kluge

Careful guys, make sure you only share posts, not data...

The real elephant in the room here is that UA is both not allowed to, and no getting weapons that would allow striking at RU proper. We could easily provide them with such capability and RU would be really hard pressed to continue with the war effort with air bases, but also refineries, major armament plants, training centres etc. taken out. 
We don't do that cause the potential nuclear escalation risk is too high to accept, not due to any particular technical reasons.

Both sound and it suffers from the same strategic problems Japan had. First, it cannot control the security of its energy supplies and it cannot solve that problem in any conceivable way. Second, it can't really gain the assets it might seize (the semiconductor factories) without effectively destroying them.  Perforce, while China would prefer an anaconda strategy it will instead be driven towards a quick strike strategy that is unlikely to succeed. 
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Short answer to a very good question - nothing viable.  To shorten this war dramatically - like in a month, NATO would need to establish air supremacy (and sea control of the Black Sea but let’s stay focused).  If the Ukrainian had that then I believe that land power mass would work again.  This would include an epic history making SEAD campaign linked to a C-ISR campaign, again of historic scope and scale.  It would include strikes into Russia at air and C4ISR infrastructure, followed by massive strikes on Russian logistics and strategic capacity.
Without that, this war will continue to unfold at its current speed…until it can go fast.  And we all know that is not going to happen unless there is a major strategic shift.
The West could supply the UA with 1000 tanks but they would need a lot of logistical support and literally years to train up crews/units/formations at that scale.  Essentially I strongly suspect that we are pumping about as much into Ukraine as they can realistically absorb and support.  We could definitely up the scales in some areas like deep strike but I suspect there is a logic for that one too.
People do not want to believe just how hard and how long it takes to build a fighting formation that can do a deliberate assault.  This is near the high water mark of land warfare - maybe only amphib or heavy airborne is a higher bar.  So the penny packets we are seeing being pushed in are not like there are 500 trained crews waiting for western tanks and we are only sending 100.  There are likely only enough crews for the tanks we are sending and the force generation pipeline is only so wide.
So this is going to take time and a lot of effort, and sacrifice.  No shortcuts, no magic US bullets (we have spent a lot of these already).  But my money is still on a UA breakthrough and breakout in the spring/summer.  There will likely be another Russian operational collapse, or two.  And then we will have to see what Phase VI brings.  I get everyone being edgy but I cannot stress how much of warfare is exactly this, sitting around waiting while listening to artillery.  You gotta breathe through it and be patient cause it will get exciting enough, soon enough.

Every single point you make is correct. No one has more to lose in this than the Taiwanese. I sincerely hope Xi decides he has enough problems ,and Taiwan just gradually fades out of the news. But if Xi has all but decided to go for it and the planning process is under way, nothing short of an ironclad guarantee that attacking Taiwan means war with the U.S. and all our Asian allies is going to dissuade him. Two U.S. brigades parked outside of Kyiv in January 2022 might have averted the entire tragedy in Ukraine. I assume Taiwan probably has better intelligence sources in China that anyone else. I would simply state that if the Taiwanese Government asks for U.S. forces to be stationed there, The U.S. should have them the in days not weeks. Which implies all the prep, and all the planning have already been done, on both sides. Because we have seen Ukraine, we have seen  Hong Kong, and we have seen Xinjiang. We all really want war in the Taiwan straight to remain a fictional scenario. Taiwan most of all.

Sorry for off-topic, but this proposal keeps coming up on this thread so I feel I should address it from perspective of someone who lives in Taiwan.
Something most "put a bunch of marines of Taiwan" takes are missing is the voices of the Taiwanese people.
Even though most Taiwanese do not consider themselves Chinese, also most Taiwanese do not favor changing the status quo. The country is in a bizarre place because it's plainly evident to everyone - including China - that Taiwan is already an independent country with its own government, laws and military... but nobody can actually say that out loud. Any time other countries try to engage with Taiwan, politically or militarily, both that country and Taiwan gets punished. Which maybe doesn't faze the US, but they're the richest and most powerful country in the world! Taiwan is a small island located right next door to the second richest and second most powerful country in the world, who also happens to be their biggest trade partner - the ultimate frenemy.
Putting marines on Taiwan is just moving a chess piece for America, but for Taiwan it is a major change to the status quo, something that could affect the lives of everyone in the country - potentially for the worse. As a democratic country, there are a lot of different opinions on this, and with the presidential election coming up in 2024, no candidate wants to be shown as the one who let the Americans mess up the economy. This is probably why the meeting with Speaker McCarthy happened in California and not in Taiwan, because the Taiwanese government doesn't want to escalate tensions, especially not ahead of a political campaign.

