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This gets to something I've been wondering about, what is the winning condition for Russia now? Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't see the ukranians giving in any

This gets to something I've been wondering about, what is the winning condition for Russia now? Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't see the ukranians giving in any time soon, they seem determined to fight for every inch. The cost of occupying them is going to be astronomical and tie up their military fighting a guerilla war. I assume the expectation was that they would invade, the ukranian government would run away and they could impose a puppet government, but that just doesn't look likely now. I may be very wrong, but I just don't see what the endgame is for Russia that doesnt bleed their economy dry in the process.

compsciphd 5y ago
If the west is willing to keep the economic sanctions on (and that's a big if). Russia as we knew it is over. There should be a few requirements for removal of sanctions. (in no order) 1) russian denuclearification (due to using the threat of nuclear weapons as an umbrella over a conventional war) 2) agree to remove themselves from UN Security Council as a permanent member (due to invading another sovereign state with basically complete worldwide condemnation, one can try to equate it to US moves, but none of them have been as universally condenmed, so yes, quantity matters in this regard). 3) complete pullback from Ukraine 4) reparations paid to Ukraine. 5) I've even argue to having to give up their european enclave. if they refuse, they will cease to be effectively an independent state and will simple become a chinese vassal state. so the Q is, what matters more to Russian pride. being an independent state that can mostly chart one's own destiny, but being a pale remnant of what they once were. Or having fake power but really simply being under the total control of china.
- netsharc 5y ago
  Geez, let's be realistic, no leader would be able to swallow their pride and agree to your points, they'd rather pretend to have some pride left and go to China. If they agreed to those points, their destiny will be determined by "the West", which may look pure and good compared to Putin, but let's not pretend the US and EU are corruption-free, the rich and corporations also have outsized influence here.
- vkou 5y ago
  Anyone who thinks Russia will denuke is insane. It will use those weapons long before it will ever think of giving them up.
  - compsciphd 5y ago
    if that's true, then MAD was a pointless/false doctrine. The point of MAD is that people want to live. If the choice is denuke and live one way or use nukes and everyone dies, then MAD was false.
    - vkou 5y ago
      How exactly do you plan to make denuking the only possible choice? With what stick? Starting a nuclear war? Anything short of that isn't big enough. A million years of sanctions isn't going to be sufficient to accomplish that, especially when China is still available as a trading partner. It might result in civil unrest, and (incredibly unlikely, but sure, pigs could fly) a coup, but you won't be able to pry the nuclear football out of the fingers of whomever inherits the rubble of the Kremlin. The United States is more likely to give up its nuclear arsenal than Russia is. You're confusing what you want with what can happen. That's not how geopolitics, negotiations, or questions of power work.
      - compsciphd 5y ago
        as I said, they will end up being a chinese vassal state othewise. as they will have to jump when china says jump. The Q is what matters more to them, being mostly free to chart their own path, or having nukes but having to follow chinese orders.
        dirtyid 5y ago
        Iran is charting their own path fine after rebuilding / structural adjustment of their economy after 10 years of current RU tier sanctions. Iranian economy has become resilient to the point they currently feel like they are negotiating from position of strength at JCPOA. Of course they're still broke as fuck, but they've reached stagnant economic equilibrium which is not broke enough to prevent them from being a major regional player. All things considered RU is much better positioned continue pursuing their own interests, assuming the sanctions hold.
- asimpletune 5y ago
  My question is why would anyone agree to this if they have nuclear weapons? Like, the USA (and Israel) have spent an enormous of effort and money to stop a "rogue" state like Iran from acquiring nuclear capabilities, but it seems that in the last week Russia has seemingly transformed into said rogue state.
  - vkou 5y ago
    Waging offensive war for bullshit reasons isn't sufficient criteria to be a rogue state. If it did... I have a long list.
    - dTal 5y ago
      Does routinely vaguely threatening nuclear attack as a form of diplomatic extortion qualify? The only other state I can think of that does that is North Korea.
- seer 5y ago
  There can always be a revolution. I bet the international community will be a lot more lenient if the new government had the appearance of making russia a functioning democratic state (regardless of whether that was actually the case) Also continuing sanctions will probably require softening the stance over other places like Iran. If they themselves are savvy enough to catch this windfall history might chart quite an interesting different coarse.
  - compsciphd 5y ago
    If Iran agreed to give up nukes and stop exporting terrorism (or freedom fighters if one wants to call them that, but I don't see how one can justify bombing jewish community centers in argentina as freedom fighting) then they will quickly have sanctions removed from them. I'd argue that the russian's overt use of the nuke threat is going to make countries more hardline in the near future on Iran's nuke ambitions.
- lobocinza 5y ago
  > reparations paid to Ukraine. Member Germany after WW1?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
maratc 5y ago
Devil's advocate here: can we — for the sake of the argument — assume for a sec that what Russia's been saying is true, and that their goal is: not having Nato in Ukraine? Because if we can — for the sake of the argument — assume that, their winning condition is achieved. Ukraine, being in the middle of a military conflict, won't be admitted to Nato.
