It _is_ possible with the combo of weapons and economic sanctions. Ukraine (had) more economic support, so it is both a war of blood and endurance, endurance which Ukraine could have by being a porcupine with next-gen weapons and non-stop bleeding for Russia until things start hitting the oligarch's pocketbooks too far and the people of Russia begin to demand regime change.
Russia is a glorified gas station. You can hurt it dramatically with economic sanctions because its whole GDP is concentrated into one sector.
Imo if Trump really cared about America's long term security, he would be trying to fund research into cheaper / easier to produce next-gen weapons for Ukraine to test for us, instead of complaining how much our HIMARS and tanks currently cost, firing top military brass, cozying up to a dictator, and trying to exploit a ravaged democratic ally.
Economic sanctions won't affect Russia as long as China is behind them. And if the West is against Russia, they will do anything to keep China as an ally.
And this was a mistake, one that they slowly tried to reverse once they realized Ukraine wasn't going to be a pushover especially with modern weaponry.
We know this given how close even Trump got to having discussions with both parties. His competence was not there to finish any deal and took the worse turn possible.
Russia knows that time is on its side. It can just pause enough to rearm and then attack again. What will we do differently then?
Plus, at some point Russia will start using nukes and then we will be forced to back down. We are not going to blow up the world to save Ukraine.
Russia has a greater population, but has been relying largely on conscripts among the poor, the incarcerated, and third world nations likes North Korea. Thats a resource that is far smaller in number than their total population. As soon as it’s tapped out, they either have to give up are start conscripting people in the middle and upper classes, and that will turn the Russian population on the war and their leaders faster than anything.
In this war the only winners are US/EU weapons manufacturers, there is no winning scenario. Something Trump cannot understand and Putin cannot accept.
It would have been in the US best interest to have done this twenty years ago, but some greedy bastards thought there would be untold riches in breaking up Russia, to have "two, three, many Ukraines". They failed.
But (a) it is basically prolonging the losses for Ukraine, and (b) assumes that Russian won't escalate (maybe with nukes).
Russia knows that we're not going to blow up the world to save Ukraine. At some point, they will cross a threshold and we will have to back down.
We are not going to blow up the world to save Ukraine and Russia/Putin knows this. If he decides to use nukes what are we going to do? What can we do?
No one want it, Putin and especially China. Current atomic weapon are no more the little Nagasaki Firecrackers.
They are not going to risk their security for Ukraine. They wouldn't risk starting a nuclear war over Ukraine, it's stupid, even for their standards
Think about it. They support Ukraine by sending them surplus or aged weapon systems while modernising and funnelling money to their military industrial complex (with public support!). In return Ukraine uses those weapons systems to keep Russia tied up in a war, exposing Russia's most modern weapon systems and providing a huge amount of information on how to fight a drone war.
This is a great investment independent of what happens in or to Ukraine, basically they turn weapons they needed to replace or get rid of anyway into intel, new weapons, political brownie points at home and a weakened adversary.
China doesn't mind it that much either, though they enjoy it less because they had invested fairly heavily into Ukrainian infrastructure that is being destroyed. Keeping Russia isolated makes it easy for them to extra cheap oil & gas, push for pipelines that flow to China instead of towards Europe and also offload a bunch of their industrial surplus now that their requirements are winding down and the rest of the world is trying to tariff them for dumping.
So basically the problem is 1. is good for almost everyone except Ukraine and Russia. Trump for whatever reason can't understand that and just wants to throw a tantrum as is befitting for someone of his intelligence.
EU (germany) gets increasingly deindustrialised, to a big part due to energy costs associated with the war, and the related sanctions and sabotages. This war would not have even started if the previous US administration(s) had not pushed to that direction, europe was up to that point signing energy deals with Russia, they had no incentive for a full blown war. EU was following, and now they run around like headless chicken with no purpose, goal and prospects while Trump is basically trying to cash out of the situation. But I agree with you that, whatever this has to do with, the least is about Ukraine itself and democracy. Sadly we are never gonna move on from this false narrative until it is too late.
That's because I believe there is a moral and (geo-)political duty to support Ukraine, also in order to make future territorial wars less likely, and Ukraine is a sovereign country with democratically elected leaders and parliament.
NATO must always act as a cohesive unit so any direct confrontation significantly increases the risks.
Western countries including my own have demilitarize heavily since the 1990s + rebuilt armies for counter terrorism, so sending more weapons to a land war isn't straightforward at all (as we've seen).
Western power is mostly centered around air and sea power and you can't easily transfer that to a 3rd party...especially three years late.
If neither Biden or now Trump is going to promise mass Tomahawks and IFVs galore then all we're left with is perpetuating a stalemate, not recovering sovereign land nor sufficiently punishing Russia. A couple more Storm Shadows and Leopard tanks from dwindling supplies aren't going to cut it.
