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All wars have something in common: they end. That thought in your head about lack of hope of normalizing relations is just the current propaganda working. Edi

All wars have something in common: they end. That thought in your head about lack of hope of normalizing relations is just the current propaganda working. Edit: it's amazing just how short-sighted people can be. Look, we still bring up the Nazis as an unassailable argument for how something is bad. And yet the war with Germany ended and they are now a US ally fighting Russia. I'm sure in the midst of WW2 the common folk also believed that there can be no peace with Germany, after all the man on the radio said so. Besides, during WW2 the situation was the opposite: Russia was an ally. And hey, if you study European history at all you'll note that it's a series of wars with shifting alliances.

kiba 3y ago
War didn't technically "end" between North and South Korea, North Korea is still a pariah state even if we were to accept the Korean war ended many decades ago. Relationship between Russia and the west will probably be restored at some point but not without a lot of Russians and to a lesser extent Ukrainian getting killed, their economy and infrastructure gutted.
- thriftwy 3y ago
  Well, at the current point of time Russia's economy and infrastructure are mostly intact. I'm not sure why is that for a dramatic change. If you look at Iran, it also has its infrastructure in quite OK conditions - perhaps in better shape than all of their neighbours, and now that may even include Turkey. Russia is larger and has not self-inflicted being a theocracy. As for the losses of both sides, I'd suggest leaving that to military experts.
  - nradov 3y ago
    As the war drags on we can expect to see escalation in Ukrainian strikes against Russian infrastructure targets such as refineries. Russia is already short of air defense systems and isn't able to provide much coverage for civilian targets. Whether this works will depend on the level of sustained foreign aid for Ukraine. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2024/01/25/ukrainian-drones-are-burning-down-russias-oil-and-gas-industry/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2024/01/25/ukrain...
    - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
      Depends on if Trump takes the Whitehouse in the fall and how European elections go :-( In either case, even a Ukrainian defeat means Russia will be a pariah state to countries with reasonable governance. Trade will be difficult and diminished, same as it is with Iran. Putin&Lavrov have clearly made this calculation and decided this is in their own interests. Whether it's in the interest of the Russian people I think is questionable.
      - khzw8yyy 3y ago
        It's interesting that you bring up Iran. They are actually doing pretty well considering that the US stole all their foreign currency reserves (and also precipitated the original conflict in the first place).
        vkou 3y ago
        Not to mention having their neighbours destabilized into the most insane civil wars, over the past two decades (with gems like ISIS/Daesh having their year or two in the sun). If anyone's wondering why Iran has its fingers into Syria and Iraq militias, note they've been invaded (with US support) by one, and are allied with the other.
    - thriftwy 3y ago
      With the current rate of attacks Ukraine is not able to cause any noticeable infrastructural issues, and anything beyond approximately the Volga river is not reachable by any weapon systems. It's sort of a moving target like "How long would it take for Freddy Krueger to kill all Chinese teenagers"
      - throw-the-towel 3y ago
        [flagged]
    - Throw73747 3y ago
      Kremlin will just use those attacks as an excuse to occupy larger parts of Ukraine. Bombing of Belgorod is now used as an excuse to create "demilitarized zone" that includes Kharkiv (second largest city in Ukraine). I guess another "demilitarized zone" will follow in Odessa, after some attack on Crimea.
WinstonSmith84 3y ago
Everything has something in common: it ends. Whether it's Peace, Countries, Humans, Planets or, yes ... Wars. It's just a question of timescale.
rurp 3y ago
So do countries, if we're looking at a long enough time scale. There is no end in sight for the war in Ukraine and when the end comes it's likely to be messy. It might be more of a pause than a true end, and one or both sides will likely be pretty unhappy with the outcome. It could be many years before Russia and the west go back to a comfortable economic relationship.
- ecommerceguy 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - kergonath 3y ago
    Talking to people actually living in the place could give you a clue. Putin is a neocon, sure, but no bureaucrat started this war and Ukraine is very unlikely to just fold and submit if the US stop their support. Liberals have also nothing to do with Russian aggression.
    - whimsicalism 3y ago
      This war will likely end with Ukraine losing some amount of land - it is just a matter of if they ever accept this or whether they want a Korea style frozen conflict.
      - kergonath 3y ago
        You say it like it’s their choice. Moldova never asked for Transnistria. It’s fairly SOP for Russia to take bites from its neighbours, let’s stop blaming the victims. Whatever Russia ends up doing, they are preparing for themselves a second Chechnya at the very least.
        whimsicalism 3y ago
        Of course it is not just their choice. Russia has indicated their willingness to accept current holdings (for now, you are right there are no guarantees). Ukraine could and should get better than just that, but this notion of taking back Crimea is a pipe dream and I don’t support continued funding until that goal is realized.
kergonath 3y ago
Ending wars and normalising relations can take a hell of a lot of time, though. Just ask people who lived in the Balkans, central or Eastern Europe, Korea, or in Palestine at some point in the 20th century, to name but a few examples. Or those who lived in a constant background of warfare basically anywhere in the world at any point in time. The pax romana and the stability brought by well-managed empires are remarquable for a reason.
- whimsicalism 3y ago