- netsharc 5y ago
  That was already achieved before the invasion, one of the NATO criterias for entry is not to have disputed borders. https://www.rferl.org/a/1099020.html https://www.rferl.org/a/1099020.html search for "territorial disputes".
  - maratc 5y ago
    I don't think that stopped Turkey (having a territorial dispute with Cyprus) from being admitted. Also, your interpretation means Russians would have to rely on Nato interpreting their own criterias in a certain way. This may be a reasonable thing for you or me — but I don't think it's a reasonable thing for the Russians, considering all the bad blood between Russia and Nato for the last 70 years.
    - netsharc 5y ago
      "winning condition is achieved", hooray, the Putin in your imagination thinks, Ukraine won't be a member of NATO, never mind the cost of economic destruction of Russia?
      - maratc 5y ago
        My imagination has nothing to do with it, but from what I know from history, countries will go to great lengths — sometimes leading to their destruction — when they feel their existence is under a threat.
  - shrikant 5y ago
    This is naive thinking at best. This isn't a "smart contract". The only reason a club has membership rules is to be able to selectively apply them and keep applicants out. Stated slightly differently: a club's membership rules are really just "rejection rules". If big name members of a club want someone to have membership, then there's all sorts of flexibility that can be found within the scope of the rules, ranging from a narrow relaxed interpretation to creative accounting to outright one-off exceptions. THe best example that I can think of currently is Greece's membership to the EU, where the EU conveniently just looked the other way despite pretty stark evidence that Greece had cooked their books.
ratg13 5y ago
My take: Russia will absorb Ukraine, and since there is nothing stopping them at the moment probably Moldova and Georgia as well. Lukashenko will give Belarus to Russia. Once all of these places have been assimilated, they are now all Russia. You can no longer support the citizens of these areas because they will all be Russians. Russia will continue to isolate themselves and attempt to turn everyone within their borders against the west. They already practiced cutting themselves off from the entire internet last year, so they likely know how bad things will get. Russia can sustain itself if it wants because it is so large, so it appears they are attempting to build some sort of enclave at any cost.
- trymas 5y ago
  > Russia can sustain itself if it wants because it is so large, so it appears they are attempting to build some sort of enclave at any cost. Likely, though not like they are not dependant from outside world, i.e. they can become soviet union 2.0 with iron curtain 2.0. Their commercial aviation is dependant on boeing and airbus - no parts for foreseeable future. Big portion of shipping containers will stop coming, banks are restricted and foreign money is pulling out (moscow exchange is closed for the 4th day), etc. Good writeup here: https://twitter.com/dmitryopines/status/1499157917399977987?s=21 https://twitter.com/dmitryopines/status/1499157917399977987?... They maybe take Ukraine, but russian economy is on borderline collapse I think.
  - ratg13 5y ago
    If they take Ukraine they will take Belarus as well. There is evidence that this is already in the works, for example the article that was published prematurely suggesting Russia has already absorbed Belarus https://www.newsweek.com/state-run-russian-news-site-accidentally-declares-ukraines-defeat-1683455 https://www.newsweek.com/state-run-russian-news-site-acciden... also https://mobile.twitter.com/VoicesBelarus/status/1498969501844520964 https://mobile.twitter.com/VoicesBelarus/status/149896950184...
    - trymas 5y ago
      Agree - though I think belarus is already de facto part of russia.
nix23 5y ago
>Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't see the ukranians giving in any time soon, they seem determined to fight for every inch. The cost of occupying them is going to be astronomical and tie up their military fighting a guerilla war. I don't think your wrong, the "official" military will be gone away soon, but then the real struggle begins for russia. Just look at Afghanistan in 1979, if the west continues to support the guerillas/mudschahidin/freedom-fighters etc. If Ukrainians don't start to fight each others (like in Chechnya) this is going to be a nightmare for Russia. Bit more info: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2022/02/24/could-ukraine-be-putins-afghanistan/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2022/02/24/c...
hnbad 5y ago
Frankly at this point my expectation is that Russia levels the cities it can't capture, kills Zelensky, declares a new puppet government to be in charge and then leads a continuous permawar against the inevitable insurgency.
dTal 5y ago
The win condition for Russia is: 1) Ukraine fails to (independently) develop its recently discovered Black Sea oil/gas reserves, and fails in general to prosper as a democratic nation 2) Europe continues to buy oil/gas from Russia. Therefore: The military win condition is "make a mess". The diplomatic win condition is "get as many sanctions lifted as possible".
nwallin 5y ago
