Quote (ferdia @ Apr 11 2022 09:43am)
I will try saying it another way:
If Russia and Ukraine have a treaty, whereby Ukraine in its entirety decides to merge with Russia, to no longer aspire to Nato, to no longer aspire to EU and to be obedient to Russia - i.e. a Russian "Victory" - Russia will still have lost. By this I mean the West will not row back on the current sanctions and if anything they will double down on them. I honestly see Russia as the new Cuba at this point. i.e. ostracized from the world.
Trusting this clarifies.
Winning and losing are fairly subjective terms in wars, defined by what objectives you set out. Russia lost some things, that's evident now. For example, their biggest loss is they permanently lost most Ukrainian hearts, which realistically means that Ukraine wont have a Russia friendly president/governance for many generations if ever. They've also been severely damaged economically which is a big deal. They've pretty much succeeded in preventing Ukraine joining NATO however, and the verdict is still out on whether they'll succeed in breaking away the eastern/southern parts of Ukraine, but I think that's something that can also be accomplished.
Russia wont be the next Cuba because it's too important to global economics. Cuba is a small island state that accounts for little to no international trade. Russia has and will continue to be isolated from the west but that's not the whole world. Russia can turn east where literally 60% of all humans live, meanwhile Europe and North America only account for 15% of all people. Those nations have not shunned Russia to this point, and many of them won't because they are still developing economies that need energy which Russia has a ton of. Europe and North America are also fairly developed economies which have much lower growth rates versus under developed Asian markets, so there is way more opportunity for growth in Asia/Africa/South America.
People are making outcome assessments way too soon. The dust hasn't even settled yet, realistically we'll need years to try and make sense of everything.