- cross-posted to:
- genzedong@lemmygrad.ml
- cross-posted to:
- genzedong@lemmygrad.ml
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Fifteen months of fighting has made clear that neither side has the capacity — even with external help — to achieve a decisive military victory over the other. Regardless of how much territory Ukrainian forces can liberate,
Interesting take. My take is that Russia has permanently isolated itself from any nation that isn’t either a puppet or lining up for its natural resources while Ukraine effectively implements ‘external support’ to crush Russia’s invasion.
I mean, that isn’t mutually exclusive with the quote. Both are true. It will be extremely hard for Ukraine to retake all of its territory, and it probably wouldn’t make sense either. But at the same time, this war was extremely costly for Russia and has turned it into a pariah state.
It will depend on sustained western support but Russia’s capaity to maintain the war effort is already breaking while the west is still holding back full support. Russia is on an inevitable downward trajectory and Ukraine is very effectively utilizing a well of military support that is only limited by public sentiment.
Russia is holding a great deal of their reserves back from this conflict. Ukraine is literally forcing people to join their military while Russia has thousands volunteering every week now. Support for the war increased dramatically after shells hit Russian soil. Russia’s increasing military industrial capacity has reinvigorated their economy to the point that Bretton Woods institutions are projecting higher growth for them than most of the countries sanctioning them.
On top of that the Ukrainian counter-offensive has gone so terribly for them that Putin is now able to sell the success of this “special military operation” to the people while having the luxury of considering alternative outcomes depending on what kind of losses they want to take after this recent Ukrainian effort is over.
The problem is Russia can be a pariah state and survive. They have natural resources which is all you really need to survive. They also inherited the Soviet Union’s military industry, thought not in it’s full capacity. The West might tire of of supporting Ukraine, it might not, but Russia doesn’t depend on others’ support, they can produce their own weapons. Not in sufficient quantities to conquer the whole of Ukraine, but in sufficient quantities to bog down the war for years to come.
Russia absolutely depends on global supply chains to produce anything more sophisticated than a grenade and their access to advanced technology is increasingly limited to smuggling. Their military-industrial complex is suffering unprecedented brain-drain alongside a demographic collapse. If the west maintains anything like their current level of military support for Ukraine over the next few years Russia will have no choice but to withdraw.
damn i want to know who makes copium this good
lmao, russia has not isolated itself from anyone but white nations. the “international community” is just white nations plus the asian places america occupies
That’s a bit of a disingenuous read when what they’re getting at is that Ukraine is obviously not going to conquer Russia.
It’s really not given what we plainly see happening. Ukraine is entirely dependent on the west at this point, and this support will run dry eventually.
See it seems like you’re arguing that Ukraine is going to be defeated militarily, which isn’t a crazy thing to argue necessarily, it’s just not the claim the article was making.
While the article indulges the common tropes about Russian army not being able to dominate Ukraine, it is ultimately advocating for freezing the conflict. If RAND believed that Russia would not win a long conflict against the west, then they would be advocating the opposite. The whole point of the proxy war as RAND explained in this article in 2014, was to weaken Russia. So, if that goal was being accomplished through attrition in Ukraine, then why would RAND all of a sudden advocate looking for an offramp?
You are doing some elaborate theorizing about why their article that doesn’t support your view or the title you gave it actually does indicate RAND supports your view.
I notice you haven’t answered my question there. The title RAND gave it is “An Unwinnable War, Washington Needs an Endgame in Ukraine”. So, you tell me why US needs an endgame in Ukraine if the proxy war is going as planned.
Well if you read the article you’d see they’re saying that neither Ukraine nor Russia are going to be able to knock the other out of the war, and that therefore we need to think about what a negotiated settlement will ultimately look like.
Again, if the goal is to weaken Russia then a protracted war is precisely what US would be interested in. It’s also a fallacy to frame this as a war between Ukraine and Russia given that all of NATO is propping up Ukraine.
Well, that depends on how you define win. If to win is to retake all of the pre-2014 Ukrainian territories, then yes, the war is most probably unwinnable, but if to win is to stop the war and to get back the pre-2022 borders, then that could also be considered a victory.
I recommend actually reading the report before commenting.
I mean first off, I did read it. Secondly, the article itself even states that the war can be won if you consider wining being Ukraine’s prosperity (last paragraph).
Also, you never know, it’s always possible that Ukraine makes a breakthrough and the Russian frontline collapses, allowing them to retake the South. Even if that doesn’t happen, if they inflict enough damage and Russia sees political upheaval, it’s possible that Putin gets forced to concede defeat and give back Ukraine its territory. That most probably wouldn’t include Crimea, and the Donbas could probably be made a independent state, but if that ends the bloodshed then that’s a win.
No, it’s not possible that Ukraine makes any sort of lasting breakthrough or that Russian frontlines will magically collapse. These are deranged fantasies that are resulting in thousands of people dying every day.
The reality of the situation is that the west has basically sent all it has to offer to Ukraine at this point. The new round of air that US just authorized is not coming from existing stocks anymore, it’s contracts to companies to produce these things which will take years to do.
Even if Ukraine managed to achieve a break through, it’s going to come at the cost of the army that the west managed to cobble together for Ukraine. In the first five days of the offensive, Ukraine has already burnt through incredible amounts of men and machines to achieve no actual breakthroughs. They haven’t even made it to the first line of the multi line defences that Russia has created. This is very obviously not sustainable.
https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1667648741740892161?s=20
Almost the entire forward defense line of the Russian army near Velyka Novosilka - around 20 km long - has been wiped out. Ukrainian forces liberated Neskuchne and Novodonets’ke.
The current estimate is that the US has provided 5% of its defense budget to Ukraine. If this were increased to even 7%?
That’s the crumple zone, the first out of five defence lines is kilometers away from that. At the rate of depletion, the offensive will burn out before it even gets to the first fortified line.
Meanwhile, US is only able to produce 20k artillery shells a month, while Russia is producing around 200k right now. It will literally take years for US to ramp up industrial production. Pretty much everything in the latest package to Ukraine is on order, it’s not coming out of existing stocks anymore.
Meanwhile, Russia hasn’t committed much to this either so far. What happens if US increases its support is that Russia will increase its efforts in turn.
Don’t take it from me though, here’s what Obama said in 2016, pretty sure he’s more informed on the subject than you are.
lol @ all the white redditors who don’t understand what defense in depth is
They’re gonna learn all about it in the next few weeks.
This is really the only statement in the article that still needs to addressed:
Regardless of how much territory Ukrainian forces can liberate, Russia will maintain the capability to pose a permanent threat to Ukraine.
Short of invading the internationally recognized territory of Russia, Russia will continue to be a threat into the foreseeable future. The only way to deal with this, is by supporting independence minded groups within Russia. Before their latest incursion into Ukraine, such a statement would have been laughed at, and rightfully so. But, as we have seen in recent weeks, there is at least one group bordering Ukraine that is making it clear that Putin does not control all of Russia.
There are far more internal political tensions in every western country right now than there are in Russia. It’s far more likely that western countries end up looking at regime changes in the near future than any kind of breakup in Russia. Anybody who thinks that Russia can be balkanized by the west is absolutely delusional.
