FlemFire

I'm curious if anyone here has been to or at least studied Taiwan from a geographic POV. I only see the word "mountain" used once in the entire thread. Even absent of U.S. involvement, Taiwan is a veritable natural fortress. It's basically Switzerland condensed into a postage stamp with a zillion mountains all over the place many of which directly face potential avenues of approach. Mountains are nightmare fuel for any offensive army. That has not changed even with modern military advancements. China has virtually zero experience mounting amphibious assaults. China has virtually zero combat experience in general. Their mountain combat experience is derived from playing Medieval Times on the Indian border. What little we've seen of them operationally has left a lot to criticize (e.g., Vietnam) and it's pretty easy to surmise their open water logistics system would be a hot mess. I just have a hard time seeing this working for them.
 
As far as outside help is concerned... the US Navy would absolutely, 100% annihilate anything China puts in the water. I'm not sure what the wargames chitchat is there. China doesn't have any substantial open water experience at all, meanwhile that's the U.S.'s wheelhouse through and through and they've been wargaming it for decades now.
 
Others are right about the long game -- the reality is China doesn't actually need to invade Taiwan. They can just wait it out. And they can also pressure it greatly from within, which they have been doing. There are pro-mainlanders within the political system of Taiwan.

First off, nobody earns the right to be mean. That's a silly statement.
Secondly, I've been rather cordial this entire time and barely taken umbrage with some of the absurd responses I've seen. If you think I'm being condescending, I in no way intend to be.

This is, btw, what I meant earlier by "absurd" responses.
You took what I said and immediately stretched it out to the most extreme BS possible, comparing it to moon landing conspiracy-thinking and eventually being more forward in calling it "crackpot." So, quite plainly, everybody who doesn't agree with you is a crackpot, right? They're all just a bunch of dummies, right? And then I sit here and have people coming out of the woodwork telling me I'm the one being snide...? 
Do you have Russia's battleplans in your lap? Do you have a microphone into their war room? Did you wiretap their red telephones? Where do these certainties even come from? Think tanks? Two seconds ago you said you got into it with a Marine over WMDs in Iraq. Should I unfurl a giant scroll of think tanks who said there were totally WMDs in Iraq? Because I bet that Marine sure did. You argument boils down to you "know" what Putin is thinking, and what he's thinking is really stupid, therefore Putin is really stupid and Russia is totally borked. Man, I totally get that from an emotional standpoint. But from a logical one, nobody who "studies warfare" should ever say anything is a certainty when it comes to an outcome of an ongoing war.

I mean the explanation is quite simple: they tried to “Georgia” Ukraine and overthrow the government. They did not come into Ukraine with the goal of conquering it. At some point you have to accept this perspective for the rest of the arguments to make sense. Obviously, if you perceive the invasion to be one of conquest then it looks extra bad with a side of r-worded sprinkled on top. What I saw were Russians parked outside of Kiev, confused that the Ukrainians were, in fact, firing back on them. When the order came in to retreat, it was a rout. Total mess. Even in Georgia, Russians showed some cohesion issues so going backwards in Ukraine, and at that number, proved quite a comedy.
I do not hold Russian military command in any high regard, but I think even the Russians would know that 40,000 men is not enough to conquer a capital city like Kiev. It’s not a “feint”, necessarily, but a scare tactic that fell right on its face. The fact this was Russia’s “plan” to begin with is in and of itself an indictment of their military thinking. The fact they didn’t even have a backup plan, or an exit ramp of any kind, definitely gasts my flabber. Rather strangely, and I guess this is where you very likely struggle to give credit where it’s due, Putin was smart to listen to his generals and actually pullback. Multiple areas faced encirclement and massive loss. Unlike Stalin in ’41, who ignored Zhukov about (coincidentally) Kiev and in fact demoted the general, Putin submitted to reality and gave up the territories to preserve his army.
Russia humiliated itself in its retreats. That much is obvious. But that was then, and this is now. The war Russia was looking to “fight” in 2022 is not the far it is going to fight in 2023. Holding onto victories of yore does little. You actually kind of make the argument in your preamble there. Russia simply has vastly more industrial capacity and manpower than Ukraine. That’s really all there is to it. I think if Ukraine weren't fighting a democratic nation, then it could bleed their way to victory, but they're not. They're fighting Russia. And if Ukraine wants to engage in a long war, then Russia will oblige and Ukraine will pay for it dearly. This is why I think Ukraine should have sued for peace after the counter-offenses. All that initiative has been lost and now the Russians are creeping forward again and we don’t know exactly what their plans are now. I mean this is the part where also significant disagreements arise: I'm looking at 2023 trying to figure out what new things Russia's going to do. They're clearly planning something, and they're clearly not going away. Others are looking at 2023 like it's just going to be 2022 all over again, as if the Russians are just too dumb to learn and adapt. As I mentioned elsewhere as well, Russia now has had 1-full year to adjust its industries on a war footing. I don't think people really understand what that means while they debate and pull their hair out about a battalion or few of Leopards and Abrams.