> This gets to something I've been wondering about, what is the winning condition for Russia now? Before the invasion? The West is lazy and does nothing. (see Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine 2014) Now? Unicorns and fairy dust. Russia is relevant on the world stage for a few reasons: 1. They have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. 2. They're big bad bullies who give people offers they can't refuse. 3. They're a significant producer of crude oil and natural gas. (they do not have significant capacity to refine crude oil) They've overplayed their hand regarding #2. Lots of countries are falling over themselves to join NATO and/or the EU. It's been shown that as a world power that their military ... well it sucks. They have a locally significant military, not a global one. Their best customer for crude oil and natural gas is the EU. The EU is now all-in on relieving themselves of the need to buy any sort of fossil fuels, and especially not from Russia. They can sell crude oil and natural gas to China still, but China doesn't really need those things. They need refined gasoline; but China is as fit to develop those capabilities as Russia is. They could absolutely crush and subjugate Ukraine by conscripting 200,000 or so more troops, and just lay waste to Ukraine. Carpet bomb and heavy artillery barrages of all population centers. This would accomplish #2, but would completely negate #3. They could simply say, "oops, our bad," and withdraw all forces and keep #3. It's possible but not particularly likely that the Finnish and Georgian requests to join NATO and the EU respectively would stall and fizzle out. Perhaps most importantly... there's no outcome that doesn't make Putin look like a fool. He looks like an idiot in every conceivable outcome. The only situation in which Putin does not look like an absolute dunce is if they do Holodomor 2.0 and and scorch the earth of Ukraine, completely alienate themselves from almost the entire Earth, and simply submit themselves to being a ring bearer to China. Putin still looks like a fool in the history books, but until he dies 5-20 years from now he can continue to pretend to be a strongman. Maybe that's good enough for him, I dunno. They keep the seat on the security council though.
k__ 5y ago
Good question. My hope is: Putin doesn't want lose face, so he pumps more money into it than his supporters are okay with and their patience runs out befor Ukraine loses. His end game would be Ukraine getting leveled, the west being angry and remilitarizing, and he can sell a new cold war for the next decades to keep support.
- teniutza 5y ago
  That's a very chilling thought.
- saiya-jin 5y ago
  That would mean sanctions on Russia forever, I don't think their state or military can keep up for that long. How do they want to build any sophisticated war machines without access to high tech technologies? Their current tanks can be fried with just Javelins. Its not China with 1.5 billion people where you have endless sources of fresh young men, Russia is slowly dying on a bad side of demographic curve. China may provide them some, but that is end of Russia as world power (if that didn't happen already as we can all see).
  - k__ 5y ago
    I'm not saying it's likely. I'm just saying that this might be a last hope for Putin to keep things going.
- throwaway290 5y ago
  There are people who would tangibly benefit from a new cold war everywhere, possibly except Ukraine. Imagine how much of a useful distraction it is all around. The only people losing are regular citizens who just want to live and prosper.
  - catchclose8919 5y ago
    ...yeah, EU can definitely use this as "motivation" to become "a real thing" with proper integration army and all, closer to an European-federation. I'd personally like this tbh, probably the only way to really be productively competitive against China and US. But we need to thread carefully here. The other side looks that it might involve non-rational actors. Hopefully they're also incompetent and not very united amongst themselves.
thaumasiotes 5y ago
I'm guessing control of Kiev and a land route through allied territory from Russia to Sevastopol would count as winning.
TaylorAlexander 5y ago
> I assume the expectation was that they would invade, the ukranian government would run away and they could impose a puppet government That was absolutely the expectation. Russian state media recently accidentally published an article written before the invasion that was supposed to be an account of their swift victory and Ukraine’s reintegration in to Russia. https://briefs.fourthestate.org/2022/03/01/russian-state-news-agency-accidentally-publishes-pre-made-article-claiming-victory-over-ukraine/ https://briefs.fourthestate.org/2022/03/01/russian-state-new... What the end game is now is anyones guess.
- simonmales 5y ago
  Documentation driven development?
  - GrumpyNl 5y ago
    Its the agile approach.
  - aenis 5y ago
    As as is always the case, the docs are immediately out of date vs. the actual implementation :-)
    - _3u10 5y ago
      No plan survives first contact with the enemy
    - patates 5y ago
      I always argue that if the docs would have been detailed enough to clearly express the properties of the implementation, they would be the implementation.
throwaway290 5y ago
I can see a few winning conditions for Xi. Maybe the most significant reasonably independent country (previously not exclusively West nor CCP aligned) has been almost entirely ejected by the West in a handful of days. And it's not quite North Korea, there are significant resources to be had, as well as territory at the doorstep of both Europe and the US. As an aside, I wonder if EU/US realized that they are not leaving themselves any options except to maintain the sanctions forever in the event they are not a viable aggression deterrent, which paves the way for Russia to head nowhere else but to become Xi's puppet. Putting tinfoil hat on, I wonder whether any politicians of dubious associations had the time to lobby for this (I recall MI6 discovered a CCP-paid agent in UK lawmaking system just last year). To answer your question, if Putin is acting in accord with Xi, then there may be some winning conditions for Putin that we do not know about. (As a Russian, I have little doubt that a Venn diagram of winning conditions for Putin and winning conditions for the country as a whole would be two circles.)
senectus1 5y ago
there is a fair chance that this cost is a part of the deal he has with his cronies. "you can make bank all you like, as long as you pay me some and when I decide to make a move you're behind me all the way"...
diarrhea 5y ago
Putin doubling down and still losing seems like a chance. Probably naively, I believe it is a chance for encompassing reforms. For the last Soviet remnants to be flushed out. I suspect almost all Russians below say 40 years of age are just done. They gaze west or onto their smartphones and see what live can be like. Not perfect either, but a huge step up. Yet the reigning elite is too entrenched still, which a decisive, including economical, defeat of Russia in Ukraine might change. Here is to hoping. (Naturally, the West also has an 'entrenched elite'; it's always greener, yadda yadda. Yet average western life is objectively much better than current Russian)
