G.I. Joe

Oh man, how perfect 
Esp with how much Putin hates Clinton. 

do you recall at all what happened in Bucha?  I mean FFS what exactly do you think is gonna happen with negotiations with Russia?  JFC people have such poor memories or just don't give a rat's a55 for reality when they have an agenda.

We are definitely at a “we have forgotten the faces of our fathers. - moment” in the West.  I have already heard this war framed in terms as either the greatest success or worse failure in the western system since the end of the Cold War that may very well shape the rest of the 21st century.
I am personally uplifted by how much we rallied.  We were within inches of tossing NATO out the door and other western unions were under similar assault.  I think the question now is whether or not we can follow through and finish this thing?  Remember we still have a Ukraine to rebuild once this is all over.
The West definitely has interests in this war and Ukraine is essentially defending them.  My back gets up when some people act like Western support is an entitlement however.  People forget that it is our public who actually own all this support - they paid for it.  So we have to convince them that this is worth their money.  This means we cannot simply throw out our own democracy in order to pay for this war, as ugly as it gets at times.  At its worst this turns into US/Western bashing day, which frankly is not helpful.
Anyway, we are in a valley right now, no getting past it.  But we will simply have to push through or risk losing what those that came before us sacrificed a lot to build.

Seriously and @squatter can look here too.  For anyone advocating Ukraine pursuing peace negotiations or suing for peace - easy to say but no one in this camp has provided a coherent theory of what that would look like right now.
Let’s say “Ok, you guys are right. Ukraine is out of options here. There are no viable way for Ukraine to continue to prosecute this war.”  Ok, so what?  What would peace negotiations look like?  How exactly do you guys see these “peace negotiations” happening.  Every time I ask this question I get some hand waving but no one has yet to unpack just how any peace negotiations could end up in anything but weakened western influence and a more vulnerable Ukraine that Russia is going to exploit.  What peace negotiation, that Russia is going to accept - while, as we are continually reminded, Russia is still capable of waging offensives to take ground?  What possible leverage does the west or Ukraine have in guaranteeing Ukrainian independence and security.  Is Russia going to offer reparations?  How about war crimes prosecution?  Is Russia going to give up an inch of ground it has taken?  Are they going to push for recognition of Crimea and Donbas as Russian provinces.
This is what is so disingenuous about this line of advocacy - at best it is delusional liberal left “let’s give peace a chance”.  At worst is it far right BS designed to program failure into this entire war so that their presidential candidate can be “right all along”.  In both cases the idea of peace negotiations right now is an empty coffin where actual ideas on this war go to die.  We may very well need a negotiated end-state in this war, but suing for peace now, while on the back foot is going to embolden Putin and his regime…and is exactly what they are looking for in order to promote themselves “Look we brought them all to their knees”.
But let’s open the floor.  Please walk us through what a peace process would look like right now.  Let’s stop sideline heckling on won’t work and tell us what you think will work.

I mean these are fair points, and I am not in the "Yay us!" camp.  But frankly it is a small miracle that anything happened at all.  The West was woefully unprepared for this entire thing, and that is on us.
As for Ukraine.  Well if we are dolling out harsh but fair truths, they definitely could have been better prepared as well.  If I were living next door to Russia, I would make damned sure I had security guarantees that matter (oh wait, I do and we did).  I would also be working very hard, like Finland and Sweden just did, to make sure if I needed a quick entry into the western fold that I was ready for that.  Corruption and dithering happened inside the Ukraine government as well.
I think that no one on this side of this war was truly ready for what actually happened.  The West rallied and frankly pulled off the impossible, as did Ukraine - how quickly we forget the miracles of Mar '22.  I do not think it is fair to flush all that down the toilet now with revisionist history and hysteria.
The West continues to support Ukraine.  Billions in aid are still moving.  The US is putting on a shameful display of just how fragile its democracy is right now, and ignorant power hungry politicians are exploiting it for personal gain.  But I remain confident that 1) Ukraine will adapt.  They are leading modern warfare right now and learning incredibly fast, 2) The US and West will eventually get there - democracy does suck at times, but it is the best we have, and 3) Russian decline is occurring as a direct result of #1 and #2.  Their ability to be a threat is declining in the conventional space.
Hopefully this is a "darkest before dawn" situation and not the abyss that some insist it has become. 

