JonS

Ok, well now we know which camp you are in, and it definitely is not the "liberal peacenik" one.  Hmm, and I wonder which presidential candidate should be best qualified to flex this immense political power and which one is "weak and indecisive"?
Regardless, we are talking about negotiating from a position of strength here, which runs directly counter to your original position of "Ukraine is out of all options, therefore should sue for peace."  In fact you have been arguing vehemently that there are no military solutions left...and now you want to make some?
But, ok, lets put that all aside.  So if the US is going to "threaten" it must be ready to follow through.  What you are proposing is on an entire different scale than the support we have seen.  First problem will be getting the US political machine to agree to these levels of spending, and very fast spending - cries of oversight and corruption will ring.  Next problem is putting the UA in a position where they can actually absorb, integrate and operationalize these levels of support; not insurmountable but no small challenge.
Next, Ukraine will need to demonstrate military victory on the battlefield.  One cannot simply "threaten" with the Russians, we tried that.  One has to demonstrate.  So we are back to creating viable military options.
And then there is this part: "In negotiations, West agrees not to take Ukraine into NATO, but accepts into EU, and makes concrete security guarantees to in any case. UN peacekeepers in along border. Russia gets symbolic non-NATO status for Ukraine. No future invasion of Ukraine for Russia."
That is weak.  EU is an economic and diplomatic union, not a military one.  UN peacekeepers is actually an idea I have floated but one would definitely need a new Russian regime to even get Russia in the room to negotiate.  Ukraine outside of NATO would need binding security bi-lats with western troops in Ukraine a la South Korea as a minimum.  I think Ukraine outside of NATO leaves too many dangerous mouseholes open - this is why Finland and Sweden jumped in.  NATO is the one thing that appears to deter Putin and Russia and I suspect it will be the only way to actually secure Ukraine in the long term.
You are also pretty weak on reparations and war crimes.  Maybe it is the medium but your position kind of feels "oh well...watcha gonna do?"  There can be no road to renormalization with Russia without these conditions being met, that much must be clear.  If we go soft on this, certain political parties will try and weasel back to "business as usual". 
The only way the US can use its power, short of an all out war, is to push support into Ukraine in order to sustain resistance until Russia falters - we can definitely agree on this.  The idea that "this is easy" and "could be done tomorrow" is dangerously amateur and short-sighted thinking, currently being expressed by some sectors of the US political landscape...and not new to this board. 
Russia must be in forced into a position of "had enough?"  and not "hey can you please?"  At least under this regime.  This cannot be done "overnight" or "easily" under the current constraints.  This is in fact threading a pretty tough needle.  Too much and one faces uncontrolled escalation, or a full on Russian collapse...both of which are worse that this current war.  Too little and things drag on too long and western resolve and attention slips again.  This is a tricky and challenging situation in that the US cannot employ its immense power to the fullest without making thing worse both internally or externally.  This is also a pretty high stakes proxy war that must; stay limited and result in the slow death of the Putin regime and doctrine, create a secure and stable Ukraine, and somehow set the conditions for future broader regional stability.  This is not a "deal" one can make in a weekend. 
 

That isn't actually what it says.  It is more about where we stand now with a complete reversal of where things had been when the US and Soviet Union began a drawdown in weapons and moves to limit the risk of nuclear war.  It is only saying anything about Ukraine as a tangent to the overall global risk and specifically brings up the rumors Russia started about the Ukrainians doing a "false flag dirty bomb" which the US and Ukraine felt was a cover for Russia to use a tactical nuke.  It never once suggests a Ukrainian negotiation or even a discussion of the state of the war there.
The overall article is about the increased proliferation and development of new weapons in a world with an increase in conflicts.  You really should read this stuff before stating what it is about.