Nemrod67 5y ago
the official goals are "demilitarization" and "denazification", As far as demilitarization goes, it seems the Ukrainian fleet, air defenses and bases have been mostly destroyed by stand-off weapons, and an encirclement maneuver is appearing (North and South prongs). As for "denazification", it would appear most of what Putin calls nazis are concentrated on the border with the Donetsk and Lougansk sectors, in deep positions but with a no man's land behind them (flat and vulnerable to artillery). The West is winning the media war, but Ukraine is definitely NOT winning the war for now (they mostly cannot counter-attack)
- nwallin 5y ago
  Regarding "denazification": the president of Ukraine is Jewish, Russia just bombed the Holocaust museum in Kyiv, and the pro-Russian people in Donetsk, Luhansk, and Belarus are the Nazis. "Denazification" is total and complete bullshit. As for the point of the thread: denazification and demilitarization are stated objectives, not win conditions. The US achieved their stated objectives in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq #2, but failed to achieve the win conditions in Vietnam and Afghanistan. The jury is still out on Iraq #2 but sources say unlikely. For Russia, there are no win conditions.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    Holding the Black Sea coast and oil fields might be the win condition.
- patates 5y ago
  If you could ask all the leaders who have led a nation through a war and kept their position, I suspect nearly none would accept a win condition that means they did not win.
- sofixa 5y ago
  > As far as demilitarization goes, it seems the Ukrainian fleet, air defenses and bases have been mostly destroyed by stand-off weapons, and an encirclement maneuver is appearing (North and South prongs). But many former civilians were recruited and armed, some airbases are still operational, and drones are wrecking havoc on Russian logistics. The encirclement has been appearing since day one, and has only advanced from the south.. Ukraine cannot win in traditional terms ( counterattack and push back), but they can surely win by crippling enemy morale, dealing devastating and unsustainable losses, and in general making the war too expensive to continue ( let alone a possible occupation). And that's going splendidly!
enaaem 5y ago
Ukrainian nationalism is at legendary high levels now. Even in the best case scenario, I don’t see the Ukrainians working for a new puppet government.
friedturkey 5y ago
I'm guessing at this point it's dominate Ukraine at any means necessary and ride out sanctions until they start to slacken after countries like Germany, etc need gas and are willing to accept that Ukraine is an extinct country to get it. And, unfortunately, that just may be what happens. A lot of countries are too lazy with investing in renewables or nuclear and they're in for some very hard times if they need to rely on gas to be shipped in or piped around Ukraine/Russia, so I can imagine sanctions being loosened in under a year for many countries. At least France was smart enough to go for nuclear and can probably hold a moral high ground as long as they want and the US has shown they'll hold grudges for decades (see Cuba and Iran).
- cloutchaser 5y ago
  Greens (or just governments in power) need to make a choice now politically - do they accept that shale and fracking is a necessary bad to avoid supporting a mad dictator killing thousands of ukranians, or do they think the evil of fracking is worse. The telegraph had an article a few days ago about how if all fracking was restarted, OPEC was persuaded to flood the market, and consumers took some restrictions (90km/h temporary speed limit in europe for example), we could be off Russian energy by the end of the year. Question is, is there enough political will to do it.
wolverine876 5y ago
> what is the winning condition for Russia now? Warfare is 'the continuation of politics by other means' - it is politics. It ends when there is a political solution that sufficiently reduces the incentive to fight - people are sufficiently satisfied and/or too scared. Political leaders regularly forget this essential - the US went into Iraq, rapidly defeated the Iraqi military, but lacking a political solution they remained for over a decade. The same thing happened in Afghanistan - you can see what happened when the US finally left, almost immediately, sans a political solution. Note that, when political solutions seem unavailable, many invaders tend to persist regardless. What political solution would eliminate the incentive for Ukrainians to fight? Lots of egocentric attackers think, 'the people will welcome us!' - which is kind of like going into your neighbors house with a gun, taking over, and feeling sure that they will welcome you. But wrapped up in their insulated egos, they still think it: Putin seemed to have thought it about Ukraine. That fantasy has been dispelled with a vengence; right now it's very hard to imagine the Ukrainians accepting any Russian-backed goverment. Putin's only option might be a fear-based government. If you think that's too difficult, remember that the Soviet Union ruled Ukraine (and other places) in that manner for generations - and that was after taking their food and starving to death a large portion of the population in the 1930s. However, it would permanently brand Russia as brutal dictators. Another alternative is Ukraine's leadership surrenders to reduce civilian suffering - Zelensky is very popular, afaik; would enough Ukrainians follow his lead?
prawn 5y ago
Some possible insights here: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/28/world-war-iii-already-there-00012340 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/28/world-war-...
scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
An endpoint for Russia for the war always was and is a return to the negotiation table. They’re far off the course that they expected for that, but they might not be so quick to quit right now because they need to rebound. At the least they need the spirit of Ukraine to be broken more than it is now, and a few days/weeks of shelling/rockets/blasts should probably get them there

