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I'd wished they would have gone into some of the differences between a protracted was with the U.S. and Russia looks like. It's seems like it is easier to poin

I'd wished they would have gone into some of the differences between a protracted was with the U.S. and Russia looks like. It's seems like it is easier to point out how Afghanistan and Vietnam were able to draw out a long-term protracted war and out-will a democracy that (to a degree) follows the changing will of the people. It's especially easier given the lack of threat to the mainland that can be manufactured. But what about against a neighboring oligarchy like Russia? How do you out-will the singular authoritarian leader and/or his small group of oligarchs?

stevenwoo 5y ago
In Vietnam, the majority of the people supported the Viet Minh, otherwise the USA and the dictator of South Vietnam would have allowed the elections for reunification agreed to at the 1954 Geneva Accords to go through as planned.
ProjectArcturis 5y ago
Well, Afghanistan was able to defeat the Soviets. I can't think of a guerrilla war since WWII that hasn't been successful. Edit: some folks have mentioned several, so let me be more specific: guerrilla wars to expel an invading power. This would exclude several attempted Marxist revolutions, but good points made about Chechnya, as well as Northern Ireland and Kenya which failed to expel colonial powers.
- leereeves 5y ago
  > I can't think of a guerrilla war since WWII that hasn't been successful. I can think of one, and unfortunately it was the Russians who won it, but Ukraine is much bigger and better equipped. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Chechen_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Chechen_War
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- KineticLensman 5y ago
  The Mau Mau rebellion against the British in Kenya wasn’t successful.
  - selimthegrim 5y ago
    Neither were the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.
  - AlotOfReading 5y ago
    The rebellion itself didn't succeed, but it's widely acknowledged that the brutality and violence used to put it down meaningfully contributed to Kenyan independence.
- jcranmer 5y ago
  The blog post specifically mentions Che Guevara's two failed revolutions as examples. Some more modern examples I can think of would be FARC in Colombia, or Shining Path in Peru, or LTTE in Sri Lanka. "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland would also probably qualify.
- paxys 5y ago
  > I can't think of a guerrilla war since WWII that hasn't been successful Because failed ones don't last long enough to be remembered. There was a guerrilla insurgency in Iraq after Saddam's government fell, for example, which folded pretty quick.
  - ProjectArcturis 5y ago
    Uh.... I think by any measure the insurgency in Iraq was successful in pushing out the US.
    - paxys 5y ago
      A civilian elected government has been running Iraq since 2005. US wasn't "pushed out" by insurgents but rather left in a planned gradual transfer of power. If anything, militant groups in the region (like ISIL) actually extended US military presence there by many years.
  - jcranmer 5y ago
    That's not true--the examples I gave in my sibling comment are all decades-long insurgencies (which is why I can remember them). In general, the more likely reason is that most people tend to be resolutely incurious about foreign politics. There are, IIRC, 150-ish ongoing armed conflicts in the world right now (and this count is far lower than it was 50 years ago!). I suspect that even reasonably well-read Westerners would struggle to identify even a dozen of them. So people selectively remember the ones that involved the major powers (e.g., Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam) while completely ignoring ones that don't (so, how about that rebellion in Aceh that failed...).
  - somenameforme 5y ago
    Interesting note there. One of the leaders of the early insurrection was Muqtada al-Sadr [1]. There's a lot that's happened in between including him going into exile in Iran, returning, the US droning his house when it was empty to send a message, and much more. But suffice to say the conclusion of this story is that he's now becoming the dominant political force in Iraq. This is particularly relevant today since I think given the chaos around the world, there's a real chance that his name will come to be much more well known. But the point of this is that unpopular occupation forces trying to impose their will never really works in anything even remotely like the long-run. The only times it can work is when a genuinely popular (and not artificially propped up) leader is able to find common ground with the "enemy". For instance one of the best decisions we made after WW2 was with the leader of Japan, Emperor Hirohito. We actively avoided not only attacking him, but did not try him for war crimes, and let him retain control of the country after the war. He chose to lead Japan in a different direction following their defeat, and everybody came out all the better for it. It's very likely that had we executed him, or installed a puppet, that Japan's relation with the west would be radically different today. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muqtada_al-Sadr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muqtada_al-Sadr
