this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2024
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I definitely appreciate this response and these are very interesting thoughts though I think most of them are medium-term problems not necessarily near-term issues and that the US feels its back is against a wall, that it can avoid those issues, must avoid those issues through a decisive defeat of Russia and maybe this is a trap they can't get out of and I'd like that to be true but I'm skeptical. That is if this thing is still going in 8 years yes I think those pressures would definitely have come to bear as serious problems but I'm not sure how soon they'll come to bear.
I do agree we are in a new world, but I also think the west has the capacity to keep the Ukrainians in the game for another couple of years if they continue fighting a defensive war (with terror attacks and such) and just dumping bodies into the fray to absorb Russian missiles and bombs. I feel like there are plans within plans in play here, designs on Europe conditioned on not allowing Russia a victory but maybe it's just bullshit American politicking and Biden doesn't want an L before the election and after the election if he's re-elected the US will demand Zelensky wind things down. This is with the obvious caveat that Russia doesn't pull an offensive, if they do then Ukraine could straight up evaporate, but assuming they don't want to do that I think the US still has a little time though you're right likely not another full administration's length worth.
I actually think that it's highly likely we'll see a decisive victory by Russia this year. There are already signs that Ukrainian lines are in the process of collapse as we speak. Even western media is starting to report on this, here are a couple of examples
Ukraine doesn't have defensive lines comparable to what Russia used to stop Ukrainian offensive last summer, and now that Russia broke through Avidievka, there appears to be a general collapse unfolding. This might be impossible to arrest regardless of what the west does.
The big problem Ukraine has lies in lack of trained and experienced soldiers. A lot of the ideologically committed people are now dead, and they're being replaced with fresh conscripts who are not interested in fighting, and don't have any combat skills. As the ratio of conscripts keeps growing, there's going to be an inflection point when there just won't be enough professional soldiers to keep the army together.
Another problem for the west is that Russia is massively outproducing the west industrially https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/10/politics/russia-artillery-shell-production-us-europe-ukraine/index.html
This is primarily an artillery war, and Russia enjoys something like 10x advantage in artillery fire. This translates into very lobsided ratio in terms of losses for Ukraine. Now, we're also seeing Russian aviation doing constant bombing which Ukraine has no defence against. This situation simply can't go on for years.
Finally, I highly recommend reading this analysis from RUSI which explains that the west simply isn't capable of fighting this sort of a war currently https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/attritional-art-war-lessons-russian-war-ukraine