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I think we have differing understanding of the facts on the ground. I don’t think Russia’s military capacity has been degraded significantly. I think they seem to be able relatively to resupply.
I also think your description of the history of Russian involvement in Ukraine is a bit one sided.
You also ignore that Ukraine’s military has been heavily limited. So if the war goes on, not sure they will be in a better position in a year.
Also if the US support drops out, then that would be a material blow to Ukraine unless Europe substantially increases their assistance to Ukraine. I’m not sure Europe can militarily or financially. The US could also offer to Europe more military supplies to be in nato countries if they are worried Russia won’t stop. Of course, I’ve always found this argument interesting (Russia military is collapsing but if we don’t stop them in Ukraine they will roll into Paris — the two are incompatible). In any event, I’m sure our allies would be more comforted by putting US boots on the ground in their countries as a deterrent to Russia compared to this endless funding of Ukraine that won’t go anywhere.
And the reasons I think the sanctions were a bad idea is because it could lead to de dollarization / FDI into the US—both of which I see as bad things.
Resupply what, specifically? The same thing, or inferior substitutions that would entail a drop in capacity?
We can look at the usage of equipment that shows up in loss data, and the change of sourcings. There's a reason that the Russian tanks and APCs have reverted to a Cold War rather than post-Cold War standard, why long range precision munitions and cruise missiles have given way to glide bombs and shahed drones, and why the Russians resorted to the North Korean supply deal.
Around 2020, there was a joke about Russia in that it had a large army, and a modern army, but not a large modern army. No one characterizes the Russian army as particularly modern anymore, as beyond it's drone and glide bomb capability, it's largely resorted to pre-Desert Storm soviet-era capabilities. These are still dangerous- scale matters- but these are dangerous in significantly different ways than the more modernized force of 2022 started out as.
Truths, and especially the most relevant truths, aren't always even-sided.
Russia's involvement in Ukraine has been a series of strategic blunders by Putin for more than a decade of unforced errors, escalations built on erronious assumptions, and then doubling-down to produce more unforced errors. Putin has turned a nominal sphere of influence conflict over a voluntary association agreement into a generational strategic disaster for the Russians politically, socially, economically, and diplomatically.
The Ukrainian's limitations aren't such that prevents their ability to attrit the Russians at strategically significant rates, and their domestic limitations are less important than their backers economic capabilities and willingness, as their relative position is based on the ability on the west to support, and the stockpiles Russia has to continue to draw from.
The current question mark / hope for the Russians is that the Americans under Trump will withdraw support. That would certainly shape how much support is available, but also presumes results.
You can be sure from an American perspective, but that's not the European perspective, and whatever else their flaws the Europeans are not so American-centric.
This is without justifying the conclusion of why said Europeans would be comforted by Trump putting American boots in Europe, after Trump cut aid to Ukraine, when the concern of Europeans is that Trump wouldn't use the American boots in Europe in a crisis, but continued support to Ukraine would both keep attriting the Russians .
Why do you think the Ukraine War sanctions would lead to de-dollarization when that has been an explicit policy goal for more than a decade prior by various powers including the Russians? Particularly when the Russian experience of separating from the dollar-based system has been such a visible non-preferable state, and even Russian traditional allies have been leveraging maintaining their own access to the dollar system to exploit the Russians?
Moreover, why do you believe a breakdown of the global security order would decrease FDI into the US, when the North American continent is the least exposed to insecurity disruptions to energy, food, or maritime trade routes?
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