- jbay808 5y ago
  > guerrilla wars to expel an invading power that hasn't been successful Palestine?
  - simonh 5y ago
    They have expelled the invading power from their own population centres, Gaza particularly.
    - imwillofficial 5y ago
      Until Israel gets mad and rolls and in stomps their shit again.
- cellis 5y ago
  Afghanistan won because they literally lived in caves and herded goats; they had nothing to lose but their lives. Modern adversaries to Russia have plenty to lose.
  - mellavora 5y ago
    Well, they could also lose their caves and their goats, so it was more than their lives. Let's not underestimate the sophistication and resilience of less economically developed societies.
  - pydry 5y ago
    Afghanistan won because the insurgents could be resupplied and given shelter by Pashtun pakistanis next door and because every part of the country is surrounded by mountains with very few, very easily disrupted mountain passes. When your reliable supply lines are all flights, costs will seriously mount up. Plus, they had stingers. They could raid and retreat essentially forever.
- bnralt 5y ago
  > I can't think of a guerrilla war since WWII that hasn't been successful. Modern Western countries haven't had much of a history of successful insurgencies. Hungary and Czechoslovakia were both invaded by the USSR (along with Warsaw Pact allies), and it didn't result in an insurgency. We shouldn't exclude WWII either, since that was the last time many of Western nations were invaded by outside powers. The resistance movements never seriously threatened Axis rule in Western Europe. Everyone seems to be expecting a large Afghan style insurgency, but I think it's far from certain that it will happen.
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    The 1956 Hungarian revolt happened.
    - barry-cotter 5y ago
      Not successful.
- nsonha 5y ago
  I think people miss the point when they try to make the case that Ukraine can win, NOW. The thing is, if the Ukrainian is really again a Russian regime, and it sounds like they do (if because I'm not them can't speak for them), then Russia has already lost. In time, whatever puppet state that it creates, will fall. America learnt this lesson too many times, most recently in Afghanistan. The name John Mearsheimer has come up recently and I think one of the key points in his theory is solid: nationalism triumphs everything else, be it America branded liberalism, or communism. When he says "nationalism", it's actually not what we often think, in his theory it's used in the narrow sense that is the need to determine one's own country's destiny, as opposed to having to obey a foreign power.
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  The Tamil Tigers were defeated in 2009.
- lenkite 5y ago
  Afghanistan defeated the Soviets and the United States.
  - goatlover 5y ago
    Was it really a defeat for the US? Seems more like the US realized the futility of nation building there and just withdrew, hoping the propped up Afghan government wouldn't just surrender or flee.
    - lenkite 5y ago
      That excuse for defeat can be given by any nation who withdrew from Afghanistan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80%932021) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80... Result: Taliban Victory
    - imwillofficial 5y ago
      It wasn’t a victory, it wasn’t a draw. It was a defeat, no matter what coat of paint you put on it.
      - tyingq 5y ago
        It absolutely was a defeat, but the asymmetric numbers get worse every year for a guerilla force fighting a huge war machine. The ratio of deaths for the US versus the Afghans was staggering...the Taliban won, but at a huge cost of life. I don't know if there's the same cultural will in Ukraine to absorb that kind of pummeling.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - nicholasnorris 5y ago
    Afghanistan was different enough in that it wasn't a unified Afghan government or population fighting against a Soviet invasion in the same style of aggression of what we're seeing from Russia in Ukraine. A new local Afghan government that had recently sized power in a coup begged the Soviets to help them consolidate power in a civil war in that the Soviets knew would only escalate through international intervention in favor of their allies opposition.
- AceyMan 5y ago
  I see what you did there .. => Cunningham's Law (a submission earlier this week) playing out nicely in the replies. ref., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_law
- hammock 5y ago
  Syria?
giantg2 5y ago
"How do you out-will the singular authoritarian leader and/or his small group of oligarchs?" If the Russian people are unhappy enough, regimes change from within. We can see that with some of the Russian soldiers surrendering.send me to Ukraine? OK, I'll just surrender so I don't have to fight and die for a bogus cause.
- rectang 5y ago