I’m always fascinated whenever I run into people who vomit links and graphs and numbers without even understanding what they mean. You have my thanks for posting those graphs, even if you and apparently a lot of other people do not grasp what they actually mean. I can simplify it for you, though. If you look at the economic metrics of Russia in 2014 and on, you might notice they continue into 2015, 2016, etc. This is called a crisis.
For reference, I suggest dialing back your google searches to 2014 to understand how obvious and apparent this was quite literally immediately. Remember, Russia annexed Crimea in March. By April, that is 1-month later, IMF was already ringing alarm bells and claiming Russia to be in a recession:
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-27221345
 
Note, the financial crisis itself hadn’t even set its teeth in yet. That would be another half-year away as the ruble plummeted in value and investors started abandoning ship at great speed heading into 2015. This is why those graphs show a horror show straight running into and through 2016. Keep that in mind: 2014, 2015, 2016, absolute nosedive.
 
 
Now let’s look at today.
https://www.grid.news/story/global/2023/02/01/russias-economy-is-now-forecast-to-grow-faster-than-germanys-and-britains-in-2023-how-is-that-possible/
 
Pray tell, did you see such forecasts in 2015? In the same way Russians mistakenly thought Zelensky would flee and Kiev would fold, the West mistakenly thought Russia’s economy would buckle. Note, the sanctions in 2014 were small-ball. The sanctions in 2022 are the veritable decoupling of Russia from the entire West. Do I have to explain the gulf of difference there in terms of severity? Do I need an additional 1,000 words to explain the STARK difference between the resultant two data sets that unfolded after? Feel free to let me know.
The rest about lost territories is embarrassing. I grow tired of the propagandized sides of this conflict who fail to see reality for what it is. Losing 1/5th your territory is not to be taken lightly. I just don't really understand what mindset is required to be so cavalier in dismissing that. As for resources: Russia is an oil-state. Its economy is entirely centered around its natural resources, but we're going to sit here and pretend it carving itself access to a shale reserve and natural gas deposits is definitely not in their objective sets. Alright. Whatever. The fact people subsequent to this post make points about Russia losing access to foreign experts still, truly, do not at all grasp what is going on. The global oil market was shunted and shifted and yet people are not recalibrating their thinking at all. 

Saddam fought one vs. Iran for years. Then got wiped out by the West. Then got sanctioned. Then virtually lost his northern territories to the Kurds. Modern nation states have vast resources and are not easily broken. People on this board who know the world wars should understand this very well when you see the depths to which countries like Germany, Russia, and Japan went. I don't see Russian civilians dying. I don't see Russian cities getting bombed. Russian factories are untouched. We're talking about intangible economic strain via pressure on consumer goods. The slack was picked up elsewhere.
 
 
Saddam suffered far worse than Russia right now and he survived. He didn't collapse, either. Americans kicked his door in and hanged him. That was that. It's actually the main reason I drew up Saddam in the first place -- he didn't just face sanctions, he faced the physical dismantling of his army and severe losses of prestige.
Also, a full up Western anything is not the West, btw. Don't get it twisted on how armies fight and win. If you swapped the American military tech with Russia's, USA would still demolish the Russkies because things like training, discipline, communication, cohesion, etc. matter far more than tech specs. Putting Western tech in someone's hands hasn't been a magic bullet. Ever.

