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Ryuu96 on 02 November 2023
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Zkuq said:
Ryuu96 said:

Just feels like the West wants Ukraine to win but not too quickly out of fear of what a quick collapse would do to Russia so instead hope for a slow bleed out of Russia and the delusional hope that Putin will eventually see sense, that and some countries are unwilling to actually take hits to their military, despite the fact that nobody threatens them directly and the only one who could (Russia) is currently fighting Ukraine. We spend a gross amount of money on military and it feels like it's all just for show if the time we should actually be using it most, we aren't.

What I've been thinking is that perhaps the West doesn't want Ukraine to win. Instead, perhaps the idea is to force a stalemate by providing Ukraine just enough equipment to not seriously threatedn Russia, so both parties can claim a bit of victory (Ukraine for keeping its independence, Russia for taking land), keeping Russia stabilized. But the West can't explicitly force Ukraine to accept a stalemate, so it has to be done the hard way, i.e. via actions instead of words. I'm just not sure many decision-makers are actually interested in making Russia lose due to instability concerns.

I'm not convinced this is the case, and perhaps the West is indeed still hoping for Russia to lose. I just haven't been all that sure about it in a while.

Ryuu96 said:

So many things we could have done better, so many things we can still do better, instead we still today debate about red lines and are unwilling to put ourselves in a fraction of an uncomfortable position as Ukraine is putting themselves in for us. We then moan about being tired because the war could last years despite us not doing everything in our power to speed the conclusion of this war up, the reason it is lasting years is because of our reluctance to give Ukraine what it needs.

This is also potentially another factor. The public support for supporting Ukraine might have been there a year ago, but it feels like significant support for Ukraine is much more difficult at this point in time, and it's probably not going to get much better. A lot of the momentum for support has been lost, I think.

I'm just not sure anymore either and I'm tired of complaining.

I'd at least rather it be "cowardice" than the more insidious explanation of them wanting to force Ukraine into a stalemate. I also doubt Ukraine will be accepting of those conditions and I think it wouldn't go well for Zelenskyy at all, Ukraine is a massively militarised country now and I could see a scenario where if he accepted those terms, him being physically dragged out of office by the military. It isn't like Ukraine hasn't only recently had massive protests against a pro-