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Notes -
The much vaunted gas crisis never materialized; European gas prices largely returned to pre-2019 levels in 2023; I said 300,000 casualties, including WIA - KIA is likely in the 70-120k bracket; I don’t think fever dreams of Ed Krassenstein Twitter types mean that the Pentagon “expected” Ukraine to win (if anything quite the opposite).
This means exactly the opposite of what you think it does. If even an interminably corrupt, poor, kleptocratic, bureaucratic shithole like Russia can get its act together this much in a crisis, it means the US and other Western could likely jump to serious war footing much faster than naysayers predict. They merely do not yet care, because bleeding Russia in Ukraine for as long as possible is so minor in terms of both blood and treasure for the United States.
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