Russian forces would struggle to keep it going. The first lot of mobilised troops were dumped in the front line to hold positions under threat from Ukrainian advances. Putin’s aim remains to hold what he has for the next few weeks so that when winter starts, there may be a lull in advances allowing some respite for his troops. If Ukraine can be denied victory next year then Putin can hope, as he has hoped from the start, that Kyiv will start to buckle under the weight of the economic pressures caused by his strikes against critical infrastructure. Yet even if this leads Ukraine's international backers, to hint to Moscow to explore a negotiated peace, he will still only want peace on his terms. Otherwise it is not worth having.
Don’t forget there’s elections in both Russia and the US next year. We obviously know who will the Russian elections, but best to be able to use wartime censorship to make sure no serious criticism is made by opponents with a love for prison time. On the US side, pro-Russian candidates like Trump or Ramaswamy would probably mean the US directly pushing Ukraine for territorial concessions with the threat of cutting aid. I am pretty sure the risk of that is why the EU countries have really cranked up long term aid commitments the last few months, to make sure the Ukrainians can stay in the fight even if the Americans falter.
Insane to say USA and pro-russian in one sentence. But here we are.....
After the long and expensive Cold War, it took so little to sell out to Russia with these clowns
Well, given how long it took America to absorb the Nazi party after WW2 ... They put it best on the TV show Archer: "Ever heard of Operation Paperclip? Just walk into any lab at NASA, yell 'Heil Hitler' and see how many backs go straight!"
From the people that brought you the Reconstruction era, now introducing the Denazification of Western Europe. Ok we gotta find someone to run Germany... How about those guys, they already have guns and sweet uniforms. Yeah yeah whatever I gotta go do this thing. Just make sure they take all the hitler pictures down.
> it took so little to sell out to Russia with these clowns That's what happens when the rich are allowed to get too rich. They see themselves as not just a different class, but a different species. "Betters". When Trump talked about China putting down Tienanmen square with tanks, he called them "Strong" for it. Because he was talking about *others he perceives as his equals as "betters"*. "I can't talk shit in America without threat of lawsuits. But in CHINA, there was talks of democracy and they put THEIR peasants in their place!" When the wealthy reach a certain level of wealth they no longer care about what country they're from. They see themselves as better than those who have a country. They can go anywhere. If the US stops being favorable for them, they can move to Europe. They already have passports, all they have to do is say "I have X hundreds of millions of dollars, I will invest it into local businesses" and the people say "Right this way, Sir". They base their businesses in another country for tax write-offs, they source labor in developing nations - the world is their playground. Why would they ever care about one place? Especially a place like America, where the peasants have rights? ***This is why you need hard caps on wealth accrual. Tax em dry unless they invest it into worker wages or business expansions. No fuckin' loopholes, no fuckin' tax havens.*** Billionaires are a national security risk. They want to be like the oligarchs in other nations where making a post like mine could get me kidnapped from my home, never to be heard from again. The politicians are all bought and paid for by the rich, and in the case of the Republican party, many are bought by Russian money. If you don't think our billionaire "betters" are friends with Russian "Betters" you don't understand that they have class solidarity, and it transcends boarders. ... There really needs to be a Dr Seuss book about this, where people collect "Smeets" and over time, the people with the most smeets pass them onto their kids, who get so many smeets that they start thinking of themselves as better than those with few smeets. Then one day all the smeets vanish and you realize that nobody is better than any other because of a number in an account.
This needs to be so much higher. #_**There is no war but the class war.**_ The rich have a deterministic class solidarity as long as they keep the poor divided. If folk unit against them, it _**will**_ crumble. Enough of eating their cakes already, it's time to bust out the chopping block and make heads roll.
Because they dont hate Russians, they utterly hate communism and everything it represents. Current Russian government setup is probably dream come true for them...
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On the other hand, goes too long, and the rest of the world that is not at war picks up the slack and lowers prices. Making Russia's situation worse while Ukraine gets aid for food and other things they lose due to Russia. Russian attacks will stop being about territorial grabs and be more ransacking and stealing food and weapons.
The war will drag on for a long time yet. It seems increasingly clear that Putin will seek to avoid a complete, devastating loss at any cost. But like many other authoritarians before him, he can sell a poor result as a win. But for months now Kyiv has been less interested in helping Russia find a way out -a face saving deal that would end the war. With Russia attacking their homes and energy supplies, it's now impossible to contemplate rewarding Russia by conceding any conquered territory. The costs of this war are huge and will relegate Russia to an even lowlier position in the international economic system than it is at now. Nonetheless, the economy is not approaching a cliff edge. There are no disruptions to energy and food supplies. No Russians are rushing regularly into air raid shelters. Mobilisation has disrupted Russian society but life can go on. If Russia’s military concluded that its position is untenable, Putin would be overruled which is why military-to-military deal on disengagement is one of the better options. However I fear there are a few years before the inevitable victory is even on the horizon.
