Bonchie sums it up on X:
Overnight, the discussion has shifted from "Trump ambushed Zelensky" to "Yeah, Zelensky was rude, but so what?" Progress, I guess.
But that still misses the point. Zelensky's interjection to make clear he has no intention of negotiating a ceasefire is what blew up the deal.
I don't want to see Ukrained overrun, but if Zelenskyy won't negotiate a ceasefire that calls for Russia keeping the eastern territories and Crimea, then I guess he'd better roll the dice with whatever virtue-signaling European or Europhile countries are willing to get serious with money and men.
10 comments:
As Zelenskyy tried to point out, Putin cannot be trusted to keep any agreement, beginning with the Budapest Memoranda--which the US betrayed Ukraine over, also.
Nor is it possible to negotiate any sort of cease fire with the barbarian, much less one that would let him keep what he's stolen. A cease fire would only give the barbarian time to rest, refit, rearm, and run again, this time with a massive drone blitz against Ukraine's military, infrastructure nodes, and civilian structures like schools, hospitals, apartment buildings, more river dams, ....
Zelenskyy is very anxious to negotiate an actual peace, one that restores Ukrainian territory lost to the invader, and with credible security guarantees against a further barbarian onslaught. Anything less simply vindicates the invasion and puts more of Europe at risk.
Zelenskyy is gambling with WWIII? No. It's the timidity of the central and western Europeans, of Biden, and now of Trump (and Vance, who showed himself more interested in who Zelenskyy "campaigned" for in one of our States, and who--worse--refused Zelenskyy's invitation to visit Ukraine and see for himself the destruction and atrocities the barbarian has inflicted) that is creating a risk of WWIII: when will those nations, and ours, stand and fight after backing down so far that Putin functionally controls much of Europe?
Ukraine can't win the war? That's defeatist and cowardly. Ukraine is in the strait it's in today because Biden and Europe withheld, then slow-walked the weapons the UA needed, and needs, instead of providing them in the numbers and at the rate the UA said they needed them. The current slowly crumbling stalemate is a direct result of that functional abandonment.
It's still not too late, but Trump and Vance, and guys like Lindsey Graham, need to change.
Eric Hines
The logistics are very much against UKR, I think. I've been working the issue professionally for a while, and there are basically no more 155mms to be had. Every factory that can make them and will ship them to UKR is tapped. UKR buyers want more of them and for less per round, but supply and demand means that any additional capacity means outbidding someone else for the production (which, you'd often be bidding against other UKR buyers). So that's not going to improve; and NATO stockpiles are dangerously low because we've already sent so much.
The real news from the front has been the indispensable nature of drones. But no one in the West can make drones at the required scale -- and even what drones we can make depend on Chinese components. There's no way for us to make the drones they need at the scale they need, especially if China cuts off supply (which they don't so far, because they also benefit from a weakening Russia).
Finally, UKR manpower losses are in the tens of thousands of casualties per month. UKR's population is less than a third of Russia's. They can't sustain this.
Europe's total combined arms deployable force is only large enough to absorb about a month of casualties at this rate, and then they've got nothing else. Their standing armies aren't even large enough to train the army they'd really need for a stand-up fight as partners -- not quickly enough to matter.
There's not going to be a restoration of the borders status quo ante. Russia is going to win something from this adventure, but they paid a stiff enough price that they don't really have the capacity for similar adventures. It is what it is, and nobody can will it into anything different.
[Russia] paid a stiff enough price that they don't really have the capacity for similar adventures.
If your prior claims are accurate (I don't have much reason to doubt you), this seems contradicted--refuted, really--by those prior. If Russia wins Ukraine, or even a cease fire that has them retain their existing winnings, the rest of Europe hasn't the wherewithal to resist further invasion.
On the other hand, I'm not sure the NATO stockpiles are dangerously low--relative to what? The fight is on the Ukraine-Russian border. The risk is the slow-walk rather than going all in on arming/supplying Ukraine. Russia isn't in a position to threaten the rest of Europe until it subdues Ukraine.
I'm also not convinced we can't solve the drone supply by...selling/donating/lend leasing them drones. The UA is putting bunches of drones in the air, on land, and in the water to attack at the front, and they're making their own long range drones--they just need help making more.
It also would help if the bridge connecting northern Korea to Russia were to fail--that would force those supplies to go through the PRC, which they would likely impede to an extent. Similarly were events to obstruct Iranian drone shipments to Russia. There are other supply routes--and there aren't that many--whose interruption would impede Russia.
And those artillery shells and rockets/missiles--that's as much a bureaucratic problem as it is a physical production problem, for us and for Europe. Were the bureaucracy got out of the way, the production problem would be greatly eased.
You're also suggesting we've already lost the Republic of China--either we have the wherewithal to support them, or we do not. The PRC is well aware of that.
Eric Hines
You know the old saying about the professionals studying logistics. I just don’t see it. Russia can’t break through the UKR lines in three years even with the limited, doled out support they were getting. Now with hundreds of thousands fewer troops, and their elite forces wasted, they’re going to take all of Ukraine and Poland and maybe other countries? I don’t see how.
But I also don’t see how UKR pushes them back. They’ve bled white doing this, and the logistics of support are tapped out.
Taiwan is another issue, but the drone concern is real. That’s another thing I’ve been working professionally. Right now, we do not have the capacity. Even where we think we do, study shows the miniature parts are really sourced to China.
Well, Taiwan is good at micro tech, and Japan is even better, and ROK isn’t bad. But they’re not tooling up.
I’d say our odds aren’t great regarding Taiwan. There’s still time there, though. If the conflict can just be deterred long enough, the PRC will age out. There’s a lot of work to be done to make that happen.
You made the case upthread for Russia getting control of much of the rest of Europe after getting control of Ukraine.
Europe's total combined arms deployable force is only large enough to absorb about a month of casualties at this rate, and then they've got nothing else. Their standing armies aren't even large enough to train the army they'd really need for a stand-up fight
Russia doesn't need to rebuild in order to follow on; it just needs to be better off then their foes.
Eric Hines
As the Prime Minister of Poland said today, “500 million Europeans are asking 300 million Americans to defend them from 140 million Russians.” Only the military age population is ~69 million Russians.
It’s not going to happen. The Cold War era is over. Most of the Warsaw Pact are now the firmest part of the defense.
As Stalin once asked, "How many divisions do they have?"
You've already pointed out those 500 million Europeans don't have enough.
Eric Hines
No, not nearly enough to push Russia back. If they retool for war, they might eventually have enough; but they'll have trouble doing that, with a populace that seems to view soldiering as brutal or even evil. If they institute a draft, in many countries there will be resistance; and their extant forces are too small to effectively train a large army quickly.
All the same, it's Western Europe that is really weak. Eastern Europe (what Rumsfeld liked to call New Europe) still has heart and spirit. I don't think Russia can take the rest of Ukraine; I'm confident it can't take Poland while trying to hold Ukraine in the face of guerrilla resistance.
There's a map of survey data from most European countries going around that shows (in 2015) the percentage of people that would "fight for their country". As you'd expect Germany was the lowest on this scale. Most Western European countries were not far behind. Poland was better but not great. Finland beat even the Turks at 75%. It's interesting. https://brilliantmaps.com/europe-fight-war/
There's a map of survey data from most European countries....
Some things have happened in the decade since that survey. It would be illuminating to see a similar survey done today.
Eric Hines
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