compsciphd 5y ago

If the west is willing to keep the economic sanctions on (and that's a big if). Russia as we knew it is over. There should be a few requirements for removal of sanctions. (in no order) 1) russian denuclearification (due to using the threat of nuclear weapons as an umbrella over a conventional war) 2) agree to remove themselves from UN Security Council as a permanent member (due to invading another sovereign state with basically complete worldwide condemnation, one can try to equate it to US moves, but none of them have been as universally condenmed, so yes, quantity matters in this regard). 3) complete pullback from Ukraine 4) reparations paid to Ukraine. 5) I've even argue to having to give up their european enclave. if they refuse, they will cease to be effectively an independent state and will simple become a chinese vassal state. so the Q is, what matters more to Russian pride. being an independent state that can mostly chart one's own destiny, but being a pale remnant of what they once were. Or having fake power but really simply being under the total control of china.

netsharc 5y ago
Geez, let's be realistic, no leader would be able to swallow their pride and agree to your points, they'd rather pretend to have some pride left and go to China. If they agreed to those points, their destiny will be determined by "the West", which may look pure and good compared to Putin, but let's not pretend the US and EU are corruption-free, the rich and corporations also have outsized influence here.
vkou 5y ago
Anyone who thinks Russia will denuke is insane. It will use those weapons long before it will ever think of giving them up.
- compsciphd 5y ago
  if that's true, then MAD was a pointless/false doctrine. The point of MAD is that people want to live. If the choice is denuke and live one way or use nukes and everyone dies, then MAD was false.
  - vkou 5y ago
    How exactly do you plan to make denuking the only possible choice? With what stick? Starting a nuclear war? Anything short of that isn't big enough. A million years of sanctions isn't going to be sufficient to accomplish that, especially when China is still available as a trading partner. It might result in civil unrest, and (incredibly unlikely, but sure, pigs could fly) a coup, but you won't be able to pry the nuclear football out of the fingers of whomever inherits the rubble of the Kremlin. The United States is more likely to give up its nuclear arsenal than Russia is. You're confusing what you want with what can happen. That's not how geopolitics, negotiations, or questions of power work.
    - compsciphd 5y ago
      as I said, they will end up being a chinese vassal state othewise. as they will have to jump when china says jump. The Q is what matters more to them, being mostly free to chart their own path, or having nukes but having to follow chinese orders.
      - dirtyid 5y ago
        Iran is charting their own path fine after rebuilding / structural adjustment of their economy after 10 years of current RU tier sanctions. Iranian economy has become resilient to the point they currently feel like they are negotiating from position of strength at JCPOA. Of course they're still broke as fuck, but they've reached stagnant economic equilibrium which is not broke enough to prevent them from being a major regional player. All things considered RU is much better positioned continue pursuing their own interests, assuming the sanctions hold.
asimpletune 5y ago
My question is why would anyone agree to this if they have nuclear weapons? Like, the USA (and Israel) have spent an enormous of effort and money to stop a "rogue" state like Iran from acquiring nuclear capabilities, but it seems that in the last week Russia has seemingly transformed into said rogue state.
- vkou 5y ago
  Waging offensive war for bullshit reasons isn't sufficient criteria to be a rogue state. If it did... I have a long list.
  - dTal 5y ago
    Does routinely vaguely threatening nuclear attack as a form of diplomatic extortion qualify? The only other state I can think of that does that is North Korea.
seer 5y ago
There can always be a revolution. I bet the international community will be a lot more lenient if the new government had the appearance of making russia a functioning democratic state (regardless of whether that was actually the case) Also continuing sanctions will probably require softening the stance over other places like Iran. If they themselves are savvy enough to catch this windfall history might chart quite an interesting different coarse.
- compsciphd 5y ago
  If Iran agreed to give up nukes and stop exporting terrorism (or freedom fighters if one wants to call them that, but I don't see how one can justify bombing jewish community centers in argentina as freedom fighting) then they will quickly have sanctions removed from them. I'd argue that the russian's overt use of the nuke threat is going to make countries more hardline in the near future on Iran's nuke ambitions.
lobocinza 5y ago
> reparations paid to Ukraine. Member Germany after WW1?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

maratc 5y ago

Devil's advocate here: can we — for the sake of the argument — assume for a sec that what Russia's been saying is true, and that their goal is: not having Nato in Ukraine? Because if we can — for the sake of the argument — assume that, their winning condition is achieved. Ukraine, being in the middle of a military conflict, won't be admitted to Nato.

