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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31609 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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Many people have compared this to the Winter War. Soviet performance was similarly inept there, but they did basically win in the end, getting relatively modest territorial concessions though rather than total control of Finland. Maybe that's the best thing to expect here too.

It appears that Finland in 1939 had much more limited materiel support and commitment from the "big players" than Ukraine today: Germany had then a treaty with the Soviets and intercepted the Italian aid (arms and planes). The US was neutral, but there was some private fundraising. The Allies (France and UK) sold planes that didn't arrive in time to affect the course of war. (However, the threat of an Allied intervention via Sweden was very likely a factor in Stalin had to take into account.)

Sweden provided significant support (guns, ammo, and Wikipedia page says the Swedish volunteer air wing in Finland operated a third of Swedish air force's fighter planes). Also some Hungarian support. However, Sweden and Hungary were regional powers at best.

In contrast, Ukraine has near full materiel support of NATO and EU in quantity if with some limits in quality. (Hi-tech indirect fires like HIMARS and gigantic funding packages from the US and EU: yes. Western-made fighter planes and main battle tanks: none yet). But there is a noticeable difference between the incumbent president signing a lend-lease contract vs ex-president soliciting donations for a humanitarian aid fund.

they did basically win in the end

I've never given much credence to the notion of the winter war being a Soviet victory. They had to settle for the demands they levied at the start of the war, which were a paper thin pretense for starting a war that would let them seize the whole of Finland.

If I went to steal someones wallet and came away with a black eye, 3 missing teeth and a torn note clutched in my bloodied hand, I don't think I'd consider that a victory.

The Winter War is in my opinion a very good example of a Pyrrhic victory.

If the lines of conflict were frozen today, would you consider it a victory for Russia?

Not particularly, failure to meet objectives, massive cost in casualties, prestige, manpower, etc. Failure to seperate/expose the west as weak, now heavily reliant on a not particularly trustworthy ally.

I also think that freezing the conflict indefinitely ala a Korean war style situation wouldn't be advantageous to Russia. It seems that the primary goal (of the Russian leadership at least) has been to prevent Ukraine from leaving "Russias orbit" and showing that it's possible to succeed under alternative systems of government/life is better on the outside. The west actually has quite a strong record of succeeding in this regard, at least once a conflict has become properly frozen.

Victory as compared to January 2022, not as compared to some hypothetical in which tanks roll into Kiev unopposed in February.

No, because of all the reasons I listed above.

The date doesn't particularly matter here, because victory is determined based on the goals of the various combatants and those haven't meaningfully changed.

This seems like a non-central definition of 'victory', not least because it depends on mind-reading.

If Mexico developed a bold plan to roll tanks through the American South all the way to Washington, but somehow managed to take and hold (only) Texas, would you consider this a loss for Mexico?

Victory in war is largely a subjective concept, particularly in limited wars, how you perceive an outcome of a war depends on how you assess the goals/outcomes of the various groups impacted by the war.

My assessment on the war in Ukraine is that any gains the Russian government could make here is far past the point of the juice being worth the squeeze. It's possible for Putin to declare that the Russians have achieved an arbitrary goal in Ukraine, so that he can "win" and declare a victory, but it would be phyrric at best,more likely a victory in name only. Russia has wasted an absurd quantity of lives, money, materiel, prestige, etc, on this war and there's nothing they're going to get out that's going to make up for the cost.

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