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Notes -
Interesting, @netstack expressed a similar sentiment below.
That makes sense to me (that the invasion was a miscalculation), but why continue the conflict now? If that were truly the case why wouldn’t Russia seek to de-escalate and extricate itself to rejoin the global economy?
Also, my recollection is that after 2014 Russia began saving up a rainy day fund of a few hundred billion dollars in foreign currency, which when combined with ongoing income from exporting natural resources meant they could withstand sanctions for a few years. Wouldn’t that indicate that they believed a prolonged sanctions regime was possible before they invaded?
From both sides, it’s now a face-saving thing. If NATO fails after giving Ukrainians their most advanced stuff, it looks fairly weak. We’re admitting that our best equipment, our intelligence, and our logistical support couldn’t drive back an army of a country with a third rate military. This would undermine Western hegemony in other parts of the world, countries would be more willing to challenge us openly, or to create groups that are not aligned with the International Community (which is run by and for the west and runs on westerners rules). China would be much more likely to try to take Taiwan and continue to try to control the South China Sea. The Middle East might well dump petrodollars for petro-yuans if the rate is better.
For Russia, their credibility as a cohesive country is at stake. Putin is playing for an empire, though I suspect he’s also sending a warning to other central Asian countries to not stray too far. This only works if Putin can take and keep Eastern Ukraine and prevent the rest of Ukraine from joining NATO and the EU. If that doesn’t happen, he reveals Russia as a weak country that cannot project power to its near neighbors. Which seems to me to encourage Central Asian leaders to look to other places for trade and support and so on.
I think China wins no matter what as long as the war can be dragged out long enough to deplete our weapons stockpiles. Every weapons system sent to Europe is one that cannot be sent to Taiwan.
NATO has not even started doing this (unless modern planes and long range missiles started to be delivered in large volumes - or any at all).
Modernish tanks and artillery was delivered but in small quantifies.
HIMARS was delivered in tiny volumes and had noticeable impact and continues to produce hilarious Russian claims.
That is based on assumption that noone made any procurement based on what happened. This is not true in general, and not fully true even for Germany.
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Because the Great Emperor Putin can't just tuck his tail between his legs and admit he'd been beaten. And not just by some mighty American Jedi, but by stupid Ukrainians who are routinely laughed at and despised by Russians as stupid country yokes talking in stupid broken Russian and aren't capable of anything but serving as entertainment for the real great nations. They can not lose, because the whole world model that they have been building for years says they can not lose. And also, losers do not stay in power for long in Russia. If you kill 150 thousands Russians, and win - you are a military genius. If you kill 150 thousands Russians and lose - well, then you'd have to have some answers. So, they can not stop now.
They probably predicted some sanctions, but not as coordinated and deep as it is going to be now, because they expected Ukraine to collapse and the West to accept it with some token protests. Same as happened in 2014 and with Georgia and many times before. They certainly didn't expect the wide boycott, but what they're going to do now - admit it? They'd pretend it's all planned and go begging to China.
Which is particularly interesting, because I saw some commentators talking about how the war in Ukraine was causing big problems for many of the (relatively) poor debtors in china’s belt-and-road initiative, making china unhappy about the war and less likely to aid Russia.
I saw this idea (that belt-and-road debtors would be hard-hit by economic fallout from the war) floating around before the grain deal was struck, so maybe the state of the global economy is different now. There was that big showy meeting between Putin and Xi recently.
Also, isn’t it in China’s interest to have a weaker northern neighbor?
It's absolutely in China's interest to make Russia weaker - Russia has juicy resource-rich Siberia which is much closer to China than to any major Russian centers, and also getting some cheap oil and selling some low-quality phones and weaponry with inflated price tag wouldn't hurt either. China is ecstatic to see the West and Russia fight. But they don't want to lose the Western markets - so they'd help Russia as much as they can (and extract as much cash as they can from it) without pissing off the West enough to cause them to agree to suffer all the economic hardships that detachment from China would cause. Which leaves them not infinite, but pretty substantial space for maneuver. China is clearly the beneficiary there, and is interested in prolonging the conflict as much as possible, but not much in Russia winning (it's probably better for them if Russia loses, but after a very long war).
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How long did it take the US to give up on Iraq and Afghanistan, nations culturally distinct and geographically distant from it? Now, imagine how long the US would fight to keep Canada or Mexico from joining an enemy bloc
Ukraine is the second largest nation of Russian speakers, it directly abuts Russia. Putin is also an autocrat, he can't just go "my bad" and walk away, unlike Bush (and, even then, a highly critical Obama couldn't just back out of everything).
And what does he get if he leaves? He'll have handed NATO an unconditional win, he would have strengthened the links between NATO and Ukraine and within NATO, left a more formidable enemy on his border and discredited himself at home.
If he keeps fighting he can try to lock in his gains, such as they are. Or hope that things get bad enough that the coalition breaks or tires and leans on Ukraine for some sort of peace. Things have gone badly but it's far from over.
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