Sounds like this is the main victory plan of the West.
But wait: what if Russia doesn't do that? Are there plans for that (highly unlikely) course of events?
"the West" has just lifted restrictions on (at this point American) weapon systems in reaction to continued aggression, and involvement of further countries, from Russia. I think even more could and will be done if Russia doesn't get the memo.
And seeing that a "special military operation" takes 300 times as long as expected would for sane people be a hint to reevaluate what they're doing.
There's speculation that they're still restricting them to a certain area. And even if they're not, Russia had ample time to move their assets out of reach. It's not like back when the US blocked strikes on dozens of military jets because it was escalatory.
And anyway, Germany still doesn't want to provide their long-distance missiles. The US is still blocking other countries from supplying planes (like the Swedish AWACS). The West is barely doing the minimum.
More could be done, of course, just give it another year maybe. And in the meantime insist that the weapons aren't going to make a difference anyway. It will come true if you say it for long enough.
Without direct involvement of NATO military there’s nothing more that can be done. NATO simply doesn’t have production capacity or speed to get things done.
> Without direct involvement of NATO military there’s nothing more that can be done.
People keep saying that, and more keeps being done without direct involvement of NATO military. Among the things that Ukraine has asked for that have not yet occurred that do not involve direct involvement of NATO military is transfer of Tomahawk missiles, with about 5 times the range of ATACMS. There’s a whole lot of reasons that hasn’t happened, and its probably not going to, but it is certainly illustrative that there are unused options that do not involve direct NATO involvement.
If an option cannot be used it is not an option. Neither ATACMS nor Tomahawks aren‘t going to change anything if it is not a strike with full NATO arsenal.
Hm. But what if Russia doesn't give up even now? Do you have a plan for that?
The "3 day" meme actually originates from the USA. Russia didn't say anything about the terms (ever).
How long did your war in Afghanistan take, by the way?
20 years of Iraq and Afghanistan saw about ~60000 casualties. a little less then 1/3 of those casualties returned to duty.
about ~6000 were killed, or roughly 1/10.
by comparison Russia is on track to hit a million (1000000), by Summer 2025, with estimates of about 1/4 to 1/3 being "Cargo 200" (aka KIA). It's on track to exceed Iran-Iraq as most brutal conflict of the last 50 years -- and Iran-Iraq lasted most of the 1980s; this hasn't even been 3 full years yet.
to put a finer point on it, 20 years of Iraq and Afghanistan saw about ~60000 casualties. a little less then 1/3 of those casualties returned to duty.
about ~6000 were killed, or roughly 1/10.
by comparison Russia is on track to hit a million (1000000), by Summer 2025, with estimates of about 1/4 to 1/3 being "Cargo 200" (aka KIA). It's on track to exceed Iran-Iraq as most brutal conflict of the last 50 years -- and Iran-Iraq lasted most of the 1980s; this hasn't even been 3 full years yet.
It's really interesting: what are your estimations of Ukrainian losses?
Of course, Afghanistan wasn't being armed and funded by 50 countries - and yet you failed there..
There is no "you failed there" in this, I'm not in the US. I can read statistics though. The ad hominim + terrible karma and post history suggests that sedan_baklazhan is a shill. But I'll bite.
Afghanistan was absolutely being funded and armed by Russia, China, Iran, and Pakistan -- the Russians basically pushed as many angry Chechens to head there, both to hammer the US, but also to get them out of RUS and killed or captured. There was the infamous shipment of .50 cal sniper rifles from China to the AFG that only got stopped because Dutch intelligence decided to doublecheck a few trivial details. 20 years of such incidents.
On the subject of being able to read OSINT tier speculations and statistics, credible-ish sources suggest that Ukraine has been taking 50% or less casualties -- at one point even as low as 1:6 as they were getting pushed out of Bakhmut. Still, I'd be willing to guess as high as 400k, maybe even 500k casualties. WIA to KIA ratio is probably better than the Russians, too, but nowhere near US numbers of 10%.
Say Russia wins decisively tomorrow. Ukrainians are tired of this, they all just give up. Russia annexes all of it. Then what?
From the perspective of "Europe", what actually changed, compared to 2015? Sure, Russia gained some territory, ressources, potential conscripts.