  I agree that animosity is deep rooted between neighbors. But I suspect it is less deep between distant countries that have had working relationships in the past.
  - twixfel 3y ago
    I think there's deep animosity between Russia and much of the West. It's very easy for Americans to shrug their shoulders and say "we don't care it's a long way away", regardless of whether or not that would be a historic surrender for the global hegemon, but we Europeans cannot. It's on our doorstep. Russia has not just attacked Ukraine, but all of Europe. There will never be normalised relations with Russia whilst he is in power, just as there never could be normalised relations with Adolf Hitler once he had crossed the Rubicon and started WW2.
    - whimsicalism 3y ago
      The comparison between Putin and Hitler is ridiculous. Europe’s economy is in shambles, they do not have the power to push back if Russia and the US were to push for détente never mind that the country with the most EU influence (Germany) is a major dove on this issue.
      - twixfel 3y ago
        It's not ridiculous at all. Not all leaders can be negotiated with, that is simply my point. Maybe as an American you do not understand the depth of feeling, it does not affect you because you don't live here and subsequently you don't care. You can regress into the isolationism that the US likes to embrace every now and then. But we still have to live with an imperialist Russia on our door step. > (Germany) is a major dove on this issue. No, they're not dovish, they're just not leaders and not willing to take initiative and require others to move first. That stems from their history. They've sent huge amounts of aid already to Ukraine (~1% of GDP versus 0.2% of GDP for the USA). > Europe’s economy is in shambles I mean, it's not as good as the USA's, but it's not in shambles. It's relatively OK. I live here. I'd rather live here than in Russia. Russia is a glorified petrol station with nukes and a military. Europe's economy still absolutely dwarfs Russia's. When I speak to my (many) Russian colleagues, it's clear they'd rather be here in Germany than in Russia. > US were to push for détente It's not realistic. The only person who is going to do that is Trump. There's no scenario where we Europeans just give up our security and let imperial war conquests become acceptable on our continent (not yours, yank) for the sake of Trump's ego. Why? Because we think he's completely retarded. Only Americans like him. And how would we benefit exactly from trading away our security? How can the US force us? All it would do is seal the USA's historic break from its European allies (And I know it's not popular at the moment in the USA, but any one with a basic understanding of geopolitics knows that the USA's strongest asset its just how many rich and powerful allies it has). Good luck standing up to China alone, in that case. Then the West is truly fucked!
cmrdporcupine 3y ago
> All wars have something in common: they end. The Korean peninsula would like a word with you.
ekabod 3y ago
Hundred Years' War between the Kingdom of England and France.
ufmace 3y ago
It's true that all wars end eventually. But this happening seems to me a sign that relations might not normalize quite so easily after. Why else would businesses with operations in both Russia and EU be seeking to split themselves apart neatly in advance of sanctions that would make such operations extremely difficult?
jcranmer 3y ago
> All wars have something in common: they end. Not really? Many conflicts routinely simmer on for decades, and peace treaties that officially end a war rarely resolve conflicts. Israel is fighting I believe it's 4th war against Hamas this century, for example; its broader conflict against its neighbors has been going on arguably at least a full century. The Balkans are somewhat infamous for the depth of history of its conflicts: the assassination of Franz Ferdinand was chosen to occur on the 500-somethingth anniversary of another conflict, for example.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
foofie 3y ago
> All wars have something in common: they end. That thought in your head about lack of hope of normalizing relations is just the current propaganda working. I don't think your comment is grounded on reality, and it's ironic how it parrots one of Russia's anti-ukraine propaganda tropes: the collective west should just stop backing Ukraine because the faster they cave in, the faster all relationships normalize. Even if you believe fairy tales about forgetting Russia's perpetual threat of nuclear annihilation and Russia's "our empire will extend to Lisbon" threats, all you need to do is look at the Soviet Union's rejection of peace and a free world up to it's collapse to understand that any talk of normalization is at best thoroughly unsupported and at worst more Russian propaganda.
phatfish 3y ago
Putin will need to put a gun to his head in a bunker before anything "normal" happens. Russia is a Third Reich level regime at the moment. Hence 300k killed and wounded causes zero reaction from the Russian public. The Soviet-Afgan war was ended due to public discontent with 100k killed and wounded
- throw-the-towel 3y ago
  Russian independent media have only confirmed 43k Russian casualties, not 300k. (Yes, Russian independent media exist; they are forced to operate in exile.) https://www.bbc.com/russian/articles/c2xj7yny4zgo https://www.bbc.com/russian/articles/c2xj7yny4zgo
  - phatfish 3y ago
    Nice try, but that link says 41,731 deceased in the first paragraph, and 43,014 deceased under the the visualisation with the Soviet stars (bit weird). I admit this is based on a machine translation, but I expect that Google and DeepL can get the meaning of "killed" correct. You seriously think there are only 43k killed and wounded in total? No Russian attracting enough attention is outside the reach of the Kremlin anyway, unless you avoid tea and underwear your whole life. So i put only marginally more trust in this report than the official figures of 7000 or whatever it is from Puntin himself.
The_Colonel 3y ago
Germany was utterly defeated, that's why there could be a reconciliation. Neither Russia nor the West will be defeated like that, Russian regime will likely survive. That means a chance of some meaningful reconciliation is slim during next couple of decades.