Full effects in 2014 were readily apparent. Now that anti-Russian rhetoric is insanely high to the point people are deploying scientific racism, you're not going to find very many straight shooters on the subject. If you're running into weasel words and the like for 2022/2023, it means it's not working as intended. The reality is Russia learned from 2014 and has positioned safeguards against another version of it. I mean the sanctions right now from the West make 2014 look like a little firecracker so the fact there's any discussion at all is a very bad sign. And I'm not sure how you pressure anyone to do anything. India and China are not going to blink. BRICS smell blood in the water. OPEC nations already sided with Russia. The USA can't endanger its relationship with USD/oil. Most other nations were subjugated by Europeans and these nations love watching the Euros suicide their economies. Most are not going to give up economic benefits on account of some Euro war that has nothing to do with them. Would you be fine eating economic bullets on account of Somalis/Ethiopians? Didn't think so. This is why I have become greatly concerned that people are attaching so much national prestige to the winning of this war. You leave yourself two options when you start losing: ratchet up the intensity (risk WWIII), or you step back and take a big splattering of egg on the face and lose a ton of credibility. This applies to the other side as well. The more Russia dumps into the conflict, the less likely they are to negotiate. Wise statesmen and observers were calling for peace negotiations when that initial thrust got turned back. Now it looks like Russians are going on the offensive and the ball is in their hands again.
 
Also, just look at the long game for a moment. Russia is run by a dictator. Remember Iraq? Sanctioned, starved, and bombed. Even a defanged Saddam Hussein managed to keep power despite all those pressures and being in a terribly weak position. So long as Putin exists, Russia can and will outlast the democratic West. A dictator can make his people suffer as much as he wants them to. You can't get that out of the West when people start protesting and demanding peace. 

So it's a conclusion. Other people have other conclusions.
In your own words, you "took a stab" at it and you "think" Putin presumes xyz. This is called speculating. I don't see the controversy in saying we actually do not fully grasp Russia's internal thinking or that their army/intel ops are so superficial that grognards on the internet can plot it out by opening a newspaper or putting an ear to a think tank. I brought up George Kennan earlier. He was the preeminent source on all-things Russia for the Cold War, but even he himself ultimately concluded you can never really know a foreign nation's thinking or what they intend. There are entire schools of international relations quite literally built upon this unfortunate reality. Are we going to seriously imply the likes of Morgenthau, Waltz, Niebuhr, Thompson, Carr etc. were just wasting their time, and we can in fact just divine a country's intentions that easily and thus there is no need for all this gamesmanship? I mean, make your argument, fine. Maybe you're right. The point is "maybe," and I don't think I deserve chastisement cause you to talk as if you have spies in Putin's inner circle and listen in on what those goons are up to because I know for an actual fact you do not nor do any think tanks nor do any YouTube bloggers. BTW, this goes the same in the other direction. Someone brought up I think MacGregor who routinely makes claims with 100% certainty. It's all the same basic fact: none of us are in those rooms, whether it is with Zelensky, Putin, Biden, etc. This is all speculative and tearing me a new one for participating from a different angle is absolutely unfair.

So it's a conclusion. Other people have other conclusions.
In your own words, you "took a stab" at it and you "think" Putin presumes xyz. This is called speculating. I don't see the controversy in saying we actually do not fully grasp Russia's internal thinking or that their army/intel ops are so superficial that grognards on the internet can plot it out by opening a newspaper or putting an ear to a think tank. I brought up George Kennan earlier. He was the preeminent source on all-things Russia for the Cold War, but even he himself ultimately concluded you can never really know a foreign nation's thinking or what they intend. There are entire schools of international relations quite literally built upon this unfortunate reality. Are we going to seriously imply the likes of Morgenthau, Waltz, Niebuhr, Thompson, Carr etc. were just wasting their time, and we can in fact just divine a country's intentions that easily and thus there is no need for all this gamesmanship? I mean, make your argument, fine. Maybe you're right. The point is "maybe," and I don't think I deserve chastisement cause you to talk as if you have spies in Putin's inner circle and listen in on what those goons are up to because I know for an actual fact you do not nor do any think tanks nor do any YouTube bloggers. BTW, this goes the same in the other direction. Someone brought up I think MacGregor who routinely makes claims with 100% certainty. It's all the same basic fact: none of us are in those rooms, whether it is with Zelensky, Putin, Biden, etc. This is all speculative and tearing me a new one for participating from a different angle is absolutely unfair.