In order to do that they need to have a defined leader, not twenty some people each one pursuing their own interests
Who would that leader be? Certainly you don’t want Trump because in that case things would hardly be any different
I mean on paper that's not really true. The US or whichever leader can't tell Poland to send troops, warships, or pilots into Ukraine because if Russia then sends a cruise missile into Warsaw it violates the NATO treaty which would require them all to react. There's no minor conflict exception, it moves as a unit. So the only option on the table is full NATO vs Russia, or status quo proxy war where weapons are funneled through it.
For Europe to properly defend Ukraine's sovereignty on their own they would have to break NATO commitments. Because I don't see continued supply of weapons from their small pool as sufficient to make a big difference... only to extend the war for a few more years, after which a very similar DMZ will be established.
To fight this war you need real military power: on the ground logistics, protected supply lines, large troop reserves to support offensive operations, etc. Weapons only get you so far.
Does this imply European nations should be contributing to the war effort more than the US? Does this shift match what the current situation leads to?
They are contributing more than the US.[1]
Maybe we get lucky and Putin dies or is deposed (and the successor is less hard-line). That's a lot of rolls that have to come down the right way.
More likely, Ukraine continues to bleed men until they can't defend Kyiv, then Russia takes all of Ukraine anyway except you've lost a lot of soldiers and weapons.
No matter what EU leaders say, I think they are beginning to realize that Ukraine will not win this war and time is not on their side. The EU may or may not continue to support Ukraine with weapons, but it will be half-hearted at best.
The EU will pressure Ukraine to freeze the conflict, but without any hard guarantees. In a few years, Russia will then begin the attack again and probably take Kyiv then.
I hope I'm wrong.
A successor (even a dictator and/or hard-liner) has a lot more manoeuvring space here, at least initially, because he can just blame it all on Putin.
Remember this all started with "we'll conquer all of Ukraine real quick, back in a jiffy". Putin pivoted to "no, we just wanted the eastern provinces" but everyone knew that was complete bollocks. The entire war is already a massive loss of face for Putin.
Is it possible that you haven't been raised in a free democratic country? That would explain your patronizing attitude towards elected governments and other countries. Otherwise, I don't know what to say. It's really about sovereignty.
On a side note, it is never a good idea to allow your judgments to get clouded by anecdotal "evidence", let alone videos on social media. Use statistical data instead.
Of course, it would be great if defending democracy was free. However, with politicians already talking about cutting Medicaid spending, it was only a matter of time until defense spending came under scrutiny
Historical cases, such as the U.S. in Vietnam or the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, suggest that prolonged external backing can lead to drawn out conflicts with high costs and unintended consequences.
Is there a point at which the costs/economic, political, or humanitarian of indefinite support outweigh the intended benefits? How do you think such a threshold be determined?
I think one should _at least_ consider alternatives pathways to achieve a resolution.
For Option 2 I actually don't see a lot of downsides except dead European soldiers replacing dead Ukrainian soldiers. Russia would absolutely stop if being stopped in their tracks more ferociously. In fact, Russia is already fighting this war all out. If they could they would do more (or at least I can't phantom why they would not).
You do realize Russia has nuclear weapons and a leader who has already hinted at using them if necessary?
Now these were conventional weapons, guns, tanks, trucks, etcetera. Stuff that you could imagine being used at some point, so there was some risk of being found out.
Now imagine you are a Russian general in charge of maintaining the nuclear stockpile. Weapons that you can reasonably expect never to be actually used. Even better, if you ever get in a situation where they would be used, it's basically the end of the world and no one is going to be alive to care if you pocketed the maintenance money anyway. How much of the allocated maintenance budget do you expect to have been spent on actual maintenance?
I think it goes in tandem with your number (3). Like you say, why would Russia not violate the agreement? I think maybe the move is "well now we have citizens in there working so don't blow us up". It's one thing for Russia to attack the Ukraine, but another if they have collateral damage that takes out Americans.
I don't even know how valuable the actual underlying resources are, so much as a bit of "kayfabe" between the Ukraine, US, and Russia, that things are different.
Anyway, that's my hope.
Trumps issue is he knows the lack of guarantees is a better deal for the US because we gain much and risk nothing. He wants to make a deal and get credit, i dont think he really cares what happens after. Maybe he does, i wish that to be the case. But i dont believe it.
This could escalate the war, but Russia does not appear to be in a position to escalate right now.
Russia will respond with either strategic bombing of Kyiv or tactical nukes. And then what do we do? Nuke Moscow? Send NATO troops in? More sanctions?
Russia knows that we are not going to blow up the world to save Ukraine, which means escalation always ends with us backing down.
Therefore, ending the war as soon as possible is the moral thing to do.
US most certainly has anti ballistic missile tech, however wasting exposing it on Russia is something that is not worth it when there are more capable nations on the line.