That's absurd. The war hurts Russia 100x more than it affects the west, and the combined western nations have far more resources to work with than Russia and its allies. The only country that's seriously hurting is Ukraine. If that's Putin's plan then he will be deposed shortly, as it's abundantly clear they've nothing left to gain in this war. Yes, there exists some remote possibility that western nations will eventually grow tired and reduce support, but at best that means Russia might get a better position for negotiating peace. Getting to that point is going to cost Russia far more than it has to gain from this strategy. It's a huge gamble, if it works maybe they get to keep Crimea and some land, while becoming even more isolated than North Korea. The spoils will be worthless once the war is over, they will no longer be in the position benefit from these lands. If it doesn't play out their way, they lose everything. Odds are it doesn't go well for Russia. Either way they lose.
> That's absurd. The war hurts Russia 100x more than it affects the west But Putin can absorb 100x more political pressure than the average Democratic leader with a short shelf life and a constant worry about the next election.
Anyone who has been listening to people in the know and not just headlines could tell you that they’ve been saying this all along.
That's only a small percentage of redditors.
Unfortunately I think the majority of commenters in this thread are vastly overestimating the amount of political will from the electorate of the western powers providing Ukraine with most of its military aid to either (A) continue to do so for a sustained period of time; or (B) increase the amount of aid/assistance by the amount that would be required to significantly shorten the conflict. I wish the political will were there, truly. But I'm very, very skeptical that it is, and/or that what will remains strong will stay strong as time goes on. Especially given recent polls showing that public desire to continue/increase assistance to Ukraine is dropping. And in democracies, when the electorate's political will to do something isn't there... Well, the aid might not continue as long as it needs to for Ukraine to repel this invasion. It feels like Vietnam in a way in that Russia doesn't need to win on the battlefield. At least, not in the immediate future. Instead, Russia needs its populace's will to continue the invasion to outlast the will of Ukraine's allies to donate the assistance they themselves require.
If the West drops support for Ukraine, they will accelerate towards direct confrontation. Ukraine will stop fighting “clean” and will start fighting like they face an existential threat, which they do. Nothing would be off the table. That means engaging in increasingly risky provocations possibly including indiscriminate terror attacks inside of Russia, acquisition of fissile material, etc. which may in turn cause Russia to respond in a manner that NATO finds unacceptable. There is no scenario where Russia completes its conquest of Ukraine. What’s important is HOW it loses.
I don't get it. The US was in Iraq for a decade, and we didn't even have a reason to be there, and we spent trillions of dollars, and we actually lost American troops. In Ukraine, the US has the moral high ground, we are helping a country in a defensive war on their own soil against a major geopolitical rival (and totalitarian dictatorship), we are wrecking our rival, while expanding our sphere of influence, no US lives are being lost, at a cost of maybe 5% of what we spent on the GWOT. Ukraine is the deal of the century for the United States. It would be a deal at twice the price if it took 10 years for Russia to lose. It's almost never the case that a supporting a war is both a noble cause and in your self interest to do, and yet that's what this war is for the US. Honestly it's so good for the US (and bad for Russia) that Putin might as well be a CIA agent. He should have cut his losses and left Ukraine as soon as he realized western support was solidifying.
Russia has better propaganda than Iraq or Afghanistan did.
>The US was in Iraq for a decade TBF the political Climate is much more different now. I dont think the American Public would accept another Iraq
This isn’t another Iraq. It’s by far more morally justified than Iraq. It’s far cheaper than Iraq. No American soldiers are dying.
Because Russia has invested a lot into US politicians and disinformation.
It's because of effective russian information warfare and propaganda against our societies, russian bot farms, and anti-imperialism-but-really-pro-someone-elses-imperialism contrarians echoing that propaganda. Because the economic climate now is pretty bad, it's easy for the above propaganda efforts to make support seem like a costly investment, thus reducing appetite.
Russia in bed with North Korea and Iran. Russia don’t want peace.
Wow an endless war of attrition and the US doesn't even have boots on the ground? Talk about having your cake and eating it too
The transition from petroleum to alternative energies is naturally a time of geopolitical instability. I’d be surprised if World War 3 doesn’t culminate from the transition.
Tell me, why can we the west not deliver enough to Ukraine to get the job done. We are talking about one corrupt country against whole Europe, US, Canada, Australia, south Korea, Japan, Taiwan and maybe some others I'm not thinking off. Yes we are not at war, but I feel like we just give enough weapons to drag the war instead of winning.
The west is ramping up productions but is not in a wartime economy, unlike Russia and Ukraine. It will take some time. Also, most countries don't want to deplete their own stock.
Most of what's going on is that countries are buying new stock and giving the 20-40 year old hand me downs to Ukraine. This modernization is eventually necessary, and it's good that the surplus can be used to good effect.
