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Ukraine Cannot Win
Since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, I have wondered what the end game would be. I have never understood the West’s goal with intervention. I understand sending a message and “this will not stand” and we don’t want China getting ideas, etc. What I have not understood is a path to victory for Ukraine. I have asked in these pages what that looks like, and the answer ranged from unclear to getting Russia to leave to Russia leaving and paying reparations. There have even been talks of regime replacement and coups.
The facts are, there is no way to force an aggressor to leave if you cannot attack its base. It has to choose to give up. I have seen nothing proposed that would get Russia to give up. The idea that this is all Putin has struck me as unsupported at best and nonsense at worst. It does not matter how many years of weapon stockpiles we burn through to help the people of Ukraine. It does not matter how many weapons we put into the hands of Ukrainian people (leaving aside the question if they are not mostly ending up in the hands of organized crime in Ukraine). There is no way that Ukraine can win this war. They are going to lose. They have always been going to lose. Russia was always going to get what it wanted or, failing that, destroy the nation. Either way, the outcome is a loss for Ukraine.
Now I see this report and it seems to back up my darker thoughts. Its closing paragraph has a truth that was clear from the start:
Zelensky and the Ukrainian people will soon come face-to-face with the ugly prospect that continuing to fight will only bring more death and destruction to its people, cities, and armed forces – but be insufficient to stave off defeat. The truth is, military fundamentals and simple capacity are in Moscow’s favor. It is unlikely those factors change in time to avoid defeat for Kyiv and its brave people. That is the ugly, bitter reality of war.
Life is not fair. The West should not have encouraged Ukraine to fight Russia. This outcome was always as it was going to be.
Published in General
That is up to the Ukrainians to decide; they seem to believe that having huge portions of their best land stolen and living in perpetual fear and subjugation under Russia is worse than rebuilding after a long guerrilla war. I would feel the same in their shoes.
You admire Liz Cheney, bro. Sit down.
(Also you might want to look into your new hero a bit. I don’t think Churchill played piano with his penis.)
How are we coercing them?
He did allegedly show it to FDR.
From Estonian World four days ago, https://estonianworld.com/security/putin-vaguely-threatens-the-estonian-town-of-narva/:
The Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin, has vaguely threatened the Estonian eastern border town of Narva, saying that the Russian czar, Peter the First, didn’t conquer the town but “took it back” from Sweden – even though it had always been an Estonian town; he used the comparison to justify his own plans to invade the neighbours of Russia.
Ok, I am a NeverTrumper. Are the other members of Ricochet “Commie Democrats”?
Churchill did walk around in a “State of Nature” both in the UK and at the White House.
Given his “little hands” it is likely that Trump could not play the piano that way.
I think that FDR came into the room when Churchill was naked. Churchill exclaimed that he had nothing to hide from FDR.
LETS MAKE THIS LONG! lol
It takes two years to make a stinger or a javelin etc. without global supply chain problems.
I want the Green Berets and Switzerland to make all of those countries 10X like Switzerland. Make it so if Russia invades they immediately and continuously chew up resources at an alarming rate. This is obviously the first choice.
This is historically inaccurate.
Russia took the bulk of what is now eastern Ukraine in the late 1600s. The territory was Russian for over 200 years before the Bolshevik Revolution.
There was never really a nation called Ukraine until 1991. There was a brief declaration of a Ukrainian communist state, I think, in the immediate aftermath of WWI.
Interestingly, it is much of western Ukraine that sits on land that was conquered by the Soviets, specifically by Stalin, from Poland.
Well, when the United Nation was created, the Soviet Union insisted that Ukraine was a separate country. Given the starvation that Stalin inflicted on Ukraine, I would assert that they have earned their spurs to be a country.
There has been talk about Ukraine and Poland combining; right now over 10% of the population of Poland is displaced Ukrainian refugees.
All those other countries, NATO or no, are taking notes and drawing circles on maps.
Having no huge invasion since 1945, Europe settled into a slumber. They have woken up.
Creative foresight on defensive weapons and plans > everything else that everybody babbles about.
It’s obviously money well spent.
Foreign policy is a vortex of doom. The only thing worse is central banking.
All of those countries suck except for Hungary, the UK, and Poland etc. The EU sucks. The EMU is the dumbest concept ever invented by human beings.
“Penny-wise and pound foolish” suggests that you think that some massive war is imminent if we don’t somehow stop the Russians in Ukraine. I see no evidence of this whatsoever. It seems like a hysterical overreaction, to me.
This seems to be common of late, about all sorts of issues — from Michael Brown and George Floyd, to the minor riot at the Capitol, to Covid, to the school shooting.
What, precisely, do you imagine is going to happen? That Putin is going to take Donbass and then, somehow, increase the size of his army 10-fold and march on Warsaw and Berlin?
I just don’t see any evidence of this. To the contrary, I see Putin acting in a prudent and careful way, over about 20 years.
Based on this history, I don’t see any reason to believe that Putin is going to launch a major war.
There are reports of significant Russian losses in this war. This makes it less likely that the Russians would follow up a victory in Ukraine with a further attack elsewhere, don’t you think? If this is correct, then there’s even less reason for us to be involved.
My recollection is that Churchill was in the tub, and then stood up, saying about what you indicate. It was a funny scene.
So childish.
Zero people in your camp can say anything original about public policy. That is a huge problem.