  Unfortunately, it seems that Putin is fairly popular in Russia. Anecdotally, there's been an HN commenter around who claims to be Russian and who buys Putin's line that something had to be done about NATO. Apparently they are not alone: https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/03/europe/russia-reaction-war-ukraine-dougherty-intl-hnk https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/03/europe/russia-reaction-war-uk... > But Arina's mother sees it completely differently: "My mom believes everything she sees on TV," Arina says. > "She believes that it was a necessary measure by Putin because there are weapons surrounding the country...there's a threat from the West, which is why Putin is doing this." Sanctions may be indiscriminate, but not as indiscriminate nor as final as shelling apartment buildings. There seems to be a significant slice of the Russian population who are entirely too content with the current state of affairs, and who need to be woken up to the ungodly horror being unleashed in their name.
  - friedturkey 5y ago
    So long as the people with guns have their bellies full, not much will happen in Russia. Just like as much as the world wants North Korea to change and become more free, most of the people enforcing the law can’t imagine living any other way and they’re happy to maintain the status quo. Maybe a rapid decline in quality of life will be enough to turn things around in Russia. Or maybe just enough people are so used to struggles there that nothing will change. North Koreans went through decades of wars and invasions—the people there haven’t known that life can be better, so they don’t feel a reason to revolt. People in Russia who were alive during pre-Putin era struggles most likely do really see him as lifting the country to a higher level. The possibility for Russia becoming a new NK-style state isn’t completely impossible.
thematrixturtle 5y ago
Chechnya is the counterpoint here: Russia crushed the local populace completely mercilessly and successfully installed a puppet in the form of the equally merciless Ramzan Kadyrov. This would be likely the worst possible outcome for Ukraine, but it's sadly feasible. The main difference is that world didn't really care about a bunch of Muslims in an unpronounceable city (Grozny) in what was legally Russian territory, while for Ukraine they do seem willing to stand up a bit more.
- 29athrowaway 5y ago
  It's not an apples to apples comparison. Chechnya population in 1992 was about 800,000. Ukraine has a population of 41,000,000. Chechnya did not receive military or humanitarian aid, and if it did, it was not as substantial as what Ukraine is receiving now. Ukrainian allies are supplying fuel, food, vehicles, weapons, training, volunteers, humanitarian aid, intelligence, etc. Russia back then was not sanctioned economically to the extent we see today or kicked out of the banking system. For example, the Soviet Union had banks in the SWIFT system. Now, Russia has been completely isolated: Russian companies cannot do business internationally due to being unable to transfer money or process payments, the value of Russian company stocks has gone to zero, their stock exchange ceased operations (temporarily), their population are doing bank runs, their currency is worth nothing and its economy is expected to collapse soon. And, unlike Russian equipment where most of the equipment spending has been diverted to corrupt endeavors, Ukrainian military equipment works. Most Russian military equipment now doesn't meet their own specifications.
  - jjtheblunt 5y ago
    are there citations for the assertions about military equipment status?
    - bpodgursky 5y ago
      I can't be bothered to look it up but Ukraine has spent a lot of time and money refurbishing their army after the 2014 crisis (where their army performed poorly against the separatists and Russians). It's not "modern", but it is functional.
DoItToMe81 5y ago
The USSR was far more willing to use extreme violence and collective punishment in Afghanistan than modern Russia seems to be in Ukraine, yet they still ultimately had to pull out and leave their ally to its fate. It's hard for any government to justify to its constituents, whether they be voters or unelected state officials, why so much blood should be shed for the achievement of no real goals.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
airstrike 5y ago
Also, I'm no military expert but aren't both Afghanistan and Vietnam particularly challenging locations in which to conduct large-form warfare over a protracted period of time? I don't think Ukraine benefits from the same natural advantage, what with its paved roads that easily grant passage to forty-mile-long Russian convoys
elchief 5y ago
you assassinate him
nonameiguess 5y ago
It took 20 years for both Vietnam and Afghanistan (in the American case) to finally convince foreign occupiers to leave. Putin is very unlikely to still be alive in 20 years, so it's more a matter of convincing whoever or whatever follows that the prospect of even more decades of occupation is not worth it. It's unfortunate it takes that long for regime change to finally get over the sunk cost fallacy of the original invaders, but some sort of change will eventually come. When it happens, we'll get to find out how much Putin's cronies really agree with him versus just being afraid of publicly disagreeing as long as he is still in charge.