🤣  Thanks @Kraft, I much needed laugh

I think the broader point is that Ukraine is not a teenager - all the tragedy but no accountability or responsibility.  There were a lot of strategic failures in the run up to this war and they do not all lay at the feet of Europe or the US.  The global arms industry is incredibly large and Ukraine could have leveraged that to be much better prepared for what was a pretty obvious threat on its eastern border. (https://www.brookings.edu/articles/its-time-to-stop-us-arms-sales-to-saudi-arabia/#:~:text=A total of 73% of,averaging %2410.7 billion per year.)
Of course hindsight being 20/20 it is also fair to admit that no one really thought Russia would go this far.  We pretty much expected another nibble in the Donbas, maybe consolidate that strategic corridor.  A full on grab was not the assessed most likely COA. Further Ukraine did move mountains within its military in those 8 years, the most important of which was to set themselves up for integration into western C4ISR.
As has been noted, we are where we are, which is here.  And all that really matters is what we do now.

If you really wanted Leos why did you not buy some after 2014? I mean - you had EIGHT YEARS! What were you doing, aside from sitting on your thumbs?

Just stop it.  This war would be over in a day if the US and West fully slammed down...and then we would be dealing with the next war right behind it.  In what universe do you imagine Russia quietly skulking back over the border, avoiding all eye contact and gracefully accepting defeat if the West rolled in all the dice?
Should we support Ukraine, absolutely.  Should we fight this war for you, no freakin way.  Don't believe me?  Ok, let's take a look at the last time two nuclear powers got involved in a conventional war...oh wait, there really have not been any.
Closest we ever came was here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Pakistani_wars_and_conflicts
And this skirmish was within a year of Pakistan becoming a nuclear power (maybe).  So in human experience we have gone to incredible lengths to keep nuclear powers out of direct conventional wars...why do you suppose this is? 
Cut the "West is to cowardly" and "nukes are not a thing" BS because it clearly is an underlying calculation in this war and just because "you think so" is not going to change that.  

Pretty awful place to get hit, very little cover from ground fire and presence of drones means completely vulnerable to overhead attack and observation. 
I'm not convinced a top grade NATO squad could have done much more. Run across the road across from the vehicles? Sure, better chance v Brads - but Drones overhead. There was one guy rolled out right, kept down the entire time - until naded by a drone. 
I suspect they lost their leadership in the first few minutes and after that, well... 
The entire mission was a death ride. No squad could have come out of that in a functional state, then somehow cross 1km of open terrain. 

Ok, I really have read enough of this. You are having serious problems with proper assessment of what polish society is and what is not.
First of all I don’t like farmers, just as Beleg85 said, they are not likable in overall polish society. I guess that it might be something with millions of donations from EU, retirement system where they effectively have it granted for free and a couple of other things. When farmers across EU started their protests by blocking centers of big cities with farming equipment worth in excess of 1 million euros each, it also was not very understandable by people in traffic jams worrying that they will be late to their, oh so well, paid job. But overall this is actually nothing compared to how „likable” are agro-oligarchs in Ukraine. You are now standing in their defense and I would love to see how much of the money they earn is supporting the war. They basically try to abuse unfair competition on EU markets in order to make money, but looking at the financial statements, I don’t see anything like „war tax” in defense of their country, soil that have given them free money, could you please explain me this? How does that compare to billions in direct financial and material support from western countries?
After 2014, when immigration to Poland from Ukraine has increased tenfold, the overall sentiment for Ukrainian people was not perfect in Poland during the start of the war in 2022. Especially among low paid workers, additional competition on job market with low wage expectations were seen as danger. Situation was similar to our US friends, who can elaborate more on overall sentiment toward Mexicans and South American people. Invasion started on 24th of February, my wife spent entire weekend starting 26th on the border, serving hot meals and distributing blankets to the wave of people in need. Week later we went for the local train station, looked around and took home a mother with a child, who have not even spoken a word in Polish/English. She stayed with us for half a year, when she found suitable job and shelter. My then-boss took a family of 8 and even took care of one girl, who was in the middle of chemotherapy, so she could finish it in Poland without problems. This is just a small part of what happened at that time, no one asked questions, no one was whining, because these were people in dire need. Do you think I liked to have a stranger mother with spoiled child in my home? I didn’t, but this is not the point in helping other people to like that. It is to do that effectively and provide whatever is needed despite your feelings or likening. If you will ever work with people like that, you will learn that this is no simple, nor nice task.
Now you are telling me that polish people have showed that they don’t give a **** about Ukraine because they don’t want to give billions of Euro to your corrupted oligarchs, who are most likely closely connected with Russia. Not to mention some of their perfidious actions, which are gaining better coverage in Poland, which directly hit polish stock holders(so effectively all polish people due to retirement system). You must understand that Ukraine has a long way to go before it will be normal country and I am not even saying about the war. Believe me, Poland was on the same track 35 years ago, but it serves as an example that even if things are not perfect, it is doable. At the moment Ukraine is corrupted as were all post Soviet countries, but it is not that important as long as the war goes. This WILL be important, when the war finally ends to continue normal cooperation with the western countries and their business. Hopefully Ukraine will join EU, but it has so much work to do.
And just as a reminder, borders were open to Ukrainian grain, which is not up to EU standards due to blocked export channel through the Black Sea. Now, thanks to marvelous work of Ukrainian drone fleet, this is not an issue anymore, so what exactly are we talking about? No military/humanitarian or other aid was ever blocked, save for some mistakes, nor will be. This is all about bunch of bastards, who want to profit from the blood of your countryman.

