Reminds me of us europeans expecting Ukraine men to defend us from Russia.
Which they have kind of been doing for years now, showing us what a big fat joke Russia is.
Reminds me of us europeans expecting Ukraine men to defend us from Russia.
Which they have kind of been doing for years now, showing us what a big fat joke Russia is.
From EU perspective it seems like the decisions are purely based on short-term economics. I.e., just enough weapons are supplied to Ukraine to extend the war indefinitely, as opposed to supplying enough weapons to stop it now.
US aid seems bound by the willingness to spend money and escalate. EU aid seems bound more by the industrial capacity and willingness to escalate.
Still, just "willingness to escalate" would move the needle by a lot, and I'm of the opinion that the only language dictators truly understand is violence. Anything short of that is far too often interpreted as a show of weakness.
This.
We need a grey flag to clearly represent "we don't accept your win yet, but we are not trying to win either, so keep trying". Just as the white flag clearly represents full surrender.
It is, unfortunately, the optimal path for maximizing the length of the war.
Nobody wins wars without prioritizing the goal of winning the war.
Other massive disadvantage: The unending financial arm twisting is pushing allies with closer ties to Russia away. I.e. India. The longer the war goes on, the more global adaptation there will be away from the systems that create US leverage. Leverage should be used strategically, within a decisive plan, not chronically and aimlessly while its targets build up immunity.
The strategy is to draw Russia into a protracted conflict where they lose their Soviet inheritance, not scared them off.
Yes, but not only economics, I think.
Russia cannot be allowed to win.
But also, Putin cannot loose so hard that he actually reaches for the nukes (meaning either he needs to die or those weapons are first removed from use), and even without Putin there's a fear a collapsing Russia would disperse nukes on the black market and/or oligarchs would fruit into atomic warlords.
This does mean Ukraine destroying Russian nuclear delivery systems a while back was directly useful, makes it easier for everyone else to help them.
But even so, I have no idea how this plays out: Russia's death throes spraying nukes at the west is still entirely possible; as is Ukraine developing a nuke, pointing it as stuff Russian oligarchs like, and getting them to defenestrate Putin without Ukraine even launching the weapon.
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Other things to consider: qhich power grids, if any, can cope with a single nuke triggering a high-altitude EMP? Most extreme estimate I've heard says it would take only one to kill 90% of the USA in a year just from loss of electricity in too many places at once to repair fast enough.
How sure can we be that all post-Russian nukes get accounted for?
As long as the West just limits themselves to kicking Russia out of Ukraine, then I don't see how that becomes an existential threat to Russia, and why it would warrant nukes.
We shouldn't be susceptible to intimidation tactics, because where does it end.
Anyway, before anything else I want more pressure on Trump to get those abducted children back to Ukraine.
> As long as the West just limits themselves to kicking Russia out of Ukraine, then I don't see how that becomes an existential threat to Russia, and why it would warrant nukes.
Literally in the comment you are responding to:
>> This does mean Ukraine destroying Russian nuclear delivery systems a while back was directly useful, makes it easier for everyone else to help them.
Also: https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2024-07/news/ukraine-strikes...
It is quite clear what "the West" doesn't limit themselves.
> I don't see how that becomes an existential threat to Russia
Russia loosing is an existential threat to Putin, it is presently unclear how the other oligarchs would respond to the power vacuum.
I'd wager that we couldn't be, even back in the 1992 USSR collapse. I'd guess a few are gone missing, and they didn't tell the world, or didn't even notice.
So long as we make clear the war ends with his troops removed nukes will never help him no matter how hard we hammer the bear.
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> showing us what a big fat joke Russia is.
The only joke in your statement is how naive you must be to believe that.
As a conventional military power, Russia has definitely shown itself to be something of a joke.
As a nuclear power, a cyber power, or a disinformation provider, not so much.
I mean the US also lost to the Taliban after trillions of dollars and 20 years.
> the US also lost to the Taliban after trillions of dollars and 20 years
The Taliban (and Viet Cong) showed the American military is crap at anti-guerilla warfare. Neither hit either American military or industrial capabilities, both of which expanded during those wars.
In contrast, Russia has shifted into a full wartime economy and is still on the net losing assets. It’s an objectively weaker martial and economic force than it was before. That couldn’t be said about the American military post-Afghanistan.
Short attention spans are incapable of appreciating a slow burning low effort war of attrition.
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Russia is a nuclear power and direct NATO involvement could quickly lead to nuclear war. Doesn't sound like a joke to me.