Meanwhile Zelensky blames the world for the losses in Kharkiv

Ukraine admits that without US aid the defense of their country is impossible. To quote Frank Herbert, "The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it." It is entirely our decision as to when and in what manner Ukraine receives US military aid.

The expectation and promise of our aid has also led directly to the continuation of this war. Think about it, we don't make the commitments, this war is settled through some settlement in the first 6-8 months. Hundreds of thousands remain alive, millions never leave Ukraine. Instead we said we'll give you a blank check until you win and you don't have to budge on negotiations.

Imagine this speech was never made:



It could have all turned out so different.

100% we fueled that war to weaken a geopolitical enemy. Slowly guided and funded the factions we wanted to get to power, which then led to the coup, then subsequent civil war. But there's still so many people that pretend that we had no hand in this and it was just some organic populist democratic uprising and we are just sending billions because freedom and democracy. But honestly, these are the same hopeless type of characters that cheered on Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, only later when it became of kind of not cool in social circles all of the sudden in revisionist ways they actually never supported those wars.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on May 17 2024 01:19pm

"Some settlement" is a nice euphemism for "unconditional surrender".

It is absolutely Ukraine's decision how far their fighting spirit goes. It is the West's moral duty, however, to be honest with them about the kind of support they can really bank on in the long run, so that Ukraine can make an informed decision. But this, in turn, would require the West to be honest with itself about how much it's actually willing to invest in the Ukrainian cause. And that's really the sore spot: Western leaders are dithering and kicking the can down the road all the time. Nobody is making the necessary long-term investment, for example in production capacities for artillery shells, because the Ukrainian cause isn't truely vital to its Western partners. Lots of lip service, not a lot of tangible action.

We're supporting them with scraps and leftovers, but none of the big players is willing to make a decisive commitment OR come out publicly against Ukraine help. The Western public is similarly two-faced: a vocal and sizable minority is oppposed to helping Ukraine, meanwhile, majorities support helping Ukraine in the abstract, but not when asked about the level of commitment which would be necessary for Ukraine to really hold its ground, let alone kick the Russians out of its territory. It seems like everyone is cowardly trying to muddle through without a clear strategic vision.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on May 17 2024 05:16pm

'Unconditional surrender' under which they would agree not to join NATO and recognize some autonomy for the Donbass vs the alternative of today, of not only losing the Donbas but bulk of Kherson and Zap Oblasts, maybe Kharkov oblast eventually?, 6 figures dead, millions more leaving the country, dozens of dams and other critical infrastructure destroyed and a economy that's almost entirely on life support and only surviving because of billions of monthly infusions from US/EU. Damn, good thing they didn't accept those terms, they really are in a much better position today.

You guys keep referring to Ukraine decision to keep fighting as some unified decision when in reality many of us keep poking holes in that narrative. 15+ million people leaving, wide spread dissatisfaction with forced mobilization, wide spread corruption, daily videos of gestapo-esque tactics of forcing people to the front. We have this discussion every few months, at what point is Ukraine going to get the upper hand to force some favorable settlement? How many more billions in commitments? How many more years of war and hundreds of thousands dead? Why is this starting to look like every other US war during the last 20 years. Get bogged down in a conflict that drags on for many years and has a price tag with a T, and after all of it, literally nothing to show for it.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on May 17 2024 05:43pm

Does anyone maintain that Ukraine's continued fight will retain more territory, blood and treasure than what they could have bargained for at both pre and post war opportunities?



And inevitably betraying our proxy warriors to the enemy as we abandon interest. Why would anyone expect otherwise given our reputation

Oh come on, seriously? Russia was on the outskirts of Kyiv, controlled Kherson, was in artillery range of Kharkiv and eyeing Odessa and Zaphorizhzhia back in April of 2022, when the supposed 'peace' treaty was on the table which was alledgedly ripped up by nefarious Boris Johnson according to the narrative of the "Ukraine should surrender"-faction. Do you, does anyone, seriously believe that Russia would have gone home at that point in time in return for mere lip service from Ukraine about never joining NATO, without leaving troops of their own stationed on Ukrainian soil, without demanding a full disarmament of Ukraine? While only demanding "some" autonomy for the Donbass, rather than its full sovereignty or annexation by Russia?

