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What Ukraine needs and wants is a mechanism of a security guarantee that actually works (whether it's foreign troops stabilizing the eastern areas forever or ge
by yason 2y ago
What Ukraine needs and wants is a mechanism of a security guarantee that actually works (whether it's foreign troops stabilizing the eastern areas forever or get back enough nukes to keep Russia away). This is a life-or-death question to Ukraine because without plausible and enforceable security there will not be a Ukraine.
Ukraine can certainly give up their now rump states of Donetsk/Lugansk plus Crimea if they were getting something like that in exchange. But until there is even a remote possibility for such security all they have is their terms of getting all their land back. If Ukraine now agreed to "peace" where they give up the land to stop the war then they would have to deal even further in order to gain enough security to prevent the next war from ever happening.
- remarkEon 2y ago>This is a life-or-death question to Ukraine Then why has Ukraine not lowered the conscription age?
- ben_w 2y agoNot enough guns etc. to make use of all the people.
- remarkEon 2y agoSo they decided to give the guns they do have to the 45 year olds?
- ben_w 2y ago1. Conscription starts at 25, not 45. (Even 25 is a lowering, it used to be 27). 2. So what? 30-45 is where their population peaks; massive dip right in the 18-30 range: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Ukraine#/media/File:Ukraine2024.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Ukraine#/media...
- remarkEon 2y ago1. Yes I know, the average age of the Ukrainian conscript is 45, which is why I referenced that number. 2. The “so what” is that it’s pretty hard to argue that the war is an existential event if you are not drafting the portion of the population best able to make war (young men).
- ben_w 2y ago1. Sources vary from 40-45, but also mode not mean; population demographics makes mode go like that. 2. 25 is drafting young men; given where their shortages are there just isn't a benefit to reducing this to 18.
- remarkEon 2y agoI still don't get it. Usually you only go up the age-brackets when you are more and more desperate, for, you know, obvious reasons. Ukraine is doing it in reverse.
- ben_w 2y agoUkraine is desperate. It's (currently) a war of attrition, it keeps going until one side suffers too much and can't replace stuff. Each side has constantly shifting limiting factors. This is also why we've seen multiple headlines about Russia running out of stuff: they did run out of some things, then shifted to other stuff and ran out of that, then shifted to other stuff… — Ukraine has a shortage of both guns and young people right now.