Their army gained valuable combat experience. But have they actually become more threatening to other European nations? I'd argue: Absolutely not.
Russia is not only weakened by their losses of soldiers and materiel, but their non-military options are also greatly degraded-- instead of freely shopping for South Korean battle tanks (=> Poland), they have to make do with North Korean conscripts...
They basically played their whole hand to gain control of another country, but that control comes at a price; Even when the armed conflict is completely stopped, the price for the Ukraine is not yet paid-- switching out from a war-economy will hurt Russia, keeping the Ukraine under control is gonna be another constant drain and their may be significant obligations toward the allies that probably did not help solely out of their belief in the cause (North Korea, Iran).
Meanwhile, European powers got to observe everything as it played out, even got their own weapon systems battle tested "for free". They are forewarned, and arming up accordingly.
I'm honestly fairly confident that if Russia picked an actual battle with Poland alone (no help from any other European nation) in the next decade, that they would walk away with a bloody nose...
So, cynically talking-- "the Wests" plans are affected very little, no matter how this whole disaster plays out...
> Sure, Russia gained some territory, resources, potential conscripts.
You just "hand wave away" gaining territory the size of the 2nd biggest country in Europe after Russia, Trillions in resources and 40 million people (a 30% increase in "Russian" population). I think you may be slightly undervaluing these things lol.
And then I just don't really understand your general point which seems to be that because you believe Russia could not successfully defeat Europe/Poland that they are not more threatening than they were 10 years ago?
- Russia will have gained a huge amount of combat experience.
- Russia will also have learned from fighting against a force using NATO equipment.
- Russia will have gained the immense wealth of Ukraine's natural resources.
- Russia will have increased their population by about 30% (+/- based on refugee point below)
- Russia will have basically doubled the size of their border with Poland (counting Belarus as part of Russia because why not)
- Russia will have added borders with 4 more European countries (Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldova)
- Russia has likely rooted out some of the corruption that plagued the military before/during this invasion as it would have become more apparent.
- Russia will have built up domestic production of weapons as much as they can (taking sanctions into account)
- Russia will have been emboldened by its "success" in conquering Ukraine.
- Russia will have seen how slow/scared the West was to respond to their invasion and encourage more "asymmetric" warfare in preparation for the next country (aka "the price of eggs are too high, we can't afford to save <insert country with Russian border here>)
- Russia will VERY likely have increased the amount of Ukrainian refugees to the rest of Europe by 100s of 1000s, possibly even millions. Further stretching the resources of those countries and feeding into the previous point in regards to the cost of intervening "next time".
All this, combined with a US President openly making disparaging remarks about NATO, but you think Europe should not be more worried about Russia than in 2015?
> And then I just don't really understand your general point which seems to be that because you believe Russia could not successfully defeat Europe/Poland that they are not more threatening than they were 10 years ago?
No. What I believe is that engaging the Ukraine cost them much more than they would gain even by a convincing victory tomorrow, leaving them less of a threat to Europe than 10 years ago. Could they overcome this and become a bigger threat in a decade or so, thanks to Ukrainian ressources? Certainly! But the whole thing could also just crumble on Putins death in that same timeframe, could only guess about outcomes so distant.
But even having conquered the Ukraine would not really give them military strength immediately, the opposite, really, because Russia would need to commit military just to keep order there (consider Chechnya for reference: that might have become a net-gain for Russia like 15 years after the first war, and it was like 20 times smaller i.e. easier to "digest").
Furthermore, a lot of "soft power" that Russia had was basically spent on the Ukraine (i.e. price of sanctions, gas-dependence etc.), and is getting less relevant and valuable with ever year.
> but you think Europe should not be more worried about Russia than in 2015?
This is not what I said. I said Russia is less of a threat, not that Europe should be less worried about it. It has become a bigger and bigger threat since 2000. European concern was basically zero (even after the Crimea affair) and is still arguably too low. European nations were basically treating Russia like an improving, slightly flawed democracy.
But it is an imperialistic kleptocracy instead, but that is now obvious which is also unhelpful for Russia.
But have they actually become more threatening to other European nations?