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.  

Considering many Ukrainians speak Russian and understand the culture that makes it a subversive and asymmetric warfare nightmare for Russia.  I am betting Ukrainian SOF teams are operating deeply in Russia.  Now, have they linked up or supported the creation of organized resistance at scale?  That would be the next step.

When it comes to AirPower, Russia is even in deeper trouble.  The RUAF has to be ready to control and defend all Russian airspace and still project threats…at the same time.  As they have become more jerkish in Ukraine, they have be worried about escalation but that means they need an airforce to do something about it.  For example say - as some have been going on about - Russia does decide to invade Poland.  And as we all know the weak kneed and pitiful West will simply let that happen (“NATO means nothing…blah, blah”).  Well the problem will be that Russia won’t have enough air power to actually create air superiority in that war either.  In fact after all these losses they will be in a worse position for a follow on war than they were in Ukraine.  As you note modern airplanes take a long time and a lot of resources to build so that pushes the horizon of any flexing out even further.
Frankly we would be nuts not to get behind whatever this is turning into.  AirPower and Seapower are all viable strategic targets in this war and Ukraine has demonstrated acumen at these targets.  The repercussions of these actions transcend this war and impact Russian ability to wage the next one. 

Hmmm
 

Macron for the rhetorical win. I had regained some hope in Scholz, but man, fool me once... 

Very salient last point, for sure. Also, the no A50s have flown since the 2nd downing. 

Ukraine seem to be getting very good at this "asymmetrical conventional war" approach.
The Black Sea Fleet, which vastly overmatched the Ukrainian navy, has been pretty much neutralised. In the early says they were launching cruise missile strikes from near Odessa. Now they won't even go as far as Sevastopol, and operationally seem to be limited to ferrying supplies with their decreasing supply of landing ships.
The Russian air force also has massive superiority in numbers and modern equipment, and yet are losing aircraft at an impressive rate and have lost two of their A-50 planes (and no-one seems to know really how many airworthy ones they actually have now). Of course the air force is still a problem and not neutralised (hello, glide bombs and cruise missile salvos), but it's obvious that Ukraine are forcing the Russians to be more cautious and conservative with their air power than they'd ideally like.

Some of the strongest language I have heard from Israel directed at Russia so far.
 

Seriously, 10 in 10?
 
 

This kind of demonstrates the "western military thinking box".  In western doctrine when we say "river crossing" it is exactly as you describe - getting heavy and mech across a water obstacle and then sustaining them as they push out and drive the opponent far enough back to build bridging infrastructure up to the point the obstacle is no longer an obstacle...and in this war that approach is pretty much broken.
Russian ISR - even as lower quality as it is - will see pontoons, ribbon bridges and large build up of forces.  They will then lob everything they can at the crossing and any forces in the bridgehead.  Hopeless, impossible...modern technology has made it "impossible".
So what?  Well be something else. Light fast and distributed forces on ATV, motorcycles...hell bicycles.  All armed to the teeth with FPVs and loitering munitions of their own.  All linked into the massive C4ISR architecture.  Only thing missing are UGVs which can reinforce distributed mass.  Then let them loose on the enemy.  Logistics are not zero but they are much lower than AFVs and tanks.   
The real question is can one go this way and sustain firepower?  Are you losing fires for lighter forces?  In the past the answer was unequivocally "yes".  After seeing a video of 5 FPV teams stop a RA tank company, I am no longer so sure.
So a modern Kherson break out could be a bunch of light teams on quads, all with ATGMs and FPV.  The follow up with conventional fires once you push them out of support ranges...however, given RAP rounds and HIMARS, that is a good bubble.  Once you get that in place...then try the heavy/mech stuff.
Will it work.  No idea.  It is taking a raiding force and making it into something else.  But right now it definitely would be worth exploring because that last sentence of yours is not the better option.
 

