How The Russo-Ukrainian War Ends - Not With A Bang, But A Whimper
Creating and maintaining Empire takes the ability to project force, and this takes money, and people. Every Empire in history has failed, because military expenditure exhausted the treasury...
Contrary to the many claims in supposed “conservative” media, especially by people such as Tucker Carlson and Douglas MacGregor, Ukraine isn’t losing the war, and Russia isn’t winning. Despite Russia throwing tens of thousands of troops at Ukrainian front lines, their advances have been no greater in any place by more than 10 kilometers - 6 miles. And a lot of these advances have been thrown back. It’s pretty obvious that the big losses trumpeted by Carlson just aren’t happening, and haven’t been happening. Ukraine still controls half of Donetsk Oblast, the whole of Kharkiv Oblast, and parts of Zaporhizhzhia, Kherson, and Lugansk Oblasts, the same as nearly 18 months ago. And Ukraine has sunk 1/4 of the Black Sea Fleet, and made it impossible for the fleet to use its base on Crimea, forcing it to retreat to Novorossisk in Krasnodar Krai. And on top of that, Ukraine has shot down 14 Russian fighter jets, and one of Russia’s four remaining AWACS airborne command post aircraft, in the past two weeks, to the point of making it very unappealing for Russia to operate aircraft over Ukraine or close to its borders - the AWACS was shot down over the eastern shore of the Sea of Azov.
That doesn’t sound like “losing” to me. If you look at the maps below - and the areas of control and especially the distance scales at the bottom left, the aircraft losses, and the ship losses and drawback of naval forces, it looks like Ukraine could well in fact win this war, especially if it takes out the Kerch Bridge - and if you look at the sinking of the Russian corvette - a capital ship, carrying 8 missiles - at Feodosia in southeastern Crimea - the possibility of taking out that bridge looks more and more likely. Couple all of that with the interdiction of Russian logistics from drone strikes at targets within Russia, and that begins to look like Ukraine is making the war more costly than Russia can afford, wartime economy or not.
The only way that Putin wins is to get the West to give in, and the Russian propaganda effort is first class, that’s the kind of warfare they’re really good at. If they can arrange a “peace treaty”, they can re-arm, reconstitute their forces, and then when they’re ready, come back, break the treaty just as Putin has done with every treaty he’s ever signed on to, and restart the war. “Peace treaties” with Putin are sucker bets, he will honor them until he figures he can get what he wants by force, and just break them - just like, say, the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, where Ukraine was conned out of its nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees from Russia, the UK, and the US. If Ukraine had retained those weapons, Putin would never have dared to invade, and Ukraine, as the place where the rockets and engines for Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces were designed and manufactured, definitely had the capability to modernize them.
But Ukraine, lulled into complacency by the US and UK, guaranteeing to guard its 1991 borders against incursions and invasion by hostile powers, gave up those effective means of deterrence, and that was a big mistake- and that will be kept firmly in mind by other countries which acquire nuclear weapons to deter a Russian or Chinese threat, for the simple fact that none of the guarantor countries has backed up its end of the bargain - except for the UK. The US refuses to put “boots on the ground” and planes in the air, and whatever else it takes to put the guarantee in force, and if Trump gets elected, may welsh on every guarantee and treaty it has made in the past 70 years, leaving American credibility in negotiations at close to zero - with the same effect on American power in world affairs. And the primary beneficiaries of that are the Russians and the Chinese Communist Party - and that’s something for Americans to think, and think hard, about.
The upshot is, is that in both the short and long run, the US needs to do what it can to ensure that Russia is defeated. It can hand back Ukraine’s nuclear weapons and walk away, it can put US troops on the ground, or it can send weaponry and materiel sufficient for Ukraine to defeat the Russians - because that’s what the US promised to do in 1994. And from here on out, unless the US is willing to back up its “full faith and credit” with meaningful and effective action, it can sink into the shadows of history, no one will be so foolish again to risk their safety and security on the word of the US government. And that will have consequences for America and its people, and none of them good.
and
“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated that a ceasefire in Ukraine would allow Russia to rebuild its forces and means for future offensive operations, as Russia previously did following the start of Russia’s 2014 invasion. Zelensky stated on March 8 that a pause in fighting in Ukraine would pose a serious challenge and problem both to Ukraine and all of Europe.[1] Zelensky noted that Russia would benefit from a pause or ceasefire as Russian forces would use the pause to optimize Russia’s military and overall war effort, including by training its soldiers, many of whom deploy to the front line with very little training. Zelensky also stated that Russian forces are suffering from missile, artillery, and drone shortages, so Russia is sourcing these weapons from North Korea and Iran and needs to rebuild its stockpiles. Zelensky stated that Russia similarly benefited from previously freezing the war in 2014 and was able to build up its weapons, accumulate forces, and invade Ukraine again in 2022. ISW continues to assess that any ceasefire in Ukraine would benefit Russia, giving it time to reconstitute and regroup for future offensive operations, optimize command and control, implement lessons learned from experience in Ukraine, and resupply Russian forces in a manner that is exceedingly difficult to do while high-intensity combat is underway.[2] Zelensky also stated that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s goal is not just to occupy all of Ukraine, but to deprive Ukraine of its independence and integrate Ukraine into Russia using either force or political means.[3] Kremlin officials, including Putin, have repeatedly indicated that Russia hopes to occupy most, if not all, of Ukraine and eliminate Ukrainian statehood and independence.[4] Putin has also geographically defined historical ”Russian” lands - a characterization which the Kremlin has used to justify its full-scale invasion of Ukraine - as encompassing the former Russian Empire and Soviet Union.[5] “ https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-8-2024
Here’s the maps:
.
.
.
And it frankly mystifies me that Americans who view themselves as conservatives, especially those who are new to conservatism, via talk radio and podcasts such as Carlson’s and MacGregor’s, both of whom have elements of conservatism, are ignorant of much of the conservative philosophy prior to the Bush Administration, especially that part which is anti-Communist, anti-Leninist, and anti-Stalinist. So we have soi-disant “conservatives” who back Stalinists such as Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban, and their fellow-travellers, and lacking that conservative background, simply don’t know any better. And then there’s the “Russian Orthodox Church”, which is little more than an “acceptable” public face of the KGB/FSB - more on that in the next post.
Finally, have a look at this:
The point is simple - Putin is not what he's claiming to be, he's not an "Orthodox Christian" - like that cigarette smuggler, “Archbishop” Kirill, they're both rebranded KGB running a set of deception operations, which are working quite well, so that American "conservatives" have been fooled into backing Stalinists. It should be obvious - Putin's resurrection of the Young Pioneers in elementary and high schools in Russia and its colonies, the use of red stars as identifiers on Russian military equipment, the display of the red hammer and sickle flag - how much does it take for American "conservatives" to realize they've been had? God forbid you should actually learn a little bit of Russian... "It's easier to fool someone than to convince them that they've been fooled" - Mark Twain