1. The tacitly or explicitly pro-Russian side of these debates has been predicting an imminent implosion of Ukraine for those 3 years, and it still hasn't happened. Of course it could happen any moment, but can you really fault people for dismissing this notion after it had proven premature time and time and time again?
I mean, it doesn't happen, until it does. And then we all look back as if it was inevitable the whole time. The best example of this is the invasion of Ukraine in the first place, there were months of "no way Putin actually does it" as he amassed troops on the border. All the warning signs were there, people dismissed it.
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2. The Afghan government never looked stable if we're being honest. Afghanistan never had a sense of national unity, no tradition (nor an appetite) for democracy. It was a country in which nobody had any loyalty to the government or the state and its institutions. And its military and police force were sorely lacking any kind of track record or tradition. Ukraine checks all these boxes while Afghanistan checked none.
Are there warning signs present? The Ukrainian western-backed government is built on a house of cards even if its not the same circumstances. The country lacks any democratic tradition and the last government was overthrown, Ukrainian culture is still firmly stuck in the kleptocratic post-soviet era that the Russians moved past under Putin. The military and police force are basically just mercenaries taking bribes and embezzling western funds. And
that in particular has a parallel in Afghanistan. How did the Taliban conquer the country? They bribed every warlord to join them. As long as Americans continue to pay the Ukrainian bureaucracy it can stay intact, but the Afghans evaporated as soon as US funds did.
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3. I disagree with your framing in the final paragraph. You make it sound as if the major - if not the only - obstacle standing in the way of peace was Ukraine. In reality, Russia has no interest in a peace deal involving meaningful compromise right now. And why would they? They have the upper hand on the battlefield and the larger reserves of manpower. As long as Western support for Ukraine remains muted, they are in a comfortable position. Hence, they are clearly stalling and delaying Trump's push for a peace deal. That being said, the belligerence and boneheadedness of Ukraine's hardline faction surprises me. They would have been well-advised to play the same game as Russia and placate Trump.
I think there's an argument where peace now is clearly in the mutual benefit of both Ukraine and Russia, and Russia recognizes what it has to gain, while Ukraine is stuck in a self-destructive ultranationalist mentality. Putin believes in realpolitik and I think there's every reason for him to want a peace deal where he gets to cement his hold on the DPR/LPR/Crimea, undo sanctions and just let western Ukraine absorb into the EU as long as it isn't a NATO military outpost on his border. If he got all he asked for, he's got nothing to win on the battlefield, he's already conquered the juicy tracts of Ukraine and doesn't want the welfare state that would exist in the west. Having the upper hand on the battlefield and clear long term strategic advantage doesn't mean its worth throwing blood and treasure away just to conquer a worthless territory. It would be an occupation of a hostile non-ethnic-russian population who consume more than they produce, on land with sparse natural resources. Even if Russia could keep fighting and win it in years, Putin can recognize its not in his interests. And for Ukrainians its existential, their population has already been obliterated and continuing the fight at this point is like a self-inflicted genocide.
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One or two weeks ago I said that Trump's initial approach to the Ukraine war was naive and unsuitable because he was preemptively giving up all leverage he had over Russia while trying to put the screws on Ukraine. Trump's strategy is fundamentally flawed because it operates from wrong premises, namely that Russia is a misunderstood victim of Western aggression and acting out of a sense of justified defensiveness.
Under this premise, coddling up Russia might help alleviate their fears and anxiety and thus pave the way for them being willing to stop the war. Then use the dependency of the Ukrainian side on US support to get them to agree to a peace deal, et voilà, problem solved. As predicted, this premise is wrong and his peace proposals are going nowhere. I still hope him and his advisers figure out something else, instead of what they're signalling right now, which is basically the US saying "screw you, guys, I'm going home".
Giving up the leverage to Russia, that is, the leverage they already took by force- isn't that unreasonable a way to end the conflict. Its not a zero sum game, we don't need to coddle them or oppose them, we don't really benefit from taking sides. Ukraine matters to Russia, it doesn't matter to us. We aren't affected by the outcome. Its in our interests to restore world peace and ratchet down tensions and get the world powers less aligned against us, but the fate of Ukraine itself isn't much of a concern.