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/26/europe/sweden-nato-accession-hungary-intl/index.html
Sweden is finally in NATO 

Didn't Perun suggest the Gripen as best suited to UKR current needs? 
Yes he did.. 
https://youtu.be/-PCg-ba9tRI?feature=shared

Apparently, in the per the various tweets, Poland was intended as first operator, then US. Reveal of a system in Ukraine before either of those was via Pentagon budget doc, namely asking for money to replace the system that instead went to Ukraine. 
I'm a gonna dig off Twitter, see what else I can find. 

I suspect it's not a single "roll it off a C-5 and fire it up" system, but some framework for integrating everything that can output data.  A little google shows that a lot of development and testing was still going on at least into late 2022.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if 5 or 10 years from now we learn that it amounts to tying the stuff NG has been doing for this into the Ukrainian GIS Arta, along with any other sensor networks they have, and it's been going on for as long as we've been sending aid (including pre-Feb 2022, at least at the command level in Ukraine).  The UA was the recipient of a lot of realtime intel from allies outside the country in 2022 and did a very fine job of exploiting it in a timely manner.

Let's hope this makes it:
 

Yeah, no way it was West.
I think this really really shows the disconnect in thinking between Russia and the West.
Putin is already saying this is existential war for Russia, he is already saying his objective is to destroy the West, and his people - whether random Russians or weirdos and traitors and useful idiots everwhere in the world - are already believing it. He is already doing everything in his power to do that too - from propaganda to interfering with elections to financing fascist parties to helping Hamas to working with Iran and China to assassinating people in other countries to attacking food to cause famine in Africa because refugee crisis empower Western Fascist to whatever else I have lost track.
Russia already escalated as high as they dared. If they could do worse, if they could do something more despicable, if they could do something more monstrous, they would have done it years ago.
I remember all these red lines - nuclear war if West gives Ukraine Javelins, nuclear war if West gives Ukraine tanks, nuclear war if West gives Ukraine planes, nuclear West gives Ukraine gets HIMARS, nuclear war if Ukraine attacks Russian warships, nuclear war if Ukraine fires missiles into Russia ... So really I think if West shot down Russian plane they would do nothing like every time before.
At the same time, the Western decision makers think (or behave as if they thought) that Russia is a country and not a mafia, and that they are not actually at (hybrid) war with us, and that they can be reasoned with and that keeping some kind of "civilized behavior" with Russia is something that makes sense. This is of course wrong - Russia only understands strength and considers humanity a weakness to be exploited - being civilized or nice only makes you hurt.
So no way it really was West - if West had balls to engage Russia directly, our current conversation topic on this forum would be "do you think the warlord Ivanov will also take south of Moscow?" and not "it's not good that Ukraine is losing ground and people because West decided to not supply them with enough ammo but what can you do, it could be worse".
...
Anyway, one thing I wanted to say: This actually is an existential war for Russia in a way. It is existential for Putin, sure, but as we came to understood during the war and as we discussed a few times, the common (but by no means only) mindset in common Russians is "things are ****, they used to get better and now they don't, but you know what, at least we are a badass empire". They might be even deluding themselves into thinking that things being bad is a voluntary sacrifice for that badass empire. Lot of people are willing to suffer a lot for being part of something they consider greater than themselves.
Being decisively shown that Russia is not in fact a cool badass empire they be proud of even if they don't themselves have indoor toilets might really break their worlds. Whatever comes out of that would not be Russia as we know it anymore. This is not existential war for Russia because they will end up in mass graves or enslaved if they lose (like it is for Ukrainians), but it is existential for the Russian imperial mindset.

Wheels within wheels.  Those posts are likely already gone or moved , but it will drive the Russians nuts trying to find them.  The stories of what is happening beneath the water line will fill volumes in about 10-20 years.

