clv101 wrote: ↑19 Sep 2022, 22:20
But what comes next? Putin has a lot personally, politically staked on this war. Putin is also increasingly being threatened from the nationalist right, and being dragged to the right. There isn't a plausible liberal Russian government in waiting! Remember Gorbachev was replaced from the hard-line right.
What happens to ~5,000 nuclear weapons in the post-Putin era? What to do? Appeasement doesn't work (Georgia, Syria, Crimea), need to defeat Russia in the field but what comes next? Russia isn't going away. Defeating Russia leaves a lightly populated, weak state, with potent legacy weapon systems in unpredictable hands and the world's number one cache of natural resources. China to the south - over populated, lack of natural resources. They move in, either physically or economically/politically. Does that set up China as an undisputed superpower in a couple decades?
The long-term emergence of a China-Russia axis to displace unipolar US power was already inevitable long before this war, because of the demographic-geographic factors you mention. This was war accelerated that process in several different ways. I doubt China can actually replace the US as a unipolar superpower though.
I think part of the west's reticence in arming Ukraine more than they have is concern about what comes next if Putin is squarely defeated. They west would probably prefer the kick Putin back across the boarder but not cause the collapse of the Russian system for fear of what emerges from that unpredictable mess.
Putin is going to be squarely defeated. There's no way the Ukrainians are going to settle for a permanent loss of territory in exchange for peace when they have the upper hand in this war.
So I guess my answer is that I don't know what comes next, but this does not reduce my belief that this war can't end until Putin is gone, and that the West has little or no control over the future of Asia.
"We fail to mandate economic sanity because our brains are addled by....compassion." (Garrett Hardin)
Depends on Ukrainian losses compared with Russian losses. I think if Ukrainians can damage Russians at a greater rate then they will prevail. When attacking supposedly the attacking force will take more losses. Therefore it may make sense to hold the Russians in their currently occupied territory and whittle them down that way, with NATO support, rather than using a lot of manpower to drive out the Russians as NATO will not allow Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory.
Putin was due to make a national broadcast about Ukraine last night, touted to be announcing a major escalation and "referendums" to formalise annexation of territory invadaded as part of Russia.
The speech was delayed to today, backers saying to maximise its political impact. I suspect it might be a sign that Putin is struggling with backing of the military.
UPDATE
Speech given, announcing the conscription of army reservists but not general mobilisation. Let's of political escalation, threats to defend any new territory by all means necessary etc.
This closes a loophole which allowed Russian soldiers to refuse to be deployed to Ukraine, but not much else. .
The referenda in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions poses quite a problem for the Ukrainian supporting locals in those areas...
Vote against or don't vote and open yourself up immediate Russian reprisals....
Voting for would legitimise the Russians and open yourself up to possible future Ukrainian reprisals...
If I was Biden, I would send a secret diplomatic note to Putin, saying that the first NBC strike in Ukraine would be met by every single ship in the Black Sea being sunk, the second would sink every navy ship found in international waters, etc.
Putin hopes he can conscript and retrain enough troops for a spring offensive. Alternatively he is waiting for the “referenda” results before he declares victory and goes home, hoping that his no holds barred warnings will deter the West from further supporting Ukraine. He may do a Vietnam and leave the newly independent “countries” to their fate.
He knows he has lost the war on the battlefield, and is praying for a cold winter in Europe.
If he loses the war and is thrown out of Ukraine, Ukraine could relatively quickly develop its own gas fields, close off the gas pipeline from Russia to Europe at the Russian border and then use it to pump Ukrainian sourced gas to Europe. Could they do that in a couple of years? RGR/in-valid might be able to cast some light on this. Where are the trolls when you want them?
More than 1000 anti mobilisation protestors have been arrested in Russia today. Flights out of Russia were booked out within hours of the announcement. Russia is offering Russian citizenship to foreigners who sign up to fight in Ukraine.
I do not think that Russia will be able to field 300,000 extra troops any time soon.
Nothing's happening any time soon - I did read there's a legal requirement of 4 months basic training for those newly mobilised. And... winter is a thing. The worrying picture here is that Putin is planning/expecting an uptick in fighting in the spring. How much progress can Ukraine make during the winter? Will the whole thing just 'freeze' for the next four months?