I don't want to get into the whole argument about who is right and who is wrong. Seeing this just makes me sick.

I can imagine foreign forces taking over "border security duties" wherever the current front line matches the pre-2022 (or pre-2014) borders - like transnistria, belarus, and from belarus down to kharkiv. Somewhat similar to what the UN has been doing somewhat successfully with various missions on the borders of Israel for many decades now. That would;
* free up a lot of ukrainian ground forces,
* restrict russian options for missile routes, and
* *really* secure those borders until or unless putin starts playing 'trip-wire chicken'.
Slow-boil could also see foreign forces take over theatre-level ground-based air-defence

I had a chance to hear him speak at the operational symposium and frankly I think we agree on more than we disagree to be honest.  Where we disagree is "why" things are occurring in this war, on the ground.  I think troop quality and C2 are factors but they are not what is driving the shifts we are seeing.  I think technology has conspired to shift warfare...again.  These changes are significant and need to be addressed by western forces or we face trouble ahead.
Kofman get caught up in his own contradictions: Ukraine must upscale and concentrate forces but cannot because of C2 culture.  Concentration of forces is extremely dangerous due to ISR and deep fires.  O.K. so which is it?

So you are saying that absolutely nothing can be learned from history? A sad day for historians around the world...
Joke aside: it is wrong to assume that trends from the past project linearly into the future. But is also wrong to assume that there is no trend.

I have never fully subscribed to "LOLZ Russia" or "Russia Sux".  Nor does a steady stream of one-sided war porn change that.  As to the second point: a major personal gripe on this forum is "Monster Russia!."  Undersubscribing Russia is as big a sin as oversubscribing Russia.  We have posters who need to continually take the worst case for Ukraine, and best case for Russia at every instance.  This is not healthy or useful, and as harmful as the overtly "LOLZ Russia" narratives
I gotta be honest, I am astounded on what is still holding Russia together.  As I said, I re-visited Oryx after a long absence and for tanks and AFVs, Russia has lost 3x what Ukraine had as their entire fleets at the beginning of the war.  We have continually seen signs of Russian strain: lower quality equipment showing up at the front, conscription of excess human capacity, mass migration out of Russia, buying ammo from NK (FFS).  However, one has to simply shake ones head at the level of Russian obstinance in all this.  I am not sure how they are holding their military together right now based on these losses.  Further, the shock of this war on Russia cannot be understated.  Does anyone think Putin planned for all this?  That Russian society was ready for this?  No western nation would be ready for something like this war, the shock would cripple us.  Imagine if Iraq in '03 had turned into something like this war; it would have broken the West.
So what?  Well first off, Russia clearly is not in great shape and their performance in this war compared to the advertising has fallen woefully short.  Russian resilience is high, I will give them that.  Yet we do not know where that breaking point is for them - further, they could have already crossed it...these sorts of things do not happen fast, until they do.  But...and it is a big "but", Russia does have a breaking point.  Every nation/society/human collective on earth has a breaking point.  Russia is not invincible and homogeneous.  Under enough stress it will fracture - economically, militarily and socially.  What we have is a competition of breaking points - ours, Ukraine and Russia's.  Our "breaking point" in the West (US in particular) is laughably low.  I suspect Ukraine's breaking point is further out than Russia's as of all the parties to this conflict, only Ukraine is facing direct existential crisis.  The question really is: can weak western will plus desperate Ukrainian will defeat Russian (??? metric ???) will?  One can immediately see the two major variables here.  Western will and Russian will are the two players on a Ukrainian fulcrum.  The location of that fulcrum depends on how much western support we provide to Ukraine.
I stand by my position that militarily this war has already been won; however, that does not mean it cannot still be lost.  If the West totally fails Ukraine, Russia will take ground - it, in effect, expands Russian option spaces.  Russian airpower seems intent on flexing, perhaps eyeing air superiority again.  A complete withdrawal of US support is a strategic mistake of historic proportions.  It is essentially ceding a proxy war and Ukraine could enter the annals with Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan of lost US ventures.  The rest of the West will need to step up.  If Ukraine falters, as some have insisted, then the whole conversation is moot.  If the fulcrum shatters, there is no war.  The West will write it off to "bad investment" and re-draw the lines.
The longer I watch this war, the more in awe of what the WW1 and WW2 generations went through.  We see those wars through the safe lens of history.  It is another thing entirely to be in the middle of one with the future unwritten.

