In May 2022, just three months into the Russia-Ukraine War, I wrote a three-partseries in which I identified the military strategy that would give Ukraine the best chance of seeking out some sort of tactical success over Russia. It wouldnât have guaranteed success, I warned, but it was a viable path. As it turned out, Ukraine did virtually none of what I recommended whileâironicallyâRussia successfully employed several key elements of the path I laid out.
Now, as we approach the two-and-a-half-year mark of the war, and Ukraine is being pushed back on all fronts, I am going to reprise my effort and lay out a realistic but tough path by which Ukraine might yet steal some military success from Russia.
I will warn from the outset that there is no path, however well-resourced, by which Ukraine can inflict an outright military defeat on Russia in the foreseeable future. Russia is too big, too well-resourced, and too well-manned for Ukraine to beat. Yet, if handled deftly, sometimes even tactical defeats by a weaker opponent can be leveraged into strategic success. The following plan represents such an opportunity. (...)
NATO only wants to seek a victory for Ukraine and a loss for Russia. However, sober analysis shows that this is an unattainable outcome either now or in the future. If the West refuses to submit to reality, the most likely outcome for Ukraine is a military defeat that could include even the eventual loss of Odesa and Kharkiv and more territory than even Putinâs June 2024 ultimatum.
The narrative of totally unified Ukrainian opinion is premised on polls from the earliest days of the war showing nearly unanimous Ukrainian support for the government and its handling of the war effort. This seeming consensus has steadily eroded since the peak of Ukraineâs battlefield successes in 2022, when 70 percent of survey respondents affirmed that Ukraine âshould continue fighting until it wins the war.â That number dropped to 60 percent in the summer of 2023, according to Gallup. Polling since the failure of Ukraineâs 2023 offensive shows that 44 percent of Ukrainians favor entering into talks with Russia and only 48 percentâstill a plurality but, notably, no longer a majorityâbelieve Ukraine should fight on. Other recent polling shows that even in Kyiv, where Ukraineâs elite and bureaucracy is concentrated and political investment in the war effort is at its highest, complete confidence in Ukrainian victory is weakening.
These findings are reinforced by a decline in Zelenskyâs approval rating and loss of public trust in the national TV Marathon, a platform of media channels that report on the war from a pro-government stance. Ukrainian bloggers with much more critical perspectives on Kyivâs handling of the war are amassing large audiences on social media.
Another key metric of public investment in the nationâs war effort is support for mobilization. A plurality of Ukrainian men said in a February poll that they are not prepared to fight. One Ukrainian soldier told the BBC late last year, âItâs a total nightmare. A year ago, I wouldnât have said that, but now, sorry, Iâm fed up. Everyone who wanted to volunteer for war came a long time agoâitâs too hard now to tempt people with money. Now weâre getting those who didnât manage to escape the draft. Youâll laugh at this, but some of our marines canât even swim.â
Kyiv took the drastic step earlier this year of suspending consular services for men aged between 18 and 60 to contend with military recruitment problems. A staggering 11,000 Ukrainian men have opted out of participating in the war by illegally crossing into Romania, one of seven countries bordering Ukraine.
A closer look at the views of those who are not being captured by these polls suggests a likelihood that there is far more dissent from the Zelensky governmentâs maximalist war aims than it may appear. (...)
Pre-emptive wars are US policy too. You don't get to decide when another country, with its own national interest, feels threatened. Your job is to inflate threats and further chauvinistic hysteria.
Whataboutism is there to point out the blatant hypocrisy. No credibility or moral leadership whatsoever.
So for moral leadership we should turn to the likes of you and Putin?
Or is moral leadership irrelevant here, because a despot gets to declare he's threatened and kill hundreds of thousands of people to assuage his supposed fear and it's nobody's business, move along?
Explain that to the people of the Baltics and Poland, who realize the obvious: that they're next.
somehow I get the feeling our pet progressive reactionary-in-other-garb is feeling a little tender.
if you feel the need to conflate ex-soviet satellite states seeking freedom from the resurgence of one party soviet rule with simply being myopic chickens dancing to the tune of US neolibs out to make a buck on arm's sale, be my guest, but that is a pretty contorted, obscurantist take on it that requires its own dead-weight's worth in Mearsheimer "it's all just power politics" thinking. You call the US out on its moral bankruptcy and its hypocrisy (in our reply to Lazy8), not without some justification, but you know what? I think the US is irrelevant to the collapse of the Russian empire. ALL European empires have collapsed under the weight of their own contradictions and I don't see Russia being any exception. I also think Mearsheimer sucks big time. As soon as you go down that road you undermine any moral/political credibility you might yourself have aspired too, making you just as bad/devoid of principle as the nasty US you obviously despise so much, leaving you both in a Hobbesian mud made up of the lowest common denominator that humankind can aspire to. Bravo.