First off, nobody earns the right to be mean. That's a silly statement.
Secondly, I've been rather cordial this entire time and barely taken umbrage with some of the absurd responses I've seen. If you think I'm being condescending, I in no way intend to be.

First off, nobody earns the right to be mean. That's a silly statement.
Secondly, I've been rather cordial this entire time and barely taken umbrage with some of the absurd responses I've seen. If you think I'm being condescending, I in no way intend to be.

I'm curious if anyone here has been to or at least studied Taiwan from a geographic POV. I only see the word "mountain" used once in the entire thread. Even absent of U.S. involvement, Taiwan is a veritable natural fortress. It's basically Switzerland condensed into a postage stamp with a zillion mountains all over the place many of which directly face potential avenues of approach. Mountains are nightmare fuel for any offensive army. That has not changed even with modern military advancements. China has virtually zero experience mounting amphibious assaults. China has virtually zero combat experience in general. Their mountain combat experience is derived from playing Medieval Times on the Indian border. What little we've seen of them operationally has left a lot to criticize (e.g., Vietnam) and it's pretty easy to surmise their open water logistics system would be a hot mess. I just have a hard time seeing this working for them.
 
As far as outside help is concerned... the US Navy would absolutely, 100% annihilate anything China puts in the water. I'm not sure what the wargames chitchat is there. China doesn't have any substantial open water experience at all, meanwhile that's the U.S.'s wheelhouse through and through and they've been wargaming it for decades now.
 
Others are right about the long game -- the reality is China doesn't actually need to invade Taiwan. They can just wait it out. And they can also pressure it greatly from within, which they have been doing. There are pro-mainlanders within the political system of Taiwan.

Saddam fought one vs. Iran for years. Then got wiped out by the West. Then got sanctioned. Then virtually lost his northern territories to the Kurds. Modern nation states have vast resources and are not easily broken. People on this board who know the world wars should understand this very well when you see the depths to which countries like Germany, Russia, and Japan went. I don't see Russian civilians dying. I don't see Russian cities getting bombed. Russian factories are untouched. We're talking about intangible economic strain via pressure on consumer goods. The slack was picked up elsewhere.
 
 
Saddam suffered far worse than Russia right now and he survived. He didn't collapse, either. Americans kicked his door in and hanged him. That was that. It's actually the main reason I drew up Saddam in the first place -- he didn't just face sanctions, he faced the physical dismantling of his army and severe losses of prestige.
Also, a full up Western anything is not the West, btw. Don't get it twisted on how armies fight and win. If you swapped the American military tech with Russia's, USA would still demolish the Russkies because things like training, discipline, communication, cohesion, etc. matter far more than tech specs. Putting Western tech in someone's hands hasn't been a magic bullet. Ever.

Full effects in 2014 were readily apparent. Now that anti-Russian rhetoric is insanely high to the point people are deploying scientific racism, you're not going to find very many straight shooters on the subject. If you're running into weasel words and the like for 2022/2023, it means it's not working as intended. The reality is Russia learned from 2014 and has positioned safeguards against another version of it. I mean the sanctions right now from the West make 2014 look like a little firecracker so the fact there's any discussion at all is a very bad sign. And I'm not sure how you pressure anyone to do anything. India and China are not going to blink. BRICS smell blood in the water. OPEC nations already sided with Russia. The USA can't endanger its relationship with USD/oil. Most other nations were subjugated by Europeans and these nations love watching the Euros suicide their economies. Most are not going to give up economic benefits on account of some Euro war that has nothing to do with them. Would you be fine eating economic bullets on account of Somalis/Ethiopians? Didn't think so. This is why I have become greatly concerned that people are attaching so much national prestige to the winning of this war. You leave yourself two options when you start losing: ratchet up the intensity (risk WWIII), or you step back and take a big splattering of egg on the face and lose a ton of credibility. This applies to the other side as well. The more Russia dumps into the conflict, the less likely they are to negotiate. Wise statesmen and observers were calling for peace negotiations when that initial thrust got turned back. Now it looks like Russians are going on the offensive and the ball is in their hands again.
 