And part of the reason why the Russians are suffering significant losses is because the US, the UK, Sweden, Estonia, the Czech Republic and even France have been supplying Ukraine with weapons.
If we continue to supply Ukraine weapons more Russian military equipment will be destroyed and more Russian soldiers will be killed. That alone is an excellent reason for the the free world to support Ukraine in its fight against Putin’s murderous venture.
Isn’t it awesome that we’re depleting our military capabilities on a war that has nothing to do with us? (Well, except for the fact that Joe Biden invited his pal Putin to invade Ukraine. Other than that . . .) It’s kind of like emptying our strategic petroleum reserves for no reason other than Biden refuses to let us drill. What do we need that for, anyway? It’s kind of like destroying our economy by spending ourselves into oblivion. Who needs a functioning economy?
ZELeNsKyY is thE NeW ChUrChILL!
Please.
Nah, nah, nah!
Gary,
“Putin vaguely threatened Estonia town”
Fine. Attacking Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania or Poland – All NATO member states is a much bigger deal than Ukraine which is not. Vague verbal threats from Putin at this point with the Biden Administration making all sorts of ridiculous threats can’t be taken that seriously, and hopefully won’t. It’s is very doubtful that Russia has the wherewithal to attack a NATO member state, which will guarantee a hellacious response from NATO and Putin knows that.
Putin has already won this war. He has taken the territory he needs. The ethnic Russians in the former Ukrainian territory are now safe. His oil exports are higher and selling at a much higher price. Ka-ching, Ka-ching! The Ruble is in the best shape it ever has been. He has Europe on it’s knees. Why would he realistically risk all that for a war with NATO he can’t win?
Thanks to Joe Biden.
What a silly argument, Gary. We disagreed, right? About Ukraine getting its own vote at that UN. And it didn’t.
Ukraine is a historically Russian territory. This was the case for approximately 200-300 years before Ukrainian independence in 1991 — generally a bit over 300 years for eastern Ukraine, and a bit under 200 years for western Ukraine. Ukraine was part of Russia for longer than Arizona has been part of the United States, by quite a large margin.
I worry that in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, we’ve made the same mistake that Wilson forced on everyone after WWI. Borders were re-drawn, with little consideration for either the ethnic and linguistic characteristics of the populations, or of the defensibility of the borders created.
Wilson’s error led to WWII, which we then blamed on Hitler. Strangely, we didn’t blame it on Stalin, even though the invasion that started WWII was a joint German-Russian invasion of Poland. Strangely, we allied with Stalin even when he took other defenseless states created in the aftermath of WWI, particularly the Baltic States. Strangely, we claimed that we won the war, while leaving Poland — and much of the rest of eastern Europe — under Soviet occupation.
We did win the Cold War. That part was good.
But the aftermath has been a mess. We pressed NATO eastward, in a brief period of Russian weakness. This was not going to last, any more than Wilson’s post-WWI plans were going to last.
I think that wise statesmen need to face reality. The reality is that Ukraine means a lot to Russia, and means nothing to us. The Russians are willing to fight for Ukraine, because it is vital to their security, just as Cuba or Mexico is vital to ours. We are not willing to fight for Ukraine, because it is of minimal relevance to us, both economically and from a security perspective.
Some of you like Churchill. I urge you to look into Churchill’s dealings with the Poles at the end of WWII. Poland lost territory in the east to the Soviets, and were compensated with German land in the west. The Poles complained about their lost territory. Churchill ultimately said something like: “Look, we’re getting you a big country, a couple of hundred miles across. We’re not going to get you the territory on the other side of the Curzon line. Take it or leave it.”
We can get much the same for Ukraine now. I think it’s worth doing, and it’s worth pressuring the Ukrainians to do it. The war will end, the deaths will stop, and there’s a chance that oil and wheat prices will come down a bit. We’ll save money, too.
The main two goals of the US and its NATO allies should be to
[1] wear down the Putin war machine, killing as many Russian soldiers and destroying as much Russian military equipment as possible.
and
[2] assist Ukraine in retaking more of the territory that it had prior to 2014.
Some people say that Putin will win this war that he already has won this war. Regardless, we should assist the Ukrainians in making this war extremely costly for Putin to the point where Xi Jinping starts to wonder if it would really be worth it to attack Taiwan and Putin starts to wonder if attacking Ukraine was a bad idea.
That is a strange statement in a thread about Ukraine. We are not talking about giving up a state. Indeed, we are not talking about giving up anything.
I do find the idea of encouraging Ukrainians to die so that we don’t have too rather disturbing.
I think that you have valid points, but I would note the following from Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_and_the_United_Nations:
“Ukraine was one of the founding members of the United Nations when it joined in 1945 as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic; along with the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, Ukraine signed the United Nations Charter when it was part of the Soviet Union. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the newly independent Ukraine retained its seat.”
Yet, clearly, it is not up to them if they have to have our support and material.
There has been a Ukraine for over 30 years- how many years do you (or more importantly Putin) think it takes to be a “legitimate state”? More importantly the Ukrainians have validated their nationhood with their blood. If Ukraine is invalid, how about the Baltic states? Is Slovakia real? Heck do not even look at the Balkans.Should Germany demand Kaliningrad back (Stalin stole it only 75 years ago)?
As for language they are about as alike as English & Dutch- does that mean the Brits should invade Holland?