kiba 3y ago

War didn't technically "end" between North and South Korea, North Korea is still a pariah state even if we were to accept the Korean war ended many decades ago. Relationship between Russia and the west will probably be restored at some point but not without a lot of Russians and to a lesser extent Ukrainian getting killed, their economy and infrastructure gutted.

thriftwy 3y ago
Well, at the current point of time Russia's economy and infrastructure are mostly intact. I'm not sure why is that for a dramatic change. If you look at Iran, it also has its infrastructure in quite OK conditions - perhaps in better shape than all of their neighbours, and now that may even include Turkey. Russia is larger and has not self-inflicted being a theocracy. As for the losses of both sides, I'd suggest leaving that to military experts.
- nradov 3y ago
  As the war drags on we can expect to see escalation in Ukrainian strikes against Russian infrastructure targets such as refineries. Russia is already short of air defense systems and isn't able to provide much coverage for civilian targets. Whether this works will depend on the level of sustained foreign aid for Ukraine. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2024/01/25/ukrainian-drones-are-burning-down-russias-oil-and-gas-industry/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2024/01/25/ukrain...
  - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
    Depends on if Trump takes the Whitehouse in the fall and how European elections go :-( In either case, even a Ukrainian defeat means Russia will be a pariah state to countries with reasonable governance. Trade will be difficult and diminished, same as it is with Iran. Putin&Lavrov have clearly made this calculation and decided this is in their own interests. Whether it's in the interest of the Russian people I think is questionable.
    - khzw8yyy 3y ago
      It's interesting that you bring up Iran. They are actually doing pretty well considering that the US stole all their foreign currency reserves (and also precipitated the original conflict in the first place).
      - vkou 3y ago
        Not to mention having their neighbours destabilized into the most insane civil wars, over the past two decades (with gems like ISIS/Daesh having their year or two in the sun). If anyone's wondering why Iran has its fingers into Syria and Iraq militias, note they've been invaded (with US support) by one, and are allied with the other.
  - thriftwy 3y ago
    With the current rate of attacks Ukraine is not able to cause any noticeable infrastructural issues, and anything beyond approximately the Volga river is not reachable by any weapon systems. It's sort of a moving target like "How long would it take for Freddy Krueger to kill all Chinese teenagers"
    - throw-the-towel 3y ago
      [flagged]
  - Throw73747 3y ago
    Kremlin will just use those attacks as an excuse to occupy larger parts of Ukraine. Bombing of Belgorod is now used as an excuse to create "demilitarized zone" that includes Kharkiv (second largest city in Ukraine). I guess another "demilitarized zone" will follow in Odessa, after some attack on Crimea.