They have a much lower defense budget, and have been forced to actually be creative and clever about problems, as opposed to our throw-money-at-problem-ergo-win approach.
tl;dr Russia is not a fun opponent, and they culturally really enjoy statecraft so best to stick with statecraft.
no
>are laser-focused on hypersonic tech
no
>and we don't officially know how good their missile defense is
we do know. Its mediocre at best.
The thing about Russia that most people don't get is that even before all of this happened, there was no money to be made in terms of talent for stuff that requires engineering. Everyone who was smart was leaving the country so they could make much better salaries elsewhere.
They are a full scale paper tiger, none of their stuff even from cold war era is as good as the propaganda claimed.
Their only real playing card is nukes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreshnik_(missile)
And the S550 prototypes are looking great.
> They are a full scale paper tiger
This is a bad approach to take, even if you're right.
Sure there is a 0.1% chance it may be able to hold 2 circle or one circle against F22, considering that no F22 has ever flown publicly within its full maneuverability envelope, but it sure as shit would lose to the flying supercomputer that is the F35 because BVR missiles that are smart enough to avoid countermeasures are a thing now. Some even use optical tracking.
As far as ICBM defense goes, we did this back in 2002:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_YAL-1
And you better believe that we have way more advanced shit now.
All you need to know about capability is to look at defense spending of a country in totality. Nothing beats US.
Nukes would likely drag Europeans into the war formally, which Russia cant handle. They dont have resilience, and their oligarchs dont want a nuclear war any more than we do. At the end of the day they are cowards; once their actual livlihood is at stake they will cut and run to save whats left.
Russias only actual card is political division. Biden effectively gambled the US would be more politically resilient than it actually is, and appears to have been wrong. Putin gambled he could manipulate enough in the US to turn the tide.
Now that Trump has exposed it, imo it actually increases the risk because now one warning Nuke can maybe whip his followers into line.
Ultimately today Z played new cards. He saw the writing on the wall, knowing agreeing to Trumps current deal would likely be the (eventual) end of his country. So he appealed to the US voter. This bypasses Trump so it was never going to end well. Now the next phase plays out. Trump tries to discredit z; if he wins its over. If he loses we go back to the Biden plan, rebranded as the Trump plan one way or another.
Strategic victory for Putin in the meantime. JD isnt cut out for the big stage is my main take away.
My own sense is that Putin waited Biden out to see what might happen in the 2024 elections, and now that Trump is back and conciliatory there is no need for him to escalate to limited nuclear war. And my sense is that Trump understands Putin's limits and that is why Trump is keen to make peace on terms vaguely approaching a complete capitulation to Russia -- for Trump it's not his war anyways, so for him it's not so much capitulation but something that can be sold as another domestic political victory over the Democrats and the Washington establishment.
Sanctions escalation should have happened already. Too many parts of Europe are comfortable trading with an enemy.
But that doesn't change the underlying problem. How do we stop Putin getting what he wants? If you're saying, there's nothing we can do but the US should be nicer about it, well, I guess that's right, but somewhat useless.
Russia easily calls the bluff.
This sort of gullibility is very dangerous, especially if it manifests in folks in DC who could help your scenario happen.
With what? Left over nukes from the cold war that haven't been maintained in decades? I would be surprised if Russia had 1 working nuke left.
1st one isn't really about "buying time". The prolongation of conflict is not a "side-effect" here, it's the whole point. And IMO it's a solid plan, honestly. If I was a citizen of the USA without any morals or inclinations to travel abroad, I would probably support it. This isn't a 100% solid plan, there are actually some questions if it works as it was supposed to work, but the incentive here seems blatantly obvious to me: war weakens Russia, weakens Europe, and nobody cares about Ukraine anyway, so by investing into the war carefully USA ends up winning, same as after WW1 and WW2. To me, the game plan is obvious here. It's just cynical, and that's why Biden (and other public-speaking supporters of the plan) would never say it as it is. No real politician would.
As to Europe wanting that... well, I would say it seems current EU leadership wants that, and I have pretty hard time explaining why, so I'll leave it aside. If you want some random data point: I, as a European citizen definitely don't want that. I don't doubt the majority of my fellow EU citizens would say they "support the support of Ukraine", but I don't find it surprising, given all media outlets chant 24/7 about how horrible Russia/Putin is.
I mean, yes, that's kinda saying "I think I know better than these guys", but I just don't see any benefits for the actual people (not governments) living in EU. This war hurts the economics, it hurts the relationships, and I personally have relatives in Ukraine, so I just want it to stop. I don't care on which terms, and obviously it cannot be the terms on which the war started. It's way too deep into the conflict and too many lives lost to call it a good outcome, but it's the best outcome.