Hmmm let russia do what it wants in Ukraine to avoid a bigger war.  Really.  Quick history lesson.
"Peace in our time" 1938. 
Appeasement of Mr Adolf, fast forward 7 years, 60 million dead. 
Whoooops.
And I'm not being flippant, just flabbergasted.
 

My brother in law just died a needlessly horrible drawn out death, today. He fought for decades in a variety of ways to defend the USA. One person was directly responsible for how it went down. My sister is heartbroken, and enraged at what happened. I am in more than a foul mood. So my thoughts right now are colored in a certain way by this tragedy. Not particularly with distance, nuance and diplomacy. What happens when you are inside the box, not outside. My apologies if you don’t like them. I don’t either.
Lot of talk lately about Ukraine has GOT to produce big battlefield wins, now. Trying to put myself within Ukraine’s box:
1. Your country was suddenly invaded by one of the largest monsters in the world, ravaging your cities, raping and killing civilians. That is awful. We condemn it. You will collapse in three days.
2. We are NATO. We are a hugely powerful military alliance designed  to defend ourselves against that very same horrible monster.  Because we all fear trying to do so alone. Like you. Too bad you aren’t in NATO.
3. There won’t be any cavalry coming to your rescue, on land, sea, or air. But good luck, we support you brave people. Here are a lot of supplies and defensive short range weapons. You go fight the monster. We’ll cheer you on. 
4. OK, you have been doing a great job! Well done. Even with most of your cities and power grid regularly under missile and drone attack in the winter,  thousands of casualties, and smashed into rubble cities, you are still standing! Great job! Here are some more weapons, and one with a little longer range. It works really well so you can continue to not only survive but make some progress. Not too much progress though. Might be dangerous. So, no to your other requests for planes and long range weapons. We can’t risk getting attacked by the monster.. But we will open war crimes investigations into the massacres, rapes and civilian killings and targetings.
5. Hey, you haven’t won yet! We don’t think you can win although the monster has obviously already lost. You have really fracked up his army good. By the way, our patience is growing thin and you haven’t defeated one of the world’s largest military powers yet. After a whole year.  We are the richest group of countries ever on Earth.  We have awesome military capabilities beyond belief. And lots of nuclear weapons. If we lose interest and get tired, you probably will have to negotiate away big chunks of your country you fought and died for. If you only achieve a stalemate against the monster. Unless you defeat that monster, real soon now. Here’s a few older tanks we made a long time ago. And a handful of rusty old Soviet/Russian jets, some don’t work though. Please don’t complain. It’s ungrateful.
6. Oh, hey. Go out there as soon as the ground is firmed up and really tear apart the monster, the monster we are definitely not wanting to get any madder at us. No pressure, but if you don’t defeat the monster right now, you are pretty much up a creek because we’re tired and have real problems here in our nice undamaged, heated homes. By the way, we are worried about you defeating the monster. What will happen to the him? He might hurt us. But don’t forget, the monster has already lost.
7. I mean, yeah, the monster just threw a few hundred thousand troops at you and you survived and all. Well, most of you. But hey, they weren’t well-trained. And we all know the monster has already lost (as far as threatening us over here in NATO - yay).  So you better defeat this monster by yourself, Right now. We gave you a LOT of equipment so you should be able to do this on your own. We can’t get involved. But here are a few more old jets. Don’t work so good right now, but…
8. We just got Finland into NATO!  Mostly thanks to you!). Now we are even stronger, and NATO makes sure none of us have to try to defeat the monster on our own. Like you. Because we don’t think we could. We can’t give you more powerful offensive weapons because it would have taken you all last year to learn how to use them. And then you might have defeated the monster. And we are really really worried because that might be bad. For us. You understand. So go out there NOW and defeat the monster. Or we will probably have to reduce our support for you. Like, if things get really bad for you. Not winning. We might not be there. As much. Or something. Hard to tell. But go win. Now. OK? 