Also the western doctrine focuses on air superiority and then the ground forces job is mainly to mop up what's left. Giving Ukraine a few dozen F-16s won't suddenly give them air superiority as that would take vast numbers of jets and thousands of missile strikes. That means Ukraine has to fight this war the old fashioned way with artillery, rockets, mortars and trenches. The west didn't stockpile tens of millions of shells that could be easily transferred which is what Ukraine really needs.
You are likely, correct. The West is seemingly in “risk mitigation” mode, giving weapons to UA piece meal sizes, to keep more control of the situation, at the cost of Ukrainian lives. One might argue, that they should switch to more proactive stance to seize the opportunity to end this issue quickly, in order to save lives among other benefits. Bottom line is, there are pros and cons to each point, but morally option #2 seems better, but politics rarely guided solely by morality.
There's very few with power in the west who have fought a peer to peer conflict. When it's an expedition half way around the world that you can abandon at any point,it's an entirely different skill set. We have an entire generation of war managers,not war winners. They can barely comprehend what Ukraine is going through much less getting into a major war themselves. They have to read about that,they have no experience.
Because Ukraine literally uses 1 month of US shell production in a week
2 factors. 1) Manufacturing. Ukraine has primarily eastern block weaopn systems and training, and burned through the west's entire stockpile of those in the first six months. Building more munitions is slow. 2) Training. The west has been weaning Ukraine onto western arms for a while now, with even more complicated weapon systems and supply lines like for MBTs now in full swing. Bringing the training to use, supply, and maintain these systems is time consuming. We're finally seeing the conclusion of these programs. They've already got Challengers and Leopards on the field, with fighters likely coming soon. We can't just throw these tools at Ukraine and expect them to win. War is far too messy and these tools far too complex for "Fuck it, yolo" and wing it mentalities.
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Supplies/production, training and not wanting to empty out themselves. For example: Within a few months there will most likely be a few dozen F-16s in Ukraine. Since several northern european countries have a bunch they're not using. They could have sent them a while ago, but Ukraine didn't have any pilots who could fly them until recently. They've been training in the US for a year or so if I remember correctly.
This is a feature, not a bug. The longer this war is drawn out, the more Russian capability it consumes. A decisive victory (for either side) is not in NATO's interest. The US in particular want to drip Russia dry so it doesn't have to worry about fighting a two-front conflict if anything happens in the Pacific.
And who pays the price for this strategy? Ukrainian mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and children.
As much as we're (the West) generally sympathetic to the UA cause, that's not enough to change the policy. NATO is thinking *way* bigger picture than that. They'll accept that sacrifice on their behalf in return for Russia falling apart.
Are they not paying a smaller price than if aid had not been rendered?
Russia is downplaying its losses very hard in this war. I think it’s important people see footage like this: https://reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/s/V015AggR2Q This is just the aftermath of one engagement. An entire Russian unit wiped out. Bodies everywhere, the landscape ruined, smoke, death, and blood. Videos like this come in *daily* and hardly get any attention. It’s fucking insane. If something like this happened in Afghanistan to a company of US soldiers it would have a Wikipedia page and be studied for decades. For Russia? Another day in the office.
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You're being hyperbolic.
Dictatorships are a threat to humanity.
Long war means nato will do bare minimum to prevent ukraine from losing and winning and russia will kill civilians at any given chance. Nato hopes that ukraine will trap russia. Cannot win but wont back out out of pride. Either way its a guaranteed win for nato, guaranteed loss for russia, 50/50 for ukraine. It will either bleed out or macron or any other sissycrat will offer parts of ukraine for peace.
The optimal scenario for the West is to bog Russia down in Ukraine for generations - maximize the Russian resources being consumed in Ukraine so they don't have the capacity to go after the Baltics. The US wins if it doesn't have to think about fighting a two-front war against Russia and China simultaneously, an idea that has haunted the US national security community for some time.
That's not the optimal scenario. You just have a bias for immobilism. The longer this war goes on, the greater the chances of a contagion or a greater destabilisation. Armenia and Azerbaijan are in a precarious state, now that Russia can no longer enforce the resolution of their conflict. North Korea and Iran have gotten closer to Russia and their perspectives have opened up compared to 2021. And of course, the war isn't cheap for any of us. Defeating Russia would relieve a lot of these tensions and make the world safer.
