And that face-saving way out, is in my opinion, a negotiated ceasefire that gives Putin control over the eastern territories of Ukraine that he initially tried to break off. I know it’s not an outcome that’s going to make people happy, since it looks like a victory for Putin and amounts to an expansion of Russian territory through force, but it might save the entire world. So I’m in favor of it, and that’s my position. I think Zelensky would be better served by making this offer outright to Putin, than continuing to dig into an unwinnable war.
I agree, but you cant make this offer outright now, b/c then you’d enter the negotiations already with your pants down …
The converse, however, is also true, and such a war would be a disaster for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as we could and would be hitting their staging areas and rear area nodal logistics sites. As Tamerlane said, Russia simply doesn’t have the manpower to fight on multiple fronts, and I question whether they could take on NATO even in a missile and air dual as well as their current invasion in Ukraine. They would be hitting into NATO countries, no doubt…but I think the counter punches would be much more devastation to them than to NATO. After all, we don’t have a huge amount of our military on the end of a long logistics tail currently. And we wouldn’t be in a position to start doing that sort of thing for a while if hostilities start.
The only thing Russia really has parity with NATO is in nukes, and that’s sort of a Russia roulette situation with all the chambers loaded, or a dual with shotguns at 5 feet, except many of the spectators also have shotguns, and everyone is watching right at the shoulders of the combatants. It’s a no win for either side.
Except Putin doesn’t just want those pieces; those were his appetizer but he’s now made it clear that the entree is the entirety of the Ukraine (which would be fiscally devastating to Russia to try to occupy indefinitely). Annexing the Crimea was countenanced on the notion that there is actually a historical precedent for Russian ownership, and there was an actual Russian ethnic majority, notwithstanding that it was still an illegal military occupation rather than an internally-instigated referendum. Taking over all of the Ukraine—even those parts with significant Russian ethnic populations—is an unambiguous violation of international sovereignty not seen since WWII, and if Putin finds that by threatening to use nuclear weapons gives him essentially carte blanche to do as he pleases it may just encourage him to push further even though Russia has no real conventional capability to invade or occupy the Baltics or Nordic nations.
Of course, the US and NATO shouldn’t respond with rhetoric for rhetoric, upping the tension without a clear path toward resolution, but I doubt sanctions are going to have any effect in the near term even if they severely impact the Russian people (who Putin could care less about). Regardless, I concur with the opinion that the general public has little notion in store for what is going to happen to the Ukrainian people under Russian occupation, particularly because I don’t believe they will ever willingly submit to Russian rule.
Stranger
Everything you’ve said makes sense, and you seem to have a more informed and nuanced view of the situation compared to mine which is essentially being driven entirely by fear of a nuclear war. (How people can compartmentalize this stuff so successfully, I don’t know, but I admire it.) So then what does Putin’s face-saving out take the form of? How can he compartmentalize de-escalating this, and what do you think would have to be on the table for him to do it?
IMHO, I think the only solutions are to let him win or let him lose slowly enough that he gets tired of the fight. The best hope, for the latter, would be that he realizes soon enough that he’s going to lose over the long run if he tries to subdue all of Ukraine, calls it a day, and claims a “win” because he has successfully captured some territory. That will lead to a situation like Israel/Palestine, West/East Germany, North/South Korea and potential ongoing conflict because of that but, in the short run, it’s better than a continued all-out war.
Not at all. That’s why I said such an agreement would be theoretical and the likelier result would be a larger war. And why I’ve said NATO should not send troops into Ukraine.
I agree with this. I think that the ideal response would have been to make it crystal clear, before the invasion started, that we would be directly involved. For instance, by inviting Ukraine into NATO, and stationing a “tripwire” force in the country similar to what we have in Korea. Doing so could have deterred Russia from invading in the first place, which is the best possible outcome.
But for better or worse, we didn’t do that. And if we were to become directly involved now, it would probably escalate the conflict, rather than de-escalate it. The best we can do now is to refrain from direct involvement, but to continue to give Ukraine all the indirect support we can. And then as soon as this current phase of the conflict is over, then fix our previous mistake and invite Ukraine into NATO.
If the war will go on for years, then we should be training Ukrainians now on use of modern NATO hardware. Then we will be able to supply all the hardware we want and it will only be operated by Ukrainians from within Ukrainian territory. It’s not like there’s a great shortage of Ukrainians as a population. They probably already have way more pilots than aircraft.
I mean shit, if the war’s going to last 20 years, then there are pilots who aren’t even born yet who will participate in combat. I think 20 years is likely a bit much but a year or two? Sure.