stevenwoo 5y ago

In Vietnam, the majority of the people supported the Viet Minh, otherwise the USA and the dictator of South Vietnam would have allowed the elections for reunification agreed to at the 1954 Geneva Accords to go through as planned.

ProjectArcturis 5y ago

Well, Afghanistan was able to defeat the Soviets. I can't think of a guerrilla war since WWII that hasn't been successful. Edit: some folks have mentioned several, so let me be more specific: guerrilla wars to expel an invading power. This would exclude several attempted Marxist revolutions, but good points made about Chechnya, as well as Northern Ireland and Kenya which failed to expel colonial powers.

leereeves 5y ago
> I can't think of a guerrilla war since WWII that hasn't been successful. I can think of one, and unfortunately it was the Russians who won it, but Ukraine is much bigger and better equipped. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Chechen_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Chechen_War
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
KineticLensman 5y ago
The Mau Mau rebellion against the British in Kenya wasn’t successful.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  Neither were the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.
- AlotOfReading 5y ago
  The rebellion itself didn't succeed, but it's widely acknowledged that the brutality and violence used to put it down meaningfully contributed to Kenyan independence.
jcranmer 5y ago
The blog post specifically mentions Che Guevara's two failed revolutions as examples. Some more modern examples I can think of would be FARC in Colombia, or Shining Path in Peru, or LTTE in Sri Lanka. "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland would also probably qualify.
paxys 5y ago
> I can't think of a guerrilla war since WWII that hasn't been successful Because failed ones don't last long enough to be remembered. There was a guerrilla insurgency in Iraq after Saddam's government fell, for example, which folded pretty quick.
- ProjectArcturis 5y ago
  Uh.... I think by any measure the insurgency in Iraq was successful in pushing out the US.
  - paxys 5y ago
    A civilian elected government has been running Iraq since 2005. US wasn't "pushed out" by insurgents but rather left in a planned gradual transfer of power. If anything, militant groups in the region (like ISIL) actually extended US military presence there by many years.
- jcranmer 5y ago
  That's not true--the examples I gave in my sibling comment are all decades-long insurgencies (which is why I can remember them). In general, the more likely reason is that most people tend to be resolutely incurious about foreign politics. There are, IIRC, 150-ish ongoing armed conflicts in the world right now (and this count is far lower than it was 50 years ago!). I suspect that even reasonably well-read Westerners would struggle to identify even a dozen of them. So people selectively remember the ones that involved the major powers (e.g., Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam) while completely ignoring ones that don't (so, how about that rebellion in Aceh that failed...).
- somenameforme 5y ago
  Interesting note there. One of the leaders of the early insurrection was Muqtada al-Sadr [1]. There's a lot that's happened in between including him going into exile in Iran, returning, the US droning his house when it was empty to send a message, and much more. But suffice to say the conclusion of this story is that he's now becoming the dominant political force in Iraq. This is particularly relevant today since I think given the chaos around the world, there's a real chance that his name will come to be much more well known. But the point of this is that unpopular occupation forces trying to impose their will never really works in anything even remotely like the long-run. The only times it can work is when a genuinely popular (and not artificially propped up) leader is able to find common ground with the "enemy". For instance one of the best decisions we made after WW2 was with the leader of Japan, Emperor Hirohito. We actively avoided not only attacking him, but did not try him for war crimes, and let him retain control of the country after the war. He chose to lead Japan in a different direction following their defeat, and everybody came out all the better for it. It's very likely that had we executed him, or installed a puppet, that Japan's relation with the west would be radically different today. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muqtada_al-Sadr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muqtada_al-Sadr
jbay808 5y ago
> guerrilla wars to expel an invading power that hasn't been successful Palestine?
