keep dreaming ^^

I am the Walrus?

Yesterday....

it will be at least 7 years of slow growth. its a natural side effect of the conflict with Russia and China.

Stopping this war isn't easy for the side of Ukraine and its Western supporters. If they appear too weak, Russia will conclude that it can achieve a better outcome by continuing the war, so why compromise?
In hindsight, it probably would have been better for Ukraine to try to negotiate a peace treaty before its counteroffensive, using this threat as a trump card to get concessions.

On top of that, the rebuild will also be a black hole for western dollars and euros for many years before it pays off in the form of a resurgent Ukraine becoming a worthwhile market and trade partner. And we don't actually want to start investing in a rebuild before a solid, reliable peace has been achieved. Even if a peace treaty is negotiated now, the only thing stopping Russia from trying the same playbook yet again in a couple of years is arming Ukraine so much that they can deter these shenanigans - so we'll realistically have to continue military support for Ukraine as well, at least for a couple of years, even if the actual war stops soon.

Man you want to buy my cheap energy ? maaaan ?

Why is the framing always some version of if we don’t stop Russia through war there will be a future war. It’s basically the predominant theory of why peace is not on the table, instead this seemingly just around the corner ‘Ukraine getting the upper hand’ dream which then will allow them sue for peace and the get the most concessions is the actual right time. What happens if this never happens? how many dead and billions would it take for people just to stop and say the best time for peace is always now?

The rebuild will also be a black hole I agree but the longer it takes to start the lower the probability of success and the higher the costs will be. The higher the probability the 15+ million that left the country will never want to come back. Instead of hoping for Ukraine getting big military wins which are like desert mirages of just a little longer and they’ll get there, war should wind to an end and for everyone to have sober asks and expectations.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Nov 14 2023 07:04pm

Because that has been Russia's modus operandi for the past 300 years: if you're Russia's neighbor, you're either strong enough to hold your ground, or you're getting annexed sooner or later. Why would Ukraine, after everything they've endured at the hands of the Russians throughout their history, be foolish enough to rely on the goodwill of the Russians?

The ideal solution is not to stop Russia through war, but rather to stop them via deterrence. Speaking of deterrence:


If the goal is to maintain the status quo, rather than take back lost territory, Ukraine doesn't need big wins. In this case, they just need enough military might to deter further Russian incursions into the territory they currently control, plus the capability to retaliate against hypothetical drone/cruise missile attacks. What they don't necessarily need in order to maintain a peace treaty along the current lines are massive ground forces which can break through heavily fortified Russian lines.

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The way I see the past 8 months as well as the current situation is the following: giving Ukraine's counteroffensive a chance, giving them a shot at retaking lost territory, was the reasonable approach with what we knew in spring. Now that this attempt has failed very unambiguously while support for Ukraine is showing cracks among the Western populace, Ukraine retaking Crimea or the Donbass seems wholly impossible and retaking the land corridor between the two also seems highly unlikely. Hence, a peace treaty enshrining the current status quo is about the best outcome which is on the table.

For the reasons I lined out above, the best course of action for Ukraine is to wait until the Russians try to go on the proper offense again, crush this offense and only then start negotiating. (With proper offense, I mean pushing forward in a place with a rather straight frontline. Russia will probably take the Avdiivka salient which is surrounded by Russian territory on 3.5 sides.) If the Russians unexpectedly don't go on such an offense, the war will settle into a frozen conflict anyway.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Nov 14 2023 07:51pm

Russia today holds less European adjacent territory than it did in 1800s or 1900s when it held pretty much most of Ukraine, Belarus, large swaths of Poland, Baltics nations, Finland and so on. In reality what eventually happened in Europe is most countries basically formed borders and became sovereigns based on language/custom commonalities with many of these eastern countries going through that as well. And it didn't really happen as a result of war with definitive and long lasting outcomes.

Your description of Russia is basically the description of pretty much most if not all regional European powers that at one time or another dominated it's smaller neighbors, eventually those empires pulling back and forming nations states. Austro-Hungaria, Germany, France, Spain, England, Dutch, all went through similar phases.

You guys still have unrealistic and fantastical expectations of Ukraine's ability against Russia, something that I and many like me highlighted since the beginning of the war. It's a David vs Goliath fight that's one sided even with the collective west funneling hundreds of billions and cleaning out their 155mm shell stocks. They wont push the Russians out, and they (Ukraine) and we (the west) don't want to sit down for peace talks based on current lines, instead you guys keep clinging to some perceived potential future victory for Ukraine that will allow them better terms. No one even wants to even hear what the terms would be for peace today, no one even wants to say, okay if we had a potential peace what would Russia yield today, instead it's a foregone conclusion that the fighting should indefinitely continue with maximalist asks of recovering all of the Donbass and Crimea.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Nov 14 2023 08:27pm

The tsarist Russian Empire and its successor state, the USSR, kept swallowing up its smaller neighbors for 250 years, until the Soviet Union was one of the largest empires in the history of mankind. From 1989 to 91, this overextended empire imploded and lost a ton of territory/member states in one fell swoop. Since then, Putin and his clique are super butthurt and engaged in an ongoing effort to restore Russia's lost empire. Which is the key difference to other imperialist powers of the past:


Pretty much all the other European powers collapsed due to wars (Germany, Austro-Hungaria, France), or due to the immediate economic repercussions of disastrous wars (UK, Spain), just like the USSR. What sets Russia apart is that revanchism is guiding their politics after the collapse.

France didn't try to re-subjugate Algeria. They also accepted the Saarland chosing Germany over them in the 1955 referendum. The UK accepted that it could no longer maintain control over its colonies and set them free with its head held high. Germany didn't plot to re-capture Bohemia and Moravia. Austria didn't even think about fusing with Hungary again, or about annexing Yugoslavia.

By contrast, Russia has tried to subjugate the Baltics during the 90s, has crushed the opposition/independence movement in Chechnya, invaded Georgia in 2008, has successfully turned Belarus into a puppet state, tried to do the same in Ukraine (including an assassination attempt on the leader of Ukraine's pro-Western political movement in 2004), annexed and invaded parts of Ukraine in 2014 after these attempts had failed, and fully invaded all of Ukraine in 2022.



Compare it to haggling: the seller always enters price negotiations with a higher asking price than what he would be willing to sell for while the buyer always opens with a lower offer than what he would actually be willing to pay. Same concept when it comes to diplomatic negotiations. If Ukraine's goal is to get a peace treaty which enshrines the current status quo, they have to enter the negotiations asking for more than that. Moreover, irrespective from all this goliath vs david stuff, it should be obvious that Ukraine has a better chance of getting compromises out of the Russians if the negotiations take place at a moment of strength than at a moment of weakness. In other words: after they have beaten back a Russian offense, not after their own counteroffensive failed.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Nov 14 2023 08:59pm