Also, just look at the long game for a moment. Russia is run by a dictator. Remember Iraq? Sanctioned, starved, and bombed. Even a defanged Saddam Hussein managed to keep power despite all those pressures and being in a terribly weak position. So long as Putin exists, Russia can and will outlast the democratic West. A dictator can make his people suffer as much as he wants them to. You can't get that out of the West when people start protesting and demanding peace. 

Saddam fought one vs. Iran for years. Then got wiped out by the West. Then got sanctioned. Then virtually lost his northern territories to the Kurds. Modern nation states have vast resources and are not easily broken. People on this board who know the world wars should understand this very well when you see the depths to which countries like Germany, Russia, and Japan went. I don't see Russian civilians dying. I don't see Russian cities getting bombed. Russian factories are untouched. We're talking about intangible economic strain via pressure on consumer goods. The slack was picked up elsewhere.
 
 
Saddam suffered far worse than Russia right now and he survived. He didn't collapse, either. Americans kicked his door in and hanged him. That was that. It's actually the main reason I drew up Saddam in the first place -- he didn't just face sanctions, he faced the physical dismantling of his army and severe losses of prestige.
Also, a full up Western anything is not the West, btw. Don't get it twisted on how armies fight and win. If you swapped the American military tech with Russia's, USA would still demolish the Russkies because things like training, discipline, communication, cohesion, etc. matter far more than tech specs. Putting Western tech in someone's hands hasn't been a magic bullet. Ever.

Saddam fought one vs. Iran for years. Then got wiped out by the West. Then got sanctioned. Then virtually lost his northern territories to the Kurds. Modern nation states have vast resources and are not easily broken. People on this board who know the world wars should understand this very well when you see the depths to which countries like Germany, Russia, and Japan went. I don't see Russian civilians dying. I don't see Russian cities getting bombed. Russian factories are untouched. We're talking about intangible economic strain via pressure on consumer goods. The slack was picked up elsewhere.
 
 
Saddam suffered far worse than Russia right now and he survived. He didn't collapse, either. Americans kicked his door in and hanged him. That was that. It's actually the main reason I drew up Saddam in the first place -- he didn't just face sanctions, he faced the physical dismantling of his army and severe losses of prestige.
Also, a full up Western anything is not the West, btw. Don't get it twisted on how armies fight and win. If you swapped the American military tech with Russia's, USA would still demolish the Russkies because things like training, discipline, communication, cohesion, etc. matter far more than tech specs. Putting Western tech in someone's hands hasn't been a magic bullet. Ever.

Same. The second they saw the windows already boarded with stones, they should have recognized it as virtually prefigured to be defended. But another red flag would be that if the enemy knows they're surrounded but are not surrendering then either they're going full seppuku or they've got a line of communication telling them to hold out. I have to imagine that's where the artillery strike came in at toward the end. These are things you learn from, I suppose, but to me CQB is so deadly I just don't see the point of physically entering a building you have surrounded. Pointmen definitely put all their nuts on the table walking into places like that. I can't even conceive of that level of courage.

China is in a position in which they can wait and let the tides change on their own.
 
My fear is that if Battlefront releases a game on this topic, then the topic will come to fruition as their mystic powers manifest yet another real-life conflict.

I tire of this pearl clutching indignation, to be honest. My viewpoint is not niche at all.
 
"The probability of a Ukrainian military victory — defined as kicking the Russians out of all of Ukraine to include what they claim as Crimea — the probability of that happening anytime soon is not high, militarily." - Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley.
 
You needn't knock me over the head with the moral shovels, either. I'm aware of the rest. Can we engage on a more common ground for once? Our differences are not even that far apart.

I'm quite aware Russia's incompetence has led to significant military losses. I was one of many sitting back and watching the tapes. When the war started, I remarked about having observed the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, and watching drunken Russians stumble around in the middle of the road while driving an AFV into a berm. It's obvious to anyone who pays attention that for all its resources, the Russian military is not what one might call "professional." As even Battlefront's lovely games showcase, certain doctrines baked into their military structure are also not what one might call "flexible." Mix the two together, throw it against some resistance, and abracadabra. Where have we seen this before except in virtually every conflict they ever partake in.
 