It's completely ridiculous to suggest that they would have accepted any peace treaty at that point in time which didn't turn Ukraine into a defenseless vassal yet again, not when the whole reason for this war is that Ukraine had the 'audacity' of no longer being their vassal in 2014. In hindsight, the time to go for a negotiated peace was either in the fall of 2022, or the spring of 2023 - the two points in time when Ukraine had momentum and was able to credibly threaten Russia. Which goes back to my previous post about the duplicity of the West: the Ukrainian leadership clearly didn't expect the Western support to dry up that quickly, that drastically. We gave them big hopes and then hung them out to dry.



Well, of course they'll be worse off if they ultimately lose the war now. In terms of damage sustained, fighting and losing is always worse than surrendering right away. This obviously doesn't mean that rolling over is always the more prudent course of action; that fighting is never worth it.

By the way, you're painting a really rosy picture of a post-surrender Ukraine under the rule of a benevolent Russia. Chances are that Russia would have occupied Ukraine for quite some time to oversee the "disarmament and denazification", carried out purges of dissidents and opposition leaders, countless Ukrainian girls raped, etc. And that's not just me inventing a scaretale, that's what Russian troops literally did in 2022 in the places they occupied. Which also implies that this scenario would most definitely have come with millions of Ukrainians fleeing the country, too. So the difference in outcome between the two scenarios, while still meaningful, is imho not nearly as huge as you claim.



How many of those 15 million are actually fighting-age men? A lot of Ukrainian soldiers have wife and kids who fled to Poland, Germany, the UK, etc. and are glad about it because it means their loved ones are in safety. Counting these people as evidence for oppositon to the war makes no sense. There are the draft-dodgers, sure, so don't get me wrong, I'm not saying your argument here has not merit at all; there is definitely war fatigue. I'm just disagreeing with the slanted framing. Also, may I remind you of the numerous young Russians who left the country right at the start of this war because they saw the writing on the wall? May I remind you of the long queues at the border crossings out of Russia as soon as Putin announced a round of forced mobilization a couple of months later? Forced mobilization is never popular.



Ukraine doesn't even need to gain the upper hand, just holding on is already enough. They essentially just need two things before it's too late: enough artillery shells and enough air defense.

At its core, this is still an artillery war. The key tactical predicament is that whenever Russia establishes a secured position within artillery range of a valuable Ukrainian target (say a town they want to hold), they can grind them down and take the target with their 10:1 artillery advantage. But this artillery advantage hinges in no small part on Russia burning through their vast, but not endless stockpiles of Soviet-era ammo. They even went begging for shells in fucking North Korea, go figure.
So the artillery ratio will come down automatically once Russia has to rely on its ongoing ammo production. Likewise, we in the West haven't really ramped up our production meaningfully at all. And the industrial potential of NATO is many times larger than Russia's. This part of the equation is a war of attrition that NATO could win without breaking a sweat if it wanted to. Money-wise... something like $30bn in artillery shells per year, spread across all of NATO, would make all the difference on the ground, but not really trouble us too much.

Air defense might be more tricky, but on the other hand, this is an invaluable opportunity to find a solution to modern drone warfare in a conflict which is low stakes for NATO. With regard to the looming Cold War 2.0 on the horizon, this is something we will need to figure out sooner or later anyway.

I wouldn't compare Ukraine with Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya or Syria. These places were all culturally very different; not ready yet for democracy, not compatible with our values and way of life. Nation building in these places was always doomed. Ukraine is much more culturally compatible and much closer to a functioning democracy than they ever were. And geographically much closer, so that economic integration is realistic, while it never was for AFG, SYR, LYB or IRQ.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on May 17 2024 07:28pm