But get this, why is it that the satellite states of Russia that are/were (some have succeeded) so keen to get out from the hegemonic umbrella of Russia post 1989? Why are they the states that immediately stepped up to the plate when it came to sending support to Ukraine? Why has GDP soared in these states? None of this has anything to do with the weight of geopolitical power centres (by this I mean military), be it the US, Europe, Russia or China. It is solely due to the people wanting something better. And they are willing to risk the ire of the mighty Soviet army to find it.
The only people who seem to have a problem with this are people like you who think Russian military might is of itself enough justification for submission, which only gets us back to the Hobbesian mud referred to below.
So, yet again, as I have done repeatedly, I ask you: what is the Russian system in your opinion offering these people that would give it some form of credible moral authority? Why do YOU think these satellite states are wrong to fight for what they see as a better future that is free from the yoke of Russian/Gazprom mafiosi rule?
This is the point where you inevitably bail out of the discussion because it is oh so much easier to diss the United States with its chequered record on human rights and wars of aggression (yawn).
Yes, feel free to imagine some emotional effect and habitually discard counter arguments. It's more the tedium of reading the same pablum provided by sources from your ideological (Hegemonic/Atlanticist/Fella/Neoliberal) bubble(s). It's all been explained numerous times over many years. Yet you can't help the cherry-picking and obtuse twisting into the straw men.
All the chicken hawks sing: If you're not with us, you're with (the enemy du jour). All critics of the infantile dualism, incl. Mearsheimer, Chomsky and others, face the same accusations.
Speak for yourself when it comes to cluelessness. Isn't it always about Democracyâ¢, Libertyâ¢, Prosperity and Flourishing?! lol.
Grab those suitcases and join the resistance! To the last Ukrainian, chicken hawks!
"I think this summer, Ukraine will regain military momentum," he said.
And he stressed that Ukraine's success is in American interest. "If we help Ukraine now, they can become the best business partner we ever dreamed of," Graham said, citing mineral assets in Ukraine.
"This is a very big deal, how Ukraine ends. Let's help them win a war we can't afford to lose."
The Ugly American Id on display, but feel free to buy the good-vs-evil-happy-ending Marvel stories.
somehow I get the feeling our pet progressive reactionary-in-other-garb is feeling a little tender.
if you feel the need to conflate ex-soviet satellite states seeking freedom from the resurgence of one party soviet rule with simply being myopic chickens dancing to the tune of US neolibs out to make a buck on arm's sale, be my guest, but that is a pretty contorted, obscurantist take on it that requires its own dead-weight's worth in Mearsheimer "it's all just power politics" thinking. You call the US out on its moral bankruptcy and its hypocrisy (in our reply to Lazy8), not without some justification, but you know what? I think the US is irrelevant to the collapse of the Russian empire. ALL European empires have collapsed under the weight of their own contradictions and I don't see Russia being any exception. I also think Mearsheimer sucks big time. As soon as you go down that road you undermine any moral/political credibility you might yourself have aspired too, making you just as bad/devoid of principle as the nasty US you obviously despise so much, leaving you both in a Hobbesian mud made up of the lowest common denominator that humankind can aspire to. Bravo.
But get this, why is it that the satellite states of Russia that are/were (some have succeeded) so keen to get out from the hegemonic umbrella of Russia post 1989? Why are they the states that immediately stepped up to the plate when it came to sending support to Ukraine? Why has GDP soared in these states? None of this has anything to do with the weight of geopolitical power centres (by this I mean military), be it the US, Europe, Russia or China. It is solely due to the people wanting something better. And they are willing to risk the ire of the mighty Soviet army to find it.
The only people who seem to have a problem with this are people like you who think Russian military might is of itself enough justification for submission, which only gets us back to the Hobbesian mud referred to below.
So, yet again, as I have done repeatedly, I ask you: what is the Russian system in your opinion offering these people that would give it some form of credible moral authority? Why do YOU think these satellite states are wrong to fight for what they see as a better future that is free from the yoke of Russian/Gazprom mafiosi rule?
This is the point where you inevitably bail out of the discussion because it is oh so much easier to diss the United States with its chequered record on human rights and wars of aggression (yawn).