Russia's regime has already made statements threatening or questioning the borders of Poland and the Baltic states, in addition to numerous other threatening moves it has made in recent years -- including Medvedev's recent threat to turn Kyiv into a "lump of lead", which would no doubt have direct consequences for Europe.
While of course many of the utterings that came from some side are stirrers of concern,
one should also remember they have a piece of doctrine called "escalate to de-escalate" - which also involves a strange framework for the interpretation of statements. This also makes the trolling confusing to the decrypter.
In my view, talking shit and murdering a few hundred civilians is not "threathening a nation", the same way Ukraine is not threatening Russia (as a nation) right now.
Being able to install a puppet government would be a big threat. Economical control (=> like gas) would be a smaller one.
Complete military conquest would be the biggest one.
All of the above look now actually less likely than 10 years ago to me (judging with hindsight).
In my view, "talking shit" about invading additional countries, while actually engaged in a large-scale invasion of a neighboring country (on top of a centuries-long history of actually invading and occupying those countries) cannot be interpreted as anything other than directly threatening those nations.
Yes absolutely, but threatening more often does not make them a bigger threat.
I'm not saying that they are harmless (being a nuclear power, obviously!), but I strongly believe that they are less of a threat to EU-nations than they were 10 years ago-- they basically played their whole hand in the Ukraine, collected some experience, lost some equipment, threw away and ruined countless lifes, and now, pretty much regardless of what happens in the next years, they are in a weaker position and less of a threat to any european country than 10 years ago.
Disagree, based on the increased frequency/belligerence of the regime's threats, and its increasingly delusional and irrational tone and behavior generally over this time period.
Concretely, with the West maintaining its existing approach, given the current material trajectory on both sides, and not assuming radical changes in political orientation in any major Western country? No, not likely.
Concretely, given the actual recent US election results and the likely impact on US and NATO-qua-NATO policy, assuming no other changes? Yes, again.
Concretely, given that outher regional states have agency and their likely response to NATO faltering at US direction, when they were already displeased with NATO not being more supportive given their perceived individual risk from Russian expansionism… Well, that’s really the key thing and, frankly, I think that the there are lots of directions things could go that could be very surprising to people whose view off the situation has been that the only entities with agency in this situation are the US, Russia, and maybe Ukraine.
They won’t, because their interest in the Russian operation in Ukraine is primarily that it keeps the West distracted in Europe away from China’s actual interests.
There is a short sequence of events to china being shut omit of the European market entirely. That sequence runs through troop and weapons deployments to Europe on Russia’s behest.
If the US tried to force a negotiated cease fire, there is a real risk that Poland or the Baltic states become direct parties to the conflict.
Once the war becomes a direct war between multi-party alliances, controlling the scope of the conflict would be impossible.
> If the US tried to force a negotiated cease fire, there is a real risk that Poland or the Baltic states become direct parties to the conflict.
Yeah, I think it is underappreciated how much of the present NATO approach (including US policy, but not exclusively that) has been about doing enough to reassure NATO’s eastern flank members who see this conflict as nearly as existential as it is for Ukraine, even if the threat to them is slightly more temporally distant, rather than the kind of relatively remote geopolitical influence game that some American (and probably even Western European) observers see it as. If – given the election results, we probably have to admit this has become a “when” – the US commitment falters, they will have a new calculus in trying to assure that Russia lacks either the means or the inclination to turn on them next…
Even then, it's highly important to give a cost to any action. Being too mellow will (and probably already did) create a bad precedent and give them confidence to pursue their behavior.
In fact it has given up, surrendered and gone home with its tail between its legs in countless wars which, like the current one, were not in the least existential to it and were in fact completely optional.
I never said anything like that. I said there are plans for many scenarios. Not sure what you are trying to achieve here with your low quality rhetorics.
This is an absurd question. For them to not give up and walk away, it would mean that their cultural values are different, even that Putin himself does not value human life or liberty. In such a case as that, he might do anything, like constantly steal a few tens of meters of a sovereign state like Georgia/Sakartvelo every week for years on end, knowing that they are far too small to defend and take that back, especially after losing a war to Russia in 2009. What if he were to start using hundreds of active espionage agents and saboteurs against Europe who hide within the tens of thousands of Russian emigrants that everyone welcomed into their countries?
Such things are unthinkable. None of that will happen.