netsharc 5y ago
That was already achieved before the invasion, one of the NATO criterias for entry is not to have disputed borders. https://www.rferl.org/a/1099020.html https://www.rferl.org/a/1099020.html search for "territorial disputes".
- maratc 5y ago
  I don't think that stopped Turkey (having a territorial dispute with Cyprus) from being admitted. Also, your interpretation means Russians would have to rely on Nato interpreting their own criterias in a certain way. This may be a reasonable thing for you or me — but I don't think it's a reasonable thing for the Russians, considering all the bad blood between Russia and Nato for the last 70 years.
  - netsharc 5y ago
    "winning condition is achieved", hooray, the Putin in your imagination thinks, Ukraine won't be a member of NATO, never mind the cost of economic destruction of Russia?
    - maratc 5y ago
      My imagination has nothing to do with it, but from what I know from history, countries will go to great lengths — sometimes leading to their destruction — when they feel their existence is under a threat.
- shrikant 5y ago
  This is naive thinking at best. This isn't a "smart contract". The only reason a club has membership rules is to be able to selectively apply them and keep applicants out. Stated slightly differently: a club's membership rules are really just "rejection rules". If big name members of a club want someone to have membership, then there's all sorts of flexibility that can be found within the scope of the rules, ranging from a narrow relaxed interpretation to creative accounting to outright one-off exceptions. THe best example that I can think of currently is Greece's membership to the EU, where the EU conveniently just looked the other way despite pretty stark evidence that Greece had cooked their books.

ratg13 5y ago

My take: Russia will absorb Ukraine, and since there is nothing stopping them at the moment probably Moldova and Georgia as well. Lukashenko will give Belarus to Russia. Once all of these places have been assimilated, they are now all Russia. You can no longer support the citizens of these areas because they will all be Russians. Russia will continue to isolate themselves and attempt to turn everyone within their borders against the west. They already practiced cutting themselves off from the entire internet last year, so they likely know how bad things will get. Russia can sustain itself if it wants because it is so large, so it appears they are attempting to build some sort of enclave at any cost.

trymas 5y ago
> Russia can sustain itself if it wants because it is so large, so it appears they are attempting to build some sort of enclave at any cost. Likely, though not like they are not dependant from outside world, i.e. they can become soviet union 2.0 with iron curtain 2.0. Their commercial aviation is dependant on boeing and airbus - no parts for foreseeable future. Big portion of shipping containers will stop coming, banks are restricted and foreign money is pulling out (moscow exchange is closed for the 4th day), etc. Good writeup here: https://twitter.com/dmitryopines/status/1499157917399977987?s=21 https://twitter.com/dmitryopines/status/1499157917399977987?... They maybe take Ukraine, but russian economy is on borderline collapse I think.
- ratg13 5y ago
  If they take Ukraine they will take Belarus as well. There is evidence that this is already in the works, for example the article that was published prematurely suggesting Russia has already absorbed Belarus https://www.newsweek.com/state-run-russian-news-site-accidentally-declares-ukraines-defeat-1683455 https://www.newsweek.com/state-run-russian-news-site-acciden... also https://mobile.twitter.com/VoicesBelarus/status/1498969501844520964 https://mobile.twitter.com/VoicesBelarus/status/149896950184...
  - trymas 5y ago
    Agree - though I think belarus is already de facto part of russia.

nix23 5y ago

>Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't see the ukranians giving in any time soon, they seem determined to fight for every inch. The cost of occupying them is going to be astronomical and tie up their military fighting a guerilla war. I don't think your wrong, the "official" military will be gone away soon, but then the real struggle begins for russia. Just look at Afghanistan in 1979, if the west continues to support the guerillas/mudschahidin/freedom-fighters etc. If Ukrainians don't start to fight each others (like in Chechnya) this is going to be a nightmare for Russia. Bit more info: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2022/02/24/could-ukraine-be-putins-afghanistan/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2022/02/24/c...

hnbad 5y ago

Frankly at this point my expectation is that Russia levels the cities it can't capture, kills Zelensky, declares a new puppet government to be in charge and then leads a continuous permawar against the inevitable insurgency.

dTal 5y ago

The win condition for Russia is: 1) Ukraine fails to (independently) develop its recently discovered Black Sea oil/gas reserves, and fails in general to prosper as a democratic nation 2) Europe continues to buy oil/gas from Russia. Therefore: The military win condition is "make a mess". The diplomatic win condition is "get as many sanctions lifted as possible".