However, we actually do NOT know the full extent of Russia's stockpile. You have to pull a lot of data from the end of the Cold War to recent times to estimate it. As you near the end of the Cold War, those estimations have to be safeguarded against with the knowledge that the West has to elevate the threat to justify its own defense budgets. As you near modern times, you have to start safeguarding against assertions that Russia is a broken nation with nothing. In between you gotta figure out what % you're willing to shave off to things like corruption and waste. I'll say this about Russia's military: it has been a focus for them. This is not the decaying creature that it seemed to be in the early 00s. Anyone who plainly asserts that the Russian military is vanishing or isn't "relevant" is making an assumption. We don't actually know. We just know the stockpiles are very, very likely to be quite vast. How Russia is able to marshal those forces is another question entirely.
 
You wouldn't have to source it at all, I'd fully believe it as read.
 
 
Russia has the economy about the size of Italy's. This is not quite the pin in the doll as you might think. It has to go lower. Also, Russia trades at losses to some nations in exchange for other goods. Be wary of taking raw numbers when staring at a speculative "legal" black market like oil trade. I'm sure you're already aware that the oil market is a whole bag of hammers and trickery all on its own.
 
 
Just focusing on the peace stuff, I said there were efforts and there have been. We actually don't know to what extent he'll negotiate because neither side has sat down and hammered out details in awhile. Publicly, he can say whatever he wants to say. He's made his objectives clear and is sticking to them. I've already said that this is part of the theater of public diplomacy. I think it's an eyebrow raising mistake to do this just like it is for the other side. Behind closed doors tides change, though. Call me an optimist in this regard.
And I've said my observations here are not niche already. People are choosing to engage with them so I don't see the issue. Nothing wrong with back and forth. I've no umbrage with anyone here and if anything I said made it seem otherwise I apologize. It's quite late on my end so something may have slipped through.
 
 
I just don't understand how one can make these assertions. I've seen casualty numbers all over the place. If you want to make estimates, fine, but what #'s are there to even crunch? There are wars long concluded which people still debate this crap. The idea you could do it live is a bit silly. I personally think the total casualties are very high, but I'm 100% guessing and I honestly don't know. Both sides have strong interests in totally muddying the water on this topic. Looking at unit rotation to glean data is interesting but that's a big rabbit hole because we just don't know Russia's internal designs for this sort of thing (unless you got some very up to date documentation, then I'd gladly take a look).
Here's my own rabbit hole. The West has keen interest in Ukraine winning this war. If what you say is true about the casualties, then we can assume the West's generals know this as well. So why are they not acting on this information? Why are they not depositing as much war material as physically possible right this second to press the advantage? Again, I find this wishywashy reluctance by the West to be indicative of a lack of faith in the project as a whole. The U.S. MIC will get its money. That's what it wants. But in terms of military objectives if Russia is so lambasted that they could be pushed over, why are the generals not moving in the aggressive direction? I sincerely find this very suspect. But, like your notions with the rotations, it is only something I can gauge at a vast distance. And while I may be taking the word of one man, that man is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He's not speaking off the cuff. He's speaking at the spearhead of what is undoubtedly the world's biggest mountain of intelligence and analysis. His conclusion does not track with this assertion that Russia's forces are virtually obliterated.

I've been quite polite considering some of the rhetoric I'm reading. Why is this directed toward me? All I did was ask a very simple question of how does Ukraine militarily win this war. My belief is there is no such conclusion. The highest ranking officer in the entire U.S. military has said there is no military offramp so this is not a niche observation. My conclusion is that the West needs to get the global markets in line otherwise Russia will gladly oblige a long war. I don't understand how this is controversial.
 
Going by the Military Times at the outset of the war, backed by IISS yearly report, this is what Russia had:
900,000 active personnel with 2,000,000 in reserve.
40,000ish fighters from Dontesk and Luhansk.
18,500+ AFVs. 5,500+ pieces of artillery.
 
Taken as read, people in this thread seem weirdly certain all of this manpower and material has vanished, though, and of that I'm not so certain. The Joint Chief of Staffs of the United States military doesn't seem so certain. I don't wish to argue from authority, but that is some rather supreme authority. You say I gish gallop while I'm trying to illuminate the wider picture? My entire point is that the solution is a diplomatic/economic one and that statements like General Milley's are correct. OPEC, India, and China are not helping. That's basically the other half of the planet. We need them to cooperate to dry out Russia's oil receipts and force them to the table at a weakened position. There is nothing complicated or conspiratorial or contrived about this argument.
 