So, not being a citizen of the USA, I am in favor of that alternative which is "as stupid as it sounds", the last one. I mostly have problems not with the option itself, but with the fact that for Trump to want it is not enough for it to happen. Because, as stated, a lot of people don't want this to happen, and it almost seems like Trump is mistaking being POTUS for being God. Meaning, the way he is doing things is stupidly blunt. It might work, it might escalate things more. In any case, having all of HN whining about how ashamed they are of their president is not a good start. And that product he helped BBC to make works awful for him and his plan.
The whole liberal-democratic world should be all-in on Ukraine assistance.
Instead, Trump just made it clear that the optimal time for PRC v ROC round 2 is within the next 3 year 10 months.
They had this "huge opportunity" for last 4 years.
The Ukraine is also very difficult to defend, especially since it seems like such a touchy issue for Russia. I doubt that Russia would go to full-scale nuclear war over Ukraine but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a small scale use of nuclear weapons on -say- Brussels. And if Russia makes enough of those Oreshnik missiles they could easily take out most of Europe's air forces in one go without going nuclear, and thus change the balance of power in Ukraine.
The question really is: at what price Ukraine?
Your (1), (2), and (3) are no solutions. Pausing the war now simply means escalating it later.
Depending on Trump's understanding of Russia's limits (I say Trump's because he might have a better understanding that the public), (4) may be the only workable option.
The US has a position as "leader of the free world" which it occupies, at least partly, because it is percieved as committed to supporting democracy and freedom worldwide.
Turning on an ally during wartime doesn't just create problems for Ukraine's ability to defend itself (although it will be interesting to see whether Europe ups spending to compensate) - it removes the US as a percieved ally of liberal democracies worldwide.
So, not that you're wrong on those points, but that they miss the USA's broader commitments. It might make sense to commit to an undesirable outcome, if it fits into a wider strategy.
Nobody outside of the US has seen the US as that since at least the gulf war. US involvement since the 90s in foreign issues has been primarily for selfish purposes.
4. Abandon Ukraine and make a deal with Russia against China. [This is Trump's plan and it's as stupid as it sounds.
that the only way to beat Russia is to send US troops to fight Russians, and there is no universe in which the US public will support that.
To be more specific, you give Ukraine what it needs to freeze the current lines, a cease fire is signed, Russia gets to stop fighting while saving face, and the unoccupied part of Ukraine gets what would amount to NATO membership without formally joining .
The status of the occupied territories remains ambiguous, with the West and Ukraine banking on a change in leadership in Russia at some point in the future.
As far as I can tell, this is the type of deal that Zelensky thought he came to DC for.
So keeping it up might destabilize Putin, without further escalating the conflict. Seems like the sanest of bad options to me.
If Russia invades a NATO country, then you guys can worry about WW3. Until then, leave it be. We could have avoided a million deaths by now if we weren't adamant to "stick it to Russia". Either Ukraine is a part of NATO, or not.
If the world let it be back in 2022, Russia would have finished invading Ukraine in a week, and then would have been stuck dealing with incredible amounts of terrorism and guerilla warfare coming from a very large Ukrainian population. What exactly would that outcome have helped them in this supposedly-dangerous "invasion of Europe"? More balls and courage to invade another country?
Same outcome if they win tomorrow after 3 bloody years of war. You think they want another European country? What for? You think Putin can continue to convince his populace to keep subsidizing more wars at this point?
Russia is expending its soviet cold war materiel. Its trade embargo is seriously undermining its ability to continue to fight. It may be sooner than we think that they'll run out of weapons and equipment so long as Ukraine has support from its allies.
This should have been retaliation of the western world years ago.
1. Support Ukraine enough so that Russia doesn't take too much more territory, but not enough for Russia to feel threatened and escalate the war. This was the Biden plan and it sounds like what Europe wants. I just don't see how this ends the war. Is this just buying time for someone to depose Putin?
2. Support Ukraine enough so it can take all its territory (maybe minus Crimea). This may not be possible with weapons alone. This might require a NATO no-fly zone over Ukraine, which effectively makes us a combatant. I actually would support this path, but the downsides are all too obvious.
3. Freeze the conflict at the current lines and guarantee the agreement with US/NATO forces. What does that mean in practice? If Russia violates the agreement we go to option #2? That sounds like a hollow threat because we're clearly not ready to do #2 right now, when it could actually help. All this will do is let Russia rearm.
4. Abandon Ukraine and make a deal with Russia against China. [This is Trump's plan and it's as stupid as it sounds.]
Did I miss anything?
The root of the problem is that this is a hard-power conflict and the only solution is going to be hard-power. But neither the US nor the EU are willing to put in hard-power against Russia. In that situation, I honestly don't know how to stop Putin from getting what he wants.
My frustration is that, as awful as Trump's plan is, it acknowledges that the only way to beat Russia is to send US troops to fight Russians, and there is no universe in which the US public will support that.
But please, correct me if I'm wrong. I would like to be wrong.