Of course, Russian leadership will call this whatever they want publicly. They’re already calling sanctions a declaration of war. But it does feel like there’s a step change between Ukrainians using NATO hardware themselves (what is already happening) vs. NATO personnel participating directly. I’m in favor of continuing to put as much hardware in their hands as possible and that implies training them to use the more advanced stuff (not just Stingers and Javelins).
I don’t think the Ukrainians will be fighting the kind of war that allows for an air force a few months from now, let alone years.
That remains to be seen. I’m not sure the Russians are fighting a war that allows them an air force a few months from now.
Their losses of their core, modern hardware and, more importantly their more elite pilots have not, as far as I can see, been very great. In fact, for whatever reason on the air force side, they haven’t really risked much of their fixed wing aircraft except some attack aircraft. Mainly, they seem to be using helicopters and gunships for some reason. To be sure, they have taken quite a few losses on this score, but then they have a lot of this sort of thing. I think a lot of the losses we’ve seen so far have been in their second or even third tier units and weapons systems. It seems to be the Russian tactical doctrine to send in their older, weaker units initially, followed up by their more modern, upgraded equipment and better troops.
So, I guess, I think Russia will still have a viable and usable air force in a few months. I do think they are going to take a lot more losses than the US would accept…but then, that also seems to be the way they think about this stuff.
A functional air force that they are unwilling to use due to potential losses has the same net effect. If they won’t use their most advanced craft due to lack of air supremacy, and they are unable to gain air supremacy in the next few months–or even face setbacks if Ukraine is bolstered by more advanced NATO AA hardware–then they may as well not have an air force at all.
That remains to be seen as well, but a kind of ongoing stalemate seems by no means impossible. And I don’t see any means of Russia stopping hardware from pouring in from the west, either with ground or air units.
The assumption has ALWAYS been that a war with Russia would be nuclear.
That is, in fact, entirely the point of NATO. It’s to frighten Russia with nuclear weapons. It’s why the USA has never even pretended to not be willing to use nuclear weapons first in Europe.
I would be mildly surprised if plans aren’t already in the works. I suspect the extent of NATO intervention is not as much as you’ve read; it’s likely far more, but on the quiet.
Now is the time for the West to FLOOD Ukraine with weapons and training. At least now nothing really fancy, more technical than the NLAWs the UK sent, can be handed over, but certainly any number of spies, moles, and other covert agents can be gotten in while Ukraine still controls most of the country. The seeds are being planted for connections and organizations within Ukraine of an extent not seen in the spy game since WWII.
Even if they aren’t well-maintiained, Russia has a lot of assets, frankly more than NATO is going to gift to Ukraine even if they had the people to use them. The real question is how long the fragile Russian economy can remain functional without markets. If Russia puts all of its economy on a war footing it can probably sustain an occupation indefinitely at the expense of great hardship to its population, and even the oligarchs who owe fealty to Putin aren’t going to accept that long term.
I despair at the notion of turning Ukraine into another Korea or divided Germany. Unfortunately, short of a regime change in the Kremlin I don’t see a quick or easy resolution to this crisis.
Stranger
Agreed. In fact I’d suggest that’s the reason Congress is being briefed about the war lasting decades. They’re going to be the ones that approve any hardware transfers. Training would have to be part of that. It wouldn’t make sense to train if the war will be over in weeks, but that’s not what they’re being told.
True enough, though it almost goes without saying that the goal of any war is to make it was expensive as possible for the other guy, so that eventually they give up. Supplying Javelins and Stingers has a great return on investment for the time being. Sanctions make everything more expensive. But at some point they may need something more to apply pressure.
Of course, North Korea and other examples demonstrate that a country can go indefinitely without calling mercy… but that’s not the worst possible outcome here.
An insurrection in Ukraine will hasten regime change, if anything.
It’s also what the Ukrainians would want to help them with, and we’d owe it to them.
That’s true to an extent. Or, it might be they are unwilling to risk it…yet…in this phase of the conflict. It seems apparent to me at least, that Russia went into this thing with an idea that they weren’t going to risk their best equipment or troops, and probably that it wouldn’t take much for Ukraine to surrender. That initial mindset might still be driving them. They might think they can still win with what they have and what they planned…and if it takes more losses of their 2nd or 3rd tier units, well, thems the breaks. It seems callous and even stupid from our perspective, but Putin and his generals apparently look at this from a completely different perspective. We know that just in the fact that this invasion seems ill considered from all aspects…yet they pulled the trigger on it anyway.