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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   26927 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023

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I think your options are too limited. Right now, it seems that Russia doesn't have the combat power to push much further into Ukraine than it already has, at least not faster than a snail's pace, nor to do anything dramatic like capture Kiev, regardless of how much help we do or don't give to Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Ukraine doesn't seem to have much chance of pushing the Russians back any time soon, regardless of how much help we do or don't give them. I don't think this is going to change either aside from large-scale direct intervention from Western troops, or several decades training up Ukrainian forces.

So the only practical options are probably 1. Continue to feed men on both sides into a pointless meat grinder, or 2. Sign some sort of peace treaty giving Russia at least most of what they already captured officially.

Zelenski has of course ruled this out completely, publically and repeatedly -- it's probable that this is kayfabe to some extent, but he certainly gives the impression of being drunk on koolaid.

I guess he's an actor -- maybe a better one than I'd assumed?

  1. Sign some sort of peace treaty giving Russia at least most of what they already captured officially.

Why you think that it does not end with Russia restarting pointless meat grinder few months or years later?

I don't think they have to push further into Ukraine though. They have the combat power to maintain the pressure they're putting on Ukraine, whereas Ukraine does not. Ukraine lacks any industry to produce more weapons so without western support they'd be short on those. They also lack people, so even with western support if its just a long war of attrition eventually Ukraine collapses. Attritional wars are ugly and boring, which makes western public interest less likely to stay high. If Russia were to make big gains the western MIC could sell that as a threat and push for more support, if Ukraine makes gains people keep supporting them because they think they can win. Long ugly stalemate of a meat grinder with Ukraine eventually collapsing seems the most likely outcome with current western support.

I don't know that they'd go for a peace treaty after the last one was just used to arm and organize Ukraine. If they did it'd be seen as just a pause in the war while both sides reorganized imo, not a real peace.

We will see.

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