A casino isn't really such a good analogy. For once in a casino your goal is to maximise a single ressource by investing that ressource. Since we are talking about the RuAF, the goal is not to maximise the number of aircraft but to win the war. You also cannot invest aircraft to get more aircraft. In addition, Russia is not playing against the bank but against another player. If that other player loses money faster than Russia or has less of it to play with it is perfectly possible to win while losing money.
I am not. I debate if this logic is applicable here. Russia does not rely on having aircraft in order to achieve their goal, i.e. win the war. Having aircraft does not win a war (well, that is not entirely true because they can be a deterrence). Expending aircraft wins a war if the exchange rate is favourable. As I said, I don't claim to know whether the exchange rate is favourable. 
Very simple example: Let's assume your opponent has only a limited number of fuel dumps and cannot continue to fight without fuel. You rely 100% on your air force to win. If you lose half your air force in order to destroy those fuel dumps you win the war, although you now have less aircraft. This is irrefutable logic, so I have no idea why you're trying to debate it.  Sorry, couldn't resist. 😉
If the Russians now lose more aircraft but hit disproportionally more, or more important targets (-> favourable exchange rate), it brings them closer to winning the war. If they just lose more aircraft, sure, you are absolutely right, Ukraine gets closer to winning the war.

That bit is pretty uncontroversial; imposing a sanctions regime means that theoretically no goods or services or money goes in to the target country and nothing (again, ideally) comes out. So the US loses a market for its exports, and also loses a source of cheap or otherwise desirable imports. That's at the very least disruptive, and likely to cause at least some damage in terms of missed opportunities. For example, take the economic pain and disruption a couple of winters ago when Germany abruptly stopped importing Russian gas.
The gamble/assumption is that "your" economy can handle the disruption, and "theirs" cannot.
Now, whether that is "really" hurting the US economy ... well, I mean, it's Swanson McNear. He couldn't tell you the current weather or the time right now without putting some dishonest spin on it.
"Sure, it's sunny outside but it's going to rain this afternoon because Biden is old" or "it's just turned 11am but in only a few weeks it'll be midday - lunchtime! - when the Democrat's con of daylight savings starts! Having lunch while it's still the morning makes no sense!"

That bit is pretty uncontroversial; imposing a sanctions regime means that theoretically no goods or services or money goes in to the target country and nothing (again, ideally) comes out. So the US loses a market for its exports, and also loses a source of cheap or otherwise desirable imports. That's at the very least disruptive, and likely to cause at least some damage in terms of missed opportunities. For example, take the economic pain and disruption a couple of winters ago when Germany abruptly stopped importing Russian gas.
The gamble/assumption is that "your" economy can handle the disruption, and "theirs" cannot.
Now, whether that is "really" hurting the US economy ... well, I mean, it's Swanson McNear. He couldn't tell you the current weather or the time right now without putting some dishonest spin on it.
"Sure, it's sunny outside but it's going to rain this afternoon because Biden is old" or "it's just turned 11am but in only a few weeks it'll be midday - lunchtime! - when the Democrat's con of daylight savings starts! Having lunch while it's still the morning makes no sense!"