 
Putin is a tyrant. News at 9. The guy can still be negotiated with. Despite your assertions here that he refuses to negotiate, there have been efforts by both sides now and again. As for demands... this is something you can learn at a used car lot, but typically when you come to negotiations you do so with the extremes and then walk it back from there. Unfortunately, the demands are turning into stone right in public limelights. I'm fully in support of the theater of Zelensky and co. coming to America and letting people understand the situation. I'm not nearly in as much support of him locking Ukraine into a deathmatch with a former superpower run by a dictator when we already know dictators can make their own countries suffer as much as they want to get what they want.
 
Basic rule of thumb is to always leave yourself an out. Again, I don't think this should be controversial. Like I'm not trying to rile people up. You can leave yourself an out while at the same time pursuing the war goals of driving Russia out of eastern Ukraine. You can't just assume your war goals will come to reality, though. I'm sorry, but that is bad statesmanship. There is a strong argument made by Hans Morgenthau, the father of political realism, that public diplomacy is necessarily self-destructing. Neither side is going to have an easy time compromising when they're screaming to the world that they want XYZ and nothing less. It's also why platforms like the U.N. turn into useless soapboxes. I think this mistake has been made here and it makes me worried about the war escalating into something worse because we're edging toward the territory of, well, as some in this thread stated, things just not escalating because they won't. Tautologies like that work until they don't.

I thought I made it quite clear but I can try to summarize as we are far away from those points:
Putin wants the eastern territories.
The West wants to make it as costly as possible to remove incentive for this sort of action; in the peripheral of this, they also need to show certain other 3rd parties the cost of taking aggressive military action. 
Ukraine wants Russia out and its territories back.
 
 
Somewhere in between, you negotiate. Jingoists and nationalists are not a part of this conversation. They can't be. It's like Orwell's essays on ideological groups, the basic reality is there are certain compromises certain groups will never make. I 100% believe there are Russians and Ukrainians alike that would literally rather grind their nations into ash than see the other guy win a 60/40 cut of the peace deal. You have to understand this, alright? And you have to understand why these conversations are difficult when people like that exist. It gets a little scarier when there are powerful people who are more than willing to oblige these thoughts. Such people also exist so those fears are not unjustified.
 
Now outside those barriers are very different results. Ukraine stands to lose a lot more than just two territories and the West stands to lose a lot of prestige and standing in the world, just saying it rather plainly. Russia also stands to do this just as well if Ukraine is able to push them out and/or the West rallies global markets against Russia. Again, I just want to point out that the depth into which Russia is willing to dig to not be humiliated is fairly deep, so this route is extremely costly and dangerous. Typically, the West suffers war exhaustion at a much faster rate, even when they're not taking part.
 
As far as negotiations go, it's all about putting yourself at advantage. There's a reason why the U.S. General Milley said Ukraine should go to the table in November (he also said there was no military offramp, by the way). Ukraine had taken back some territories and looked competent enough to make this a long war. Russia at the time was drawing up reserves. It was a position of strength vs. uncertainty on the part of the Russians. Now that time has passed. Now everybody is sitting around wondering if Russia is going to go on another offensive, or if Ukraine can breakthrough after Russia has spent 9+ months building static defenses. Every single time you push off negotiations, you run the risk of things escalating in the wrong direction.
 
I mentioned, though, that I truly don't think the military side of this is the big bargaining chip. IMO, Ukraine fights and holds on while Western intelligence and weaponry pours in. The West meanwhile has a main objective that is totally outside of Ukraine: they have to get other global markets onboard. Truly, that's it. Russia would fall apart very, very quickly. Problem is that those economic and political bullets are missing right now. And those are the ones we need to land. I don't know how people assess Russia's situation as precarious. As George Kennan said, it's impossible to fully understand the inner workings of a foreign country. Most anything you hear about another nation's innerworkings is going to be propaganda or disinfo. Example, I personally think the notion of Russia running out of missiles was disinfo - spread by Russia themselves. But my thinking on the whole is that Russia learned from 2014's sanctions and have successfully shifted trade east to prepare for the economic contractions the West would be belting across their backs. I have contacts all over the world, just as well, and I do not hear this anti-Russian fervor at all from those places. Also, again just plainly speaking, I don't know how seriously I can take Europe's war effort when they're still trading with Russia. Talking about sending Ukraine tanks with one hand while the other helps build the ATGM's to destroy them. I'm sorry but even this incongruity has to make a few people twitch.
 
