Quote (Prox1m1ty @ Jan 25 2023 06:17am)
100 tanks are not going to push Russia out of all held territory. If they arrive in time for any Spring offensive by Russia, then they will make mincemeat of Russia conscripts.
The balls in Vlad's court now. He played the nuclear blackmail card, he also said he wasn't bluffing. My money is on he WAS bluffing.
My guess is the Russians could deploy more conventional missile strikes, possibly combined with a spring offensive around Donetsk or Kharkiv.
I don't see them trying to push in the South around Kherson first. For the same reason Ukraine hasn't pushed across the Dnipro there, eg logistics and vulnerability when crossing the river.
It would make sense for Russia to take the initiative in attacking before main battle tanks arrive/are deployed.
When Russia massed its troops on the border, the question was whether he was bluffing. When Russia failed to take the country in a blitzkrieg, the question was whether he'd commit to a prolonged war. When the snow fell and cities were vulnerable, the question was whether Russia was start blowing up infrastructure. Playing at brinksmanship at calling his 'bluff' at every stage is going to send us right over the nuclear cliff at the rate we're going. The difference between this and the cuban missile crisis and previous standoffs is that we're actively killing Russian citizens in a hot war, and so we're no longer talking about whether a war goes from cold to hot, but whether it enflames from a NATO proxy into a full fledge nuclear conflict.
What escalations can NATO keep pulling before Putin uses his trump card? We're going to send them himars, then abrams, then what, f16s? Hand them the keys to the USS gerald ford and tell them to bring it back by 9 PM?
Either we're not sending enough weapons to make a difference, or the difference we'll make is forcing Putin to choose between backing down and going nuclear in a conflict in which he's showed zero signs of backing down and every sign of regarding as a full existential commitment.