nwallin 5y ago

> This gets to something I've been wondering about, what is the winning condition for Russia now? Before the invasion? The West is lazy and does nothing. (see Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine 2014) Now? Unicorns and fairy dust. Russia is relevant on the world stage for a few reasons: 1. They have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. 2. They're big bad bullies who give people offers they can't refuse. 3. They're a significant producer of crude oil and natural gas. (they do not have significant capacity to refine crude oil) They've overplayed their hand regarding #2. Lots of countries are falling over themselves to join NATO and/or the EU. It's been shown that as a world power that their military ... well it sucks. They have a locally significant military, not a global one. Their best customer for crude oil and natural gas is the EU. The EU is now all-in on relieving themselves of the need to buy any sort of fossil fuels, and especially not from Russia. They can sell crude oil and natural gas to China still, but China doesn't really need those things. They need refined gasoline; but China is as fit to develop those capabilities as Russia is. They could absolutely crush and subjugate Ukraine by conscripting 200,000 or so more troops, and just lay waste to Ukraine. Carpet bomb and heavy artillery barrages of all population centers. This would accomplish #2, but would completely negate #3. They could simply say, "oops, our bad," and withdraw all forces and keep #3. It's possible but not particularly likely that the Finnish and Georgian requests to join NATO and the EU respectively would stall and fizzle out. Perhaps most importantly... there's no outcome that doesn't make Putin look like a fool. He looks like an idiot in every conceivable outcome. The only situation in which Putin does not look like an absolute dunce is if they do Holodomor 2.0 and and scorch the earth of Ukraine, completely alienate themselves from almost the entire Earth, and simply submit themselves to being a ring bearer to China. Putin still looks like a fool in the history books, but until he dies 5-20 years from now he can continue to pretend to be a strongman. Maybe that's good enough for him, I dunno. They keep the seat on the security council though.

k__ 5y ago

Good question. My hope is: Putin doesn't want lose face, so he pumps more money into it than his supporters are okay with and their patience runs out befor Ukraine loses. His end game would be Ukraine getting leveled, the west being angry and remilitarizing, and he can sell a new cold war for the next decades to keep support.

teniutza 5y ago
That's a very chilling thought.
saiya-jin 5y ago
That would mean sanctions on Russia forever, I don't think their state or military can keep up for that long. How do they want to build any sophisticated war machines without access to high tech technologies? Their current tanks can be fried with just Javelins. Its not China with 1.5 billion people where you have endless sources of fresh young men, Russia is slowly dying on a bad side of demographic curve. China may provide them some, but that is end of Russia as world power (if that didn't happen already as we can all see).
- k__ 5y ago
  I'm not saying it's likely. I'm just saying that this might be a last hope for Putin to keep things going.
throwaway290 5y ago
There are people who would tangibly benefit from a new cold war everywhere, possibly except Ukraine. Imagine how much of a useful distraction it is all around. The only people losing are regular citizens who just want to live and prosper.
- catchclose8919 5y ago
  ...yeah, EU can definitely use this as "motivation" to become "a real thing" with proper integration army and all, closer to an European-federation. I'd personally like this tbh, probably the only way to really be productively competitive against China and US. But we need to thread carefully here. The other side looks that it might involve non-rational actors. Hopefully they're also incompetent and not very united amongst themselves.

thaumasiotes 5y ago

I'm guessing control of Kiev and a land route through allied territory from Russia to Sevastopol would count as winning.

TaylorAlexander 5y ago

> I assume the expectation was that they would invade, the ukranian government would run away and they could impose a puppet government That was absolutely the expectation. Russian state media recently accidentally published an article written before the invasion that was supposed to be an account of their swift victory and Ukraine’s reintegration in to Russia. https://briefs.fourthestate.org/2022/03/01/russian-state-news-agency-accidentally-publishes-pre-made-article-claiming-victory-over-ukraine/ https://briefs.fourthestate.org/2022/03/01/russian-state-new... What the end game is now is anyones guess.

simonmales 5y ago
Documentation driven development?
- GrumpyNl 5y ago
  Its the agile approach.
- aenis 5y ago
  As as is always the case, the docs are immediately out of date vs. the actual implementation :-)
  - _3u10 5y ago
    No plan survives first contact with the enemy
  - patates 5y ago
    I always argue that if the docs would have been detailed enough to clearly express the properties of the implementation, they would be the implementation.

throwaway290 5y ago

I can see a few winning conditions for Xi. Maybe the most significant reasonably independent country (previously not exclusively West nor CCP aligned) has been almost entirely ejected by the West in a handful of days. And it's not quite North Korea, there are significant resources to be had, as well as territory at the doorstep of both Europe and the US. As an aside, I wonder if EU/US realized that they are not leaving themselves any options except to maintain the sanctions forever in the event they are not a viable aggression deterrent, which paves the way for Russia to head nowhere else but to become Xi's puppet. Putting tinfoil hat on, I wonder whether any politicians of dubious associations had the time to lobby for this (I recall MI6 discovered a CCP-paid agent in UK lawmaking system just last year). To answer your question, if Putin is acting in accord with Xi, then there may be some winning conditions for Putin that we do not know about. (As a Russian, I have little doubt that a Venn diagram of winning conditions for Putin and winning conditions for the country as a whole would be two circles.)

senectus1 5y ago

there is a fair chance that this cost is a part of the deal he has with his cronies. "you can make bank all you like, as long as you pay me some and when I decide to make a move you're behind me all the way"...

diarrhea 5y ago

Putin doubling down and still losing seems like a chance. Probably naively, I believe it is a chance for encompassing reforms. For the last Soviet remnants to be flushed out. I suspect almost all Russians below say 40 years of age are just done. They gaze west or onto their smartphones and see what live can be like. Not perfect either, but a huge step up. Yet the reigning elite is too entrenched still, which a decisive, including economical, defeat of Russia in Ukraine might change. Here is to hoping. (Naturally, the West also has an 'entrenched elite'; it's always greener, yadda yadda. Yet average western life is objectively much better than current Russian)