My personal hope is that Ukraine comes out of this as a member of NATO. If that doesn't happen then this entire affair has been a tremendous failing. There are ways to do that which are fairly realistic, but will require compromise. There are ways to do it that are tremendously risky and require no compromise. Measuring which route you go is something you take day by day.
 

This war has considerably more at stake than just territories and nationalistic rises and falls. I mean, I don't have the time to go over this, but it's pointless anyway. Not that diplomatic history matters much once the war has started, only to say that the diplomatic choices taken were godawful and history will absolutely see that through. So you have the war now, and the war now is just kill everyone and take territories and ostensibly ignore everything in the peripheral from nuclear capabilities to reserves to global oil market shifts to China to India to OPEC and so on and so forth. By all means, I hope you're right and we see Ukraine put an offensive down and drive the Russians out and Putin just eats the L. I think my opinions clear and it's going in circles. I'd love nothing more than to see Ukraine drive the Russians out. The wargamer in me (as this is that type of forum) would actually quite enjoy watching Challengers and Leopards meet Russian armor and put it on them. Perhaps I'm wrong and Russia has nothing left in the, if I may, tank.
  
 
 
It doesn't involve the whole world dying, actually. It could just involve a section of it. We, naturally, do not know. For all we know, India and China would call an emergency meeting and let each other know that they are standing pat while the West melts itself into a fat-filled plastic puddle. It is no secret that these countries seek primacy. The West rose to prominence on the backs of much of the rest of the world who were, at the time, undeveloped. I don't see how the East doing this exact same thing would be any different. At that point, they'll be dictating everything. I feel like this notion that things will simply remain the same in perpetuity is more or less hubris. Things can and do change. You don't think some Roman in the old days thought his empire would never end? All around him were glistening ivories, giant buildings, running water, magnificent constructs, war booty from corners of the world he'd never even heard of. How could he possibly imagine that would ever end, right? I don't like narrow perspectives. With the scope of history on hand, which includes the rise and fall of entire civilizations, I would like my leaders to operate with a little caution. That's all.

So they're uncivilized barbarians but nuclear warfare is off the table? Right. We already have the Cold War to study. The fact it didn't happen already is in some parts accountable to luck. Every time the West and Russia interact in a military sense, there is a presage of nuclear annihilation. That is a flat out FACT. People are way too certain that the thousands of operational nuclear warheads and the multitude of live delivery systems carrying them will just never, ever be used when, last I checked, it was still a bunch of humans with human impulses and human vices and human minds standing at those buttons. Our countries' leaders and powerbrokers and wealthy fat cats all have vast bunker systems they can all go scurry off to in these events. You and me get the fire. It isn't for ****s and giggles and I'm terrified at how few people seem to understand this. And nevermind there are third parties who would probably love nothing more than to watch it happen. I've already brought up the rest of the planet, but apparently not a single other person thinks the world exists outside of the battlefields of Ukraine and the military industrial complexes of those involved.
 

Let's get a one thing clear about Russia's end here insofar as the West is concerned.
 
It is very much within the West's interests to basically kill as many Russians as physically possible and make the war as costly as possible for two obvious purposes: one is to ensure that Russia doesn't have incentive to do it again, and the other is to show China what's up if it keeps eyeballing Taiwan. Believe it or not, this is actually diplomacy of another kind in action. However, this objective eventually has to meet with reality and that reality is armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons (on both sides). At some point you talk. Push comes to shove, I doubt any person in this thread would actually allow their families to be incinerated by nuclear war on account of Ukraine and Russia. That's the West's starting point. Russia's starting point is they want those territories. You meet somewhere in between. Or you take the casino option and roll the dice on continuing the war. That's obviously Ukraine's option. I split those up because if Ukraine dives in the deep end, I don't think the West will follow. If they can get OPEC, India, and China to play ball? Yes. But right now... no.