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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   1329 thread views

Transnational Thursday for October 17, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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At this point the West should stop all kind of aid for ukraine for couple of months just to teach this loudmouth who is really in charge. And make it official - no face savings.

They might disintegrate if we did that - the battlefield situation is not looking very good even with continual spurts of aid.

There are already lots of angry Ukrainians who feel betrayed or deceived by the West, many of whom now have plentiful access to MANPADs, ATGMs, top-tier killer drones and experience using them. I wouldn't want to be the politician who is seen to pull the plug on these people.

This whole situation has become a complete disaster, I have a few shreds of sympathy for the Pentagon/State Department goons in charge of this operation. No matter what they decide on, there's going to be huge backblast. Steady-as-she-goes: Ukraine bleeds out on the battlefield. Cut and run: accusations of betrayal, the usual suspects shrieking 'with a bit of backbone we could've fought off the tyrannical rampage of this genocidal monster', Ukrainian collapse and decent probability of 'stabbed in the back' terror attacks. Pump up aid: military readiness declines further, escalation risks, Russia takes hostile actions elsewhere, still very unlikely Ukraine secures 2014 borders.

Of course, if the experts actually understood what they were doing we would never have rowed up shit creek at all.

Pump up aid: military readiness declines further, escalation risks, Russia takes hostile actions elsewhere, still very unlikely Ukraine secures 2014 borders.

I doubt more aid will really affect American military readiness, the bigger question is what the US gets back. Zelensky is not able to answer the big unspoken question: why should anyone help Ukraine win the war decisively?

There's option A: the US spends 100 billion dollars, Ukraine and Russia bleed out on the battlefield, at least one of them sells its prime assets to MNCs to fix the economy

And there's option B: the US spends 500 billion dollars, Ukraine kicks Russia out, at most one of them sells its prime assets to MNCs to fix the economy

Why spend more money on a potentially worse outcome?

B) also implies civil war in Russia

Not necessarily. A civil war requires competing elites, and Putin has been constantly pruning anything that could be considered a nascent counter-elite. Given how even Ukraine didn't really have a civil war I doubt Russia will. The PRC could support separatists in the Far East, but this would mean the bigger part of Russia would realign itself with the US, which not what they need.

Given how even Ukraine didn't really have a civil war I doubt Russia will.

Russia and Ukraine are having a civil war right now, it's just one that happens to straddle an existing border.

Don't forget in option B: Russian ethnics are dispossessed at least and massacred at worst in Crimea and DPR/LPR, with NATO weapons.

Russian ethnics are dispossessed at least and massacred at worst in

Russian ethnics are being dispossessed at least and massacred at worst in Ukraine right now, by Russians.

Yes but not, or at least only marginally, with US support and weapons.

...isn't that.... too much? if they want to punish Zelensky, they can sanction some of his property or send his wife back

The point is not to punish Zelensky but to humiliate him.

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