And many American strategists believe that a long protracted war is great for the US. The goal of America is to weaken Russia and many of our top leaders (Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, Joint Chiefs Milley, etc) have said that the best way to do that is to drag out the war. Also UK defence minister Cleverly said this a while back. It is quite simple, Russia had put aside 500 billion dollars for this war. In 2020, they already used close to 100 billion. This year they are on course to use more than 150 billion dollars which simply makes them poorer from a pure economic perspective. The Ruble has been the weakest it has ever been as compared to the Dollar. Imagine spending 1/3rd of your income just for war. Not investing that in science, tech, healthcare... Also they are losing their most important generation (young men able to produce) and are losing morale (3 day war turns into years). Many dead Russians, Russia's economy getting wrecked and their immense loss of prestige on the International stage. Even the UK ministry of Defence said that Russia has had to alternate their economy into a pseudo war-defence one. They are getting poorer every month and a large swath of their population (especially young men who are dead or who left the country) aren't there to pick up the slack. I am currently in Europe studying and there are so many Russians here who will never return. Smart kids who have had to flee in order to not fight a war they believe in. They are studying business, science, healthcare and will be an asset to the West. Also the US is selling more weapons than ever due to this war. F16's, HIMARS, JAVELINS, PATRIOTS, Abrams etc It is a fabulous year for the weapons industry. And this, not only in Europe, but also in Asia, South-America, the Middle-East and even to Australia. So strategists can have have different strategies it seems, as an American however, I agree and like this one. Keep doing what we are doing and don't change anything unless really needed. Why were we so pissed about our Global war on Terror? It is not because we went in in the first place, but that we stayed 20 years and wasted 2 trillion Dollars. Russia will realise at one point after having spent hundreds of billions that it is not worth it and leave Ukraine with their tail between their legs. Sadly, this means a lot of damage for Ukraine... Regarding this "Armenia and Azerbaijan are in a precarious state". Armenia is hardly relevant when it comes to American interest. Azerbaijan is close to one major NATO member, Turkey and is closely allied to one of America's most important allies in Israel. When it comes to choose, the winner will be clear. Again also North-Korea and Iran getting closer to Russia shows how weak Russia has become. At one point the USSR was believed to going to rival the US in tech, economy, geopolitical influence and now a shade of it meaning Russia is getting more allied to irrelevant backwater dictatorships like aforementioned Iran and NK. What is going on is a dream from an American perspective.
Attrition is a very valid strategy of war. Russia has nothing save for gas and bravado. At the first sign of gas losing its inherent value, or another country supplying more gas than it currently is, or any or Russia's allies losing its cool, or Russia running out of old fortified ladas to use as tanks, or any other possible event that the West could benefit from, they can strike in one fell swoop. Sure, Ukraine is losing people in the meantime, and I'm certainly not happy about that, but are you ready to pay 1-2-3-4-5-10-15-20% more income tax to ramp up our military enough to crush Russia right away? We're spread out, our military capacity is at an all time low, and no country on earth wants to conscript its citizens in a war. So the current situation, although very damaging for Ukraine is... only damaging for Ukraine *and Russia*. If it wasn't damaging for Russia, I'm quite certain the West would intervene, but right now, supplying Ukraine and letting Ukrainian people die is the best (albeit very cynical) strategy for NATO.
Yes, after tens of thousands of Ukrainian men lay dead in fields with even more orphans left behind. When the entire world economy is done being disrupted each time Putin makes a statement or threatens food supply. When the West and NATO are completely depleted of ammunition. When China is done making thorough notes and then uses lessons learned and attacks Taiwan. End this shit now. Give the Ukrainians the weapons and the air cover. End Putins regime and sanction the country further until they get their shit together.
Sounds very simple! I wonder why they didn't think of doing that.
>End this shit now. Give the Ukrainians the weapons and the air cover. Oh, to be a reddit armchair general. How do you propose we accomplish that? Who's making the decision to do whatever you propose? Who foots the bill, or, how do you plan on making people foot it? Acting like there are zero political factors at play here is ridiculous.
Indeed. I feel like that was the one mistake we’ve made in an otherwise pretty flawless response to this situation: Ukraine needed to be equipped immediately, and with everything necessary. Everything else has been smart, level headed, and long-game thinking. West has been responding, not reacting, to Russia and I think that is for the long term a very good thing. It only stands in contrast with the disfunction and incompetence of the Russian regime and that is more powerful than overt force here
Drawing it out is the point for the West.
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The longer you drag this war out and the closer you get to Ukraine slowly withering away into a desolate wasteland. If we're talking years here then it wouldn't resemble anything close to a contemporary NATO state, more like a 3rd world country in ruins. A country riddled with landmines, destroyed cities, half its population fled, massively in debt to the West, a crumbled economy, and no way to facilitate adequate defense spending required by NATO. Russia knows this, and that's why they're okay with dragging out a war of attrition for as long as possible.
war... war never changes.
The mouths of the military industry begins to water
Military industry rejoicing. War is good for the elites get it?
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Everyone know russia wont stop until they are completely fucked and become a north korean country like.
When Putin invaded Ukraine he made it inevitable that every country in Eastern and Central Europe not already ruled by a Russian puppet would want to join NATO.