- simonh 5y ago
  They have expelled the invading power from their own population centres, Gaza particularly.
  - imwillofficial 5y ago
    Until Israel gets mad and rolls and in stomps their shit again.
cellis 5y ago
Afghanistan won because they literally lived in caves and herded goats; they had nothing to lose but their lives. Modern adversaries to Russia have plenty to lose.
- mellavora 5y ago
  Well, they could also lose their caves and their goats, so it was more than their lives. Let's not underestimate the sophistication and resilience of less economically developed societies.
- pydry 5y ago
  Afghanistan won because the insurgents could be resupplied and given shelter by Pashtun pakistanis next door and because every part of the country is surrounded by mountains with very few, very easily disrupted mountain passes. When your reliable supply lines are all flights, costs will seriously mount up. Plus, they had stingers. They could raid and retreat essentially forever.
bnralt 5y ago
> I can't think of a guerrilla war since WWII that hasn't been successful. Modern Western countries haven't had much of a history of successful insurgencies. Hungary and Czechoslovakia were both invaded by the USSR (along with Warsaw Pact allies), and it didn't result in an insurgency. We shouldn't exclude WWII either, since that was the last time many of Western nations were invaded by outside powers. The resistance movements never seriously threatened Axis rule in Western Europe. Everyone seems to be expecting a large Afghan style insurgency, but I think it's far from certain that it will happen.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  The 1956 Hungarian revolt happened.
  - barry-cotter 5y ago
    Not successful.
nsonha 5y ago
I think people miss the point when they try to make the case that Ukraine can win, NOW. The thing is, if the Ukrainian is really again a Russian regime, and it sounds like they do (if because I'm not them can't speak for them), then Russia has already lost. In time, whatever puppet state that it creates, will fall. America learnt this lesson too many times, most recently in Afghanistan. The name John Mearsheimer has come up recently and I think one of the key points in his theory is solid: nationalism triumphs everything else, be it America branded liberalism, or communism. When he says "nationalism", it's actually not what we often think, in his theory it's used in the narrow sense that is the need to determine one's own country's destiny, as opposed to having to obey a foreign power.
bpodgursky 5y ago
The Tamil Tigers were defeated in 2009.
lenkite 5y ago
Afghanistan defeated the Soviets and the United States.
- goatlover 5y ago
  Was it really a defeat for the US? Seems more like the US realized the futility of nation building there and just withdrew, hoping the propped up Afghan government wouldn't just surrender or flee.
  - lenkite 5y ago
    That excuse for defeat can be given by any nation who withdrew from Afghanistan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80%932021) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80... Result: Taliban Victory
  - imwillofficial 5y ago
    It wasn’t a victory, it wasn’t a draw. It was a defeat, no matter what coat of paint you put on it.
    - tyingq 5y ago
      It absolutely was a defeat, but the asymmetric numbers get worse every year for a guerilla force fighting a huge war machine. The ratio of deaths for the US versus the Afghans was staggering...the Taliban won, but at a huge cost of life. I don't know if there's the same cultural will in Ukraine to absorb that kind of pummeling.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
- nicholasnorris 5y ago
  Afghanistan was different enough in that it wasn't a unified Afghan government or population fighting against a Soviet invasion in the same style of aggression of what we're seeing from Russia in Ukraine. A new local Afghan government that had recently sized power in a coup begged the Soviets to help them consolidate power in a civil war in that the Soviets knew would only escalate through international intervention in favor of their allies opposition.
AceyMan 5y ago
I see what you did there .. => Cunningham's Law (a submission earlier this week) playing out nicely in the replies. ref., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_law
hammock 5y ago
Syria?

giantg2 5y ago

"How do you out-will the singular authoritarian leader and/or his small group of oligarchs?" If the Russian people are unhappy enough, regimes change from within. We can see that with some of the Russian soldiers surrendering.send me to Ukraine? OK, I'll just surrender so I don't have to fight and die for a bogus cause.