PS. I really am pleased at how the West has helped out. I just don’t think it’s been soon enough with enough of the right stuff to end it before the political rot sets in. So I’m ventilating how it might feel. While I am grieving.

Forgive me for quoting myself, but if my specific proposals for more support are going to receive this level of response, I should make more of them. 🤣😂🤣.
GO POLAND! 
 

Long post of some Russian anti-drone operator, which was directed to Vuhledar.
There is no sense to make full translation, just most inetersting details:
On his opinion, UKR success on this direction based on such things:
- exellent observation of battalefield from two areas - from 9-storey buildings of Vuhledar and from the tall headframe of 1st South-Ukrainian mine north from Mykilske. He believs, Russian can win only if flatten all tall houses in the town and headframe. He is perplexed, why Russin command doesn't see such clear things
- UKR have full control over battlefield with daylight, NV and thermal observation devices
- Total superiority in drones. UKR drones in swarms continuously in the air, espacially over dachas. UKR could manage clear scheme of launching and returing of drones with exhausting batteries.
- UKR use simultainously many types of drones for different purposes, which work in variuos frequency ranges (many of which beyond the opportunities of anti-drone rifles and "trench EW") and support each other. This was making alsmost useless his anti-drone rifle. Because as soon as he tried to jam one drone, his position almost immediately was spotted by several other drones and he was forcing to retreat.
- He was overhelmed how quickly UKR drone operators spot their positions and how short time passes from spotting to opening fire. 

Ok to summarize:
- Ukrainian economy
- Russian Support kicking in (namely from China)
- Western support running out - materially, and glancing off of will.
Ergo - west is not providing enough support, should accelerate/double down in order to end this war before Ukraine runs out of time.  I think I got it all but jump in if I missed something.
Well first off it fails to recognize Russian trajectories, which are not pretty either militarily or economically.  Ukraine is not seeing shipments of M60s and Leo 1s, but Russia is shipping T62s.  This is evidence that as it relates to material Russia is running out of runway while there is no evidence the Western cupboard is bare.  
We do know there are production concerns as western inventories of forward edge munitions are starting to strain.  However, let’s keep a level head here on this.  I had a chance to virtually attend a RUSI conference last week on air power and let me say that military industry has seen the wind and is really leaning into it.  It is in their interests to accentuate production shortfalls and issues as in this environment they will equate directly to deep long term investment in their industry.  So the “truth” is likely somewhere in between.  We are seeing shortfalls in some areas because we were set up for short wars, but we also have some pretty deep war stocks.  I have seen no evidence that we are really anywhere near the bottom of the barrel, we will need to accept risk but welcome to warfare.
Ukrainian economy - well by this logic (ie saving the Ukrainian economy) then Ukraine should have likely sued for peace last Nov.  The economic return on the land they take back from here is not likely to pay for the costs of taking it back at this point.  Frankly if the West does not follow up this war with the largest reconstruction effort since the Second World War then we may as well pull out now - and the grown ups know this.  So listing this one as a forcing function doesn’t really line up because we are talking decades of investment if this thing ended today regardless.
So we are really down to western Will on one side.  Russian Will and Material on the other.  
Russian Material is a significant problem for them.  China would have to seriously invest, likely more than the entire western effort for Ukraine right now, to stop the current RA trajectory.  Will China go that far?  We do not know, but we are not seeing evidence that China is preparing to jump into this thing with both feet.  It is a single powerful nation with a lot of regional defence and security bills to pay, hemorrhaging that into Russia is a questionable strategy but we will see.  Russian Will appears startlingly robust, at least on the surface the signs of strain are there.  But I am betting it is also not infinite.
Time = Western Will, there is your forcing function.