I don’t think anyone of serious power in the West wants a full Russian collapse.  The overall Western grand strategy since the end of the Cold War has been “stable status quo”.  We have spent the last 33 years pretty much working on all fronts to sustain “the system”.  We toss scarfs and hats on it but at its core is a central unchanging stability.  Why?  Because stability is good business.  The West, with the US at the centre built the scheme that “won” the Cold War and want that party to keep going because we get very rich off it.  The rest of the world makes our stuff for cheap, while also buying our other stuff.  
But pretty much from Day 1 “the others” pushed back.  First was the intra-war years, interventions and then terrorism.  Now this has upscaled to “revisionist states” and “power competition”.  Russia invaded Ukraine for several reasons but one of them definitely was to demonstrate that they are not going to be bound by western rules (Hell, Putin said exactly this in that speech back in Sep ‘22).  This puts the West in a dilemma, they can either do too little and Russia threatens the system, or they crush Russia…and it threatens the system.  So they appear to have chosen the middle path, which of course is getting hijacked by the internal movements who want to…wait for it…change the system.  MAGA, alt-right, nationalists, whatever, all disagree with “the system” even though it has made everyone richer.  The reality is that it did not make everyone equally rich so discontent is natural.  Worse, power spheres exploit this so they can get more powerful (and richer).  So Rust-Belt yokels eat this stuff up and start to dismantle “the system”, which includes democracy apparently.  The reality is Trump is a symptom, not a cause and I am not sure even they realize how dangerous this game they are playing is.
So Ukraine happens and becomes a symbol of a “war for, and against, the system.”  It isn’t about the fact that killing innocent Ukrainians is wrong - hell if morales like human life mattered we wouldn’t have Gaza.  No, Ukraine is all about “the system” and both sides appear to be waging it viewed through that lens.  Russia needs to show that they are going to play by their own rules, but not completely break themselves.  One could ask “why is Russia fighting this war by half measures?”  Do they enjoy a quagmire?  No, Putin understands what he has gotten himself into and is adopting a slow burn strategy, hoping we will get distracted and caught up in our own nonsense…and he might be right.
The rest of the West is trying to step up, but frankly we have grown awfully fat, dumb and happy on the back of the US - who now is having a bipolar fit.  In the end, we can live with a fallen Ukraine.  We can shore up the borders and lock Russia out.  We can live with a partial victory in Ukraine, do we really care about Crimea, LNR and DNR?  No, we did not in ‘14 and we don’t now.  We can’t live with a completely imploded Russia.  Those are where the real risks lie.  Too many unknowns that could really break the system.  So we wind up with a half hearted war designed to punish Russia for challenging the system but not destroy them.  Ukraine is, and I am being brutally honest here, is almost secondary to the entire conversation.  It was simply a very unfortunate country where both sides could try and prove a point.  We love Ukraine all of a sudden because they are an opportunity to show that 1) Russia was wrong to challenge the system, and 2) the system still works.  
I strongly suspect this is why this war is also so muddled in military circles.  We are watching a war to defend the system..that is demonstrating the weaknesses of our own military system at the same time.  So we put blinders on and try to pretend it isn’t happening.  Our military power has to still be relevant…otherwise how can we defend the system?
So to answer your question, “yes, the US and the West know exactly how important Ukraine really is and are fighting this war based on that calculus.”  The answer however is “somewhat important”.  We care and feel bad, but care much more about our own issues.  Putin read the short game about as wrong as one can.  He may have read the long game extremely well.  The way to beat the West is not outright confrontation, it is apathy.  2 years is forever for a culture addicted to clicks and flashing lights.  Putin’s off ramp is being able to draw a victory line somewhere of his choosing and he is shooting for that.  And we might just let him get there.
Now I would not start freaking out and worry about a second attack on Kyiv.  Something that dramatic might actually get our attention again.  No, this needs to become a boring war - I am starting to think Putin’s Tucker Carlson interview was smarter than we thought.  What better way to get Western audiences to yawn and start to change the channel than a history lesson?

To many people that matter are convinced that the world can be reset to the day before the Russian full scale invasion. The reluctance to admit that long term trajectories have changed permanently has still not been overcome. Defense spending is going to have to have higher for multiple decades, globalization is going to slowed, and perhaps reversed for decades. The secular cult of share holder value being the ONLY thing that matters is needs to be staked in the heart, permanently. Boeing being exhibit A on that one. Hopefully it won't take Ukraine falling, and Russia invading the Baltics to get the point across. Or maybe Trump wins and civilization takes a multi-century wrong turn into a dystopian nightmare.

It's only fair. The Ukrainian Navy is taking out the BSF, and the Russians want to take out one of the services too