rectang 5y ago
Unfortunately, it seems that Putin is fairly popular in Russia. Anecdotally, there's been an HN commenter around who claims to be Russian and who buys Putin's line that something had to be done about NATO. Apparently they are not alone: https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/03/europe/russia-reaction-war-ukraine-dougherty-intl-hnk https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/03/europe/russia-reaction-war-uk... > But Arina's mother sees it completely differently: "My mom believes everything she sees on TV," Arina says. > "She believes that it was a necessary measure by Putin because there are weapons surrounding the country...there's a threat from the West, which is why Putin is doing this." Sanctions may be indiscriminate, but not as indiscriminate nor as final as shelling apartment buildings. There seems to be a significant slice of the Russian population who are entirely too content with the current state of affairs, and who need to be woken up to the ungodly horror being unleashed in their name.
- friedturkey 5y ago
  So long as the people with guns have their bellies full, not much will happen in Russia. Just like as much as the world wants North Korea to change and become more free, most of the people enforcing the law can’t imagine living any other way and they’re happy to maintain the status quo. Maybe a rapid decline in quality of life will be enough to turn things around in Russia. Or maybe just enough people are so used to struggles there that nothing will change. North Koreans went through decades of wars and invasions—the people there haven’t known that life can be better, so they don’t feel a reason to revolt. People in Russia who were alive during pre-Putin era struggles most likely do really see him as lifting the country to a higher level. The possibility for Russia becoming a new NK-style state isn’t completely impossible.

thematrixturtle 5y ago

Chechnya is the counterpoint here: Russia crushed the local populace completely mercilessly and successfully installed a puppet in the form of the equally merciless Ramzan Kadyrov. This would be likely the worst possible outcome for Ukraine, but it's sadly feasible. The main difference is that world didn't really care about a bunch of Muslims in an unpronounceable city (Grozny) in what was legally Russian territory, while for Ukraine they do seem willing to stand up a bit more.

29athrowaway 5y ago
It's not an apples to apples comparison. Chechnya population in 1992 was about 800,000. Ukraine has a population of 41,000,000. Chechnya did not receive military or humanitarian aid, and if it did, it was not as substantial as what Ukraine is receiving now. Ukrainian allies are supplying fuel, food, vehicles, weapons, training, volunteers, humanitarian aid, intelligence, etc. Russia back then was not sanctioned economically to the extent we see today or kicked out of the banking system. For example, the Soviet Union had banks in the SWIFT system. Now, Russia has been completely isolated: Russian companies cannot do business internationally due to being unable to transfer money or process payments, the value of Russian company stocks has gone to zero, their stock exchange ceased operations (temporarily), their population are doing bank runs, their currency is worth nothing and its economy is expected to collapse soon. And, unlike Russian equipment where most of the equipment spending has been diverted to corrupt endeavors, Ukrainian military equipment works. Most Russian military equipment now doesn't meet their own specifications.
- jjtheblunt 5y ago
  are there citations for the assertions about military equipment status?
  - bpodgursky 5y ago
    I can't be bothered to look it up but Ukraine has spent a lot of time and money refurbishing their army after the 2014 crisis (where their army performed poorly against the separatists and Russians). It's not "modern", but it is functional.

DoItToMe81 5y ago

The USSR was far more willing to use extreme violence and collective punishment in Afghanistan than modern Russia seems to be in Ukraine, yet they still ultimately had to pull out and leave their ally to its fate. It's hard for any government to justify to its constituents, whether they be voters or unelected state officials, why so much blood should be shed for the achievement of no real goals.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

airstrike 5y ago

Also, I'm no military expert but aren't both Afghanistan and Vietnam particularly challenging locations in which to conduct large-form warfare over a protracted period of time? I don't think Ukraine benefits from the same natural advantage, what with its paved roads that easily grant passage to forty-mile-long Russian convoys

elchief 5y ago

you assassinate him

nonameiguess 5y ago

It took 20 years for both Vietnam and Afghanistan (in the American case) to finally convince foreign occupiers to leave. Putin is very unlikely to still be alive in 20 years, so it's more a matter of convincing whoever or whatever follows that the prospect of even more decades of occupation is not worth it. It's unfortunate it takes that long for regime change to finally get over the sunk cost fallacy of the original invaders, but some sort of change will eventually come. When it happens, we'll get to find out how much Putin's cronies really agree with him versus just being afraid of publicly disagreeing as long as he is still in charge.