WinstonSmith84 3y ago

Everything has something in common: it ends. Whether it's Peace, Countries, Humans, Planets or, yes ... Wars. It's just a question of timescale.

rurp 3y ago

So do countries, if we're looking at a long enough time scale. There is no end in sight for the war in Ukraine and when the end comes it's likely to be messy. It might be more of a pause than a true end, and one or both sides will likely be pretty unhappy with the outcome. It could be many years before Russia and the west go back to a comfortable economic relationship.

ecommerceguy 3y ago
[flagged]
- kergonath 3y ago
  Talking to people actually living in the place could give you a clue. Putin is a neocon, sure, but no bureaucrat started this war and Ukraine is very unlikely to just fold and submit if the US stop their support. Liberals have also nothing to do with Russian aggression.
  - whimsicalism 3y ago
    This war will likely end with Ukraine losing some amount of land - it is just a matter of if they ever accept this or whether they want a Korea style frozen conflict.
    - kergonath 3y ago
      You say it like it’s their choice. Moldova never asked for Transnistria. It’s fairly SOP for Russia to take bites from its neighbours, let’s stop blaming the victims. Whatever Russia ends up doing, they are preparing for themselves a second Chechnya at the very least.
      - whimsicalism 3y ago
        Of course it is not just their choice. Russia has indicated their willingness to accept current holdings (for now, you are right there are no guarantees). Ukraine could and should get better than just that, but this notion of taking back Crimea is a pipe dream and I don’t support continued funding until that goal is realized.

kergonath 3y ago

Ending wars and normalising relations can take a hell of a lot of time, though. Just ask people who lived in the Balkans, central or Eastern Europe, Korea, or in Palestine at some point in the 20th century, to name but a few examples. Or those who lived in a constant background of warfare basically anywhere in the world at any point in time. The pax romana and the stability brought by well-managed empires are remarquable for a reason.

whimsicalism 3y ago
I agree that animosity is deep rooted between neighbors. But I suspect it is less deep between distant countries that have had working relationships in the past.
- twixfel 3y ago
  I think there's deep animosity between Russia and much of the West. It's very easy for Americans to shrug their shoulders and say "we don't care it's a long way away", regardless of whether or not that would be a historic surrender for the global hegemon, but we Europeans cannot. It's on our doorstep. Russia has not just attacked Ukraine, but all of Europe. There will never be normalised relations with Russia whilst he is in power, just as there never could be normalised relations with Adolf Hitler once he had crossed the Rubicon and started WW2.
  - whimsicalism 3y ago
    The comparison between Putin and Hitler is ridiculous. Europe’s economy is in shambles, they do not have the power to push back if Russia and the US were to push for détente never mind that the country with the most EU influence (Germany) is a major dove on this issue.
    - twixfel 3y ago
      It's not ridiculous at all. Not all leaders can be negotiated with, that is simply my point. Maybe as an American you do not understand the depth of feeling, it does not affect you because you don't live here and subsequently you don't care. You can regress into the isolationism that the US likes to embrace every now and then. But we still have to live with an imperialist Russia on our door step. > (Germany) is a major dove on this issue. No, they're not dovish, they're just not leaders and not willing to take initiative and require others to move first. That stems from their history. They've sent huge amounts of aid already to Ukraine (~1% of GDP versus 0.2% of GDP for the USA). > Europe’s economy is in shambles I mean, it's not as good as the USA's, but it's not in shambles. It's relatively OK. I live here. I'd rather live here than in Russia. Russia is a glorified petrol station with nukes and a military. Europe's economy still absolutely dwarfs Russia's. When I speak to my (many) Russian colleagues, it's clear they'd rather be here in Germany than in Russia. > US were to push for détente It's not realistic. The only person who is going to do that is Trump. There's no scenario where we Europeans just give up our security and let imperial war conquests become acceptable on our continent (not yours, yank) for the sake of Trump's ego. Why? Because we think he's completely retarded. Only Americans like him. And how would we benefit exactly from trading away our security? How can the US force us? All it would do is seal the USA's historic break from its European allies (And I know it's not popular at the moment in the USA, but any one with a basic understanding of geopolitics knows that the USA's strongest asset its just how many rich and powerful allies it has). Good luck standing up to China alone, in that case. Then the West is truly fucked!