Nemrod67 5y ago

the official goals are "demilitarization" and "denazification", As far as demilitarization goes, it seems the Ukrainian fleet, air defenses and bases have been mostly destroyed by stand-off weapons, and an encirclement maneuver is appearing (North and South prongs). As for "denazification", it would appear most of what Putin calls nazis are concentrated on the border with the Donetsk and Lougansk sectors, in deep positions but with a no man's land behind them (flat and vulnerable to artillery). The West is winning the media war, but Ukraine is definitely NOT winning the war for now (they mostly cannot counter-attack)

nwallin 5y ago
Regarding "denazification": the president of Ukraine is Jewish, Russia just bombed the Holocaust museum in Kyiv, and the pro-Russian people in Donetsk, Luhansk, and Belarus are the Nazis. "Denazification" is total and complete bullshit. As for the point of the thread: denazification and demilitarization are stated objectives, not win conditions. The US achieved their stated objectives in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq #2, but failed to achieve the win conditions in Vietnam and Afghanistan. The jury is still out on Iraq #2 but sources say unlikely. For Russia, there are no win conditions.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  Holding the Black Sea coast and oil fields might be the win condition.
patates 5y ago
If you could ask all the leaders who have led a nation through a war and kept their position, I suspect nearly none would accept a win condition that means they did not win.
sofixa 5y ago
> As far as demilitarization goes, it seems the Ukrainian fleet, air defenses and bases have been mostly destroyed by stand-off weapons, and an encirclement maneuver is appearing (North and South prongs). But many former civilians were recruited and armed, some airbases are still operational, and drones are wrecking havoc on Russian logistics. The encirclement has been appearing since day one, and has only advanced from the south.. Ukraine cannot win in traditional terms ( counterattack and push back), but they can surely win by crippling enemy morale, dealing devastating and unsustainable losses, and in general making the war too expensive to continue ( let alone a possible occupation). And that's going splendidly!

enaaem 5y ago

Ukrainian nationalism is at legendary high levels now. Even in the best case scenario, I don’t see the Ukrainians working for a new puppet government.

friedturkey 5y ago

I'm guessing at this point it's dominate Ukraine at any means necessary and ride out sanctions until they start to slacken after countries like Germany, etc need gas and are willing to accept that Ukraine is an extinct country to get it. And, unfortunately, that just may be what happens. A lot of countries are too lazy with investing in renewables or nuclear and they're in for some very hard times if they need to rely on gas to be shipped in or piped around Ukraine/Russia, so I can imagine sanctions being loosened in under a year for many countries. At least France was smart enough to go for nuclear and can probably hold a moral high ground as long as they want and the US has shown they'll hold grudges for decades (see Cuba and Iran).

cloutchaser 5y ago
Greens (or just governments in power) need to make a choice now politically - do they accept that shale and fracking is a necessary bad to avoid supporting a mad dictator killing thousands of ukranians, or do they think the evil of fracking is worse. The telegraph had an article a few days ago about how if all fracking was restarted, OPEC was persuaded to flood the market, and consumers took some restrictions (90km/h temporary speed limit in europe for example), we could be off Russian energy by the end of the year. Question is, is there enough political will to do it.

wolverine876 5y ago

> what is the winning condition for Russia now? Warfare is 'the continuation of politics by other means' - it is politics. It ends when there is a political solution that sufficiently reduces the incentive to fight - people are sufficiently satisfied and/or too scared. Political leaders regularly forget this essential - the US went into Iraq, rapidly defeated the Iraqi military, but lacking a political solution they remained for over a decade. The same thing happened in Afghanistan - you can see what happened when the US finally left, almost immediately, sans a political solution. Note that, when political solutions seem unavailable, many invaders tend to persist regardless. What political solution would eliminate the incentive for Ukrainians to fight? Lots of egocentric attackers think, 'the people will welcome us!' - which is kind of like going into your neighbors house with a gun, taking over, and feeling sure that they will welcome you. But wrapped up in their insulated egos, they still think it: Putin seemed to have thought it about Ukraine. That fantasy has been dispelled with a vengence; right now it's very hard to imagine the Ukrainians accepting any Russian-backed goverment. Putin's only option might be a fear-based government. If you think that's too difficult, remember that the Soviet Union ruled Ukraine (and other places) in that manner for generations - and that was after taking their food and starving to death a large portion of the population in the 1930s. However, it would permanently brand Russia as brutal dictators. Another alternative is Ukraine's leadership surrenders to reduce civilian suffering - Zelensky is very popular, afaik; would enough Ukrainians follow his lead?

prawn 5y ago

Some possible insights here: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/28/world-war-iii-already-there-00012340 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/28/world-war-...

scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago

An endpoint for Russia for the war always was and is a return to the negotiation table. They’re far off the course that they expected for that, but they might not be so quick to quit right now because they need to rebound. At the least they need the spirit of Ukraine to be broken more than it is now, and a few days/weeks of shelling/rockets/blasts should probably get them there