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Don't you see a possibility of Ukraine running out of soldiers and/or munitions?

dragonwriter 2y ago
Abstractly? Yes. Concretely, with the West maintaining its existing approach, given the current material trajectory on both sides, and not assuming radical changes in political orientation in any major Western country? No, not likely. Concretely, given the actual recent US election results and the likely impact on US and NATO-qua-NATO policy, assuming no other changes? Yes, again. Concretely, given that outher regional states have agency and their likely response to NATO faltering at US direction, when they were already displeased with NATO not being more supportive given their perceived individual risk from Russian expansionism… Well, that’s really the key thing and, frankly, I think that the there are lots of directions things could go that could be very surprising to people whose view off the situation has been that the only entities with agency in this situation are the US, Russia, and maybe Ukraine.
- SauciestGNU 2y ago
  And if China fully casts their lot with Russia, how does that change your assessment?
  - mcphage 2y ago
    What would that do to China’s economy, given how much of it is selling high tech equipment to the west?
  - dragonwriter 2y ago
    They won’t, because their interest in the Russian operation in Ukraine is primarily that it keeps the West distracted in Europe away from China’s actual interests.
  - lumost 2y ago
    There is a short sequence of events to china being shut omit of the European market entirely. That sequence runs through troop and weapons deployments to Europe on Russia’s behest. If the US tried to force a negotiated cease fire, there is a real risk that Poland or the Baltic states become direct parties to the conflict. Once the war becomes a direct war between multi-party alliances, controlling the scope of the conflict would be impossible.
    - dragonwriter 2y ago
      > If the US tried to force a negotiated cease fire, there is a real risk that Poland or the Baltic states become direct parties to the conflict. Yeah, I think it is underappreciated how much of the present NATO approach (including US policy, but not exclusively that) has been about doing enough to reassure NATO’s eastern flank members who see this conflict as nearly as existential as it is for Ukraine, even if the threat to them is slightly more temporally distant, rather than the kind of relatively remote geopolitical influence game that some American (and probably even Western European) observers see it as. If – given the election results, we probably have to admit this has become a “when” – the US commitment falters, they will have a new calculus in trying to assure that Russia lacks either the means or the inclination to turn on them next…

Abstractly? Yes. Concretely, with the West maintaining its existing approach, given the current material trajectory on both sides, and not assuming radical changes in political orientation in any major Western country? No, not likely. Concretely, given the actual recent US election results and the likely impact on US and NATO-qua-NATO policy, assuming no other changes? Yes, again. Concretely, given that outher regional states have agency and their likely response to NATO faltering at US direction, when they were already displeased with NATO not being more supportive given their perceived individual risk from Russian expansionism… Well, that’s really the key thing and, frankly, I think that the there are lots of directions things could go that could be very surprising to people whose view off the situation has been that the only entities with agency in this situation are the US, Russia, and maybe Ukraine.

SauciestGNU 2y ago
And if China fully casts their lot with Russia, how does that change your assessment?
- mcphage 2y ago
  What would that do to China’s economy, given how much of it is selling high tech equipment to the west?
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  They won’t, because their interest in the Russian operation in Ukraine is primarily that it keeps the West distracted in Europe away from China’s actual interests.
- lumost 2y ago
  There is a short sequence of events to china being shut omit of the European market entirely. That sequence runs through troop and weapons deployments to Europe on Russia’s behest. If the US tried to force a negotiated cease fire, there is a real risk that Poland or the Baltic states become direct parties to the conflict. Once the war becomes a direct war between multi-party alliances, controlling the scope of the conflict would be impossible.
  - dragonwriter 2y ago
    > If the US tried to force a negotiated cease fire, there is a real risk that Poland or the Baltic states become direct parties to the conflict. Yeah, I think it is underappreciated how much of the present NATO approach (including US policy, but not exclusively that) has been about doing enough to reassure NATO’s eastern flank members who see this conflict as nearly as existential as it is for Ukraine, even if the threat to them is slightly more temporally distant, rather than the kind of relatively remote geopolitical influence game that some American (and probably even Western European) observers see it as. If – given the election results, we probably have to admit this has become a “when” – the US commitment falters, they will have a new calculus in trying to assure that Russia lacks either the means or the inclination to turn on them next…