cmrdporcupine 3y ago

> All wars have something in common: they end. The Korean peninsula would like a word with you.

ekabod 3y ago

Hundred Years' War between the Kingdom of England and France.

ufmace 3y ago

It's true that all wars end eventually. But this happening seems to me a sign that relations might not normalize quite so easily after. Why else would businesses with operations in both Russia and EU be seeking to split themselves apart neatly in advance of sanctions that would make such operations extremely difficult?

jcranmer 3y ago

> All wars have something in common: they end. Not really? Many conflicts routinely simmer on for decades, and peace treaties that officially end a war rarely resolve conflicts. Israel is fighting I believe it's 4th war against Hamas this century, for example; its broader conflict against its neighbors has been going on arguably at least a full century. The Balkans are somewhat infamous for the depth of history of its conflicts: the assassination of Franz Ferdinand was chosen to occur on the 500-somethingth anniversary of another conflict, for example.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

foofie 3y ago

> All wars have something in common: they end. That thought in your head about lack of hope of normalizing relations is just the current propaganda working. I don't think your comment is grounded on reality, and it's ironic how it parrots one of Russia's anti-ukraine propaganda tropes: the collective west should just stop backing Ukraine because the faster they cave in, the faster all relationships normalize. Even if you believe fairy tales about forgetting Russia's perpetual threat of nuclear annihilation and Russia's "our empire will extend to Lisbon" threats, all you need to do is look at the Soviet Union's rejection of peace and a free world up to it's collapse to understand that any talk of normalization is at best thoroughly unsupported and at worst more Russian propaganda.

phatfish 3y ago

Putin will need to put a gun to his head in a bunker before anything "normal" happens. Russia is a Third Reich level regime at the moment. Hence 300k killed and wounded causes zero reaction from the Russian public. The Soviet-Afgan war was ended due to public discontent with 100k killed and wounded

throw-the-towel 3y ago
Russian independent media have only confirmed 43k Russian casualties, not 300k. (Yes, Russian independent media exist; they are forced to operate in exile.) https://www.bbc.com/russian/articles/c2xj7yny4zgo https://www.bbc.com/russian/articles/c2xj7yny4zgo
- phatfish 3y ago
  Nice try, but that link says 41,731 deceased in the first paragraph, and 43,014 deceased under the the visualisation with the Soviet stars (bit weird). I admit this is based on a machine translation, but I expect that Google and DeepL can get the meaning of "killed" correct. You seriously think there are only 43k killed and wounded in total? No Russian attracting enough attention is outside the reach of the Kremlin anyway, unless you avoid tea and underwear your whole life. So i put only marginally more trust in this report than the official figures of 7000 or whatever it is from Puntin himself.

The_Colonel 3y ago

Germany was utterly defeated, that's why there could be a reconciliation. Neither Russia nor the West will be defeated like that, Russian regime will likely survive. That means a chance of some meaningful reconciliation is slim during next couple of decades.