That bit is pretty uncontroversial; imposing a sanctions regime means that theoretically no goods or services or money goes in to the target country and nothing (again, ideally) comes out. So the US loses a market for its exports, and also loses a source of cheap or otherwise desirable imports. That's at the very least disruptive, and likely to cause at least some damage in terms of missed opportunities. For example, take the economic pain and disruption a couple of winters ago when Germany abruptly stopped importing Russian gas.
The gamble/assumption is that "your" economy can handle the disruption, and "theirs" cannot.
Now, whether that is "really" hurting the US economy ... well, I mean, it's Swanson McNear. He couldn't tell you the current weather or the time right now without putting some dishonest spin on it.
"Sure, it's sunny outside but it's going to rain this afternoon because Biden is old" or "it's just turned 11am but in only a few weeks it'll be midday - lunchtime! - when the Democrat's con of daylight savings starts! Having lunch while it's still the morning makes no sense!"

That bit is pretty uncontroversial; imposing a sanctions regime means that theoretically no goods or services or money goes in to the target country and nothing (again, ideally) comes out. So the US loses a market for its exports, and also loses a source of cheap or otherwise desirable imports. That's at the very least disruptive, and likely to cause at least some damage in terms of missed opportunities. For example, take the economic pain and disruption a couple of winters ago when Germany abruptly stopped importing Russian gas.
The gamble/assumption is that "your" economy can handle the disruption, and "theirs" cannot.
Now, whether that is "really" hurting the US economy ... well, I mean, it's Swanson McNear. He couldn't tell you the current weather or the time right now without putting some dishonest spin on it.
"Sure, it's sunny outside but it's going to rain this afternoon because Biden is old" or "it's just turned 11am but in only a few weeks it'll be midday - lunchtime! - when the Democrat's con of daylight savings starts! Having lunch while it's still the morning makes no sense!"

That bit is pretty uncontroversial; imposing a sanctions regime means that theoretically no goods or services or money goes in to the target country and nothing (again, ideally) comes out. So the US loses a market for its exports, and also loses a source of cheap or otherwise desirable imports. That's at the very least disruptive, and likely to cause at least some damage in terms of missed opportunities. For example, take the economic pain and disruption a couple of winters ago when Germany abruptly stopped importing Russian gas.
The gamble/assumption is that "your" economy can handle the disruption, and "theirs" cannot.
Now, whether that is "really" hurting the US economy ... well, I mean, it's Swanson McNear. He couldn't tell you the current weather or the time right now without putting some dishonest spin on it.
"Sure, it's sunny outside but it's going to rain this afternoon because Biden is old" or "it's just turned 11am but in only a few weeks it'll be midday - lunchtime! - when the Democrat's con of daylight savings starts! Having lunch while it's still the morning makes no sense!"

All hardware is made to be used but certain equipment is so costly that losing it will impact military power for years and years afterwards. I think it matters a lot if the war is existential or not and my impression is that this war isn't for Russia. Like its one thing for the U.S. to lose a third of its aircraft fighting the Soviet Union in a Cold War gone hot scenario but its an entirely different thing if the U.S. lost a third of its aircraft invading Grenada.


A different way to think about it is the opportunity cost. What is Russia trading these aircraft for and are they going to lose the ability to interact with their near-abroad in ways that matters to them in the future because of it?

dumbest he ever heard eh?  Guess he doesn't listen to his own broadcasts.

That would be compelling, if only the last formal DOW were not over 80 years and many many conflicts - including the only one to rely on Article 5 - ago

Well, yes. Is there somewhere else you think it should rest?

In Putin's Russia, everyone puts in 110%.
What's so hard to understand?

Well, yes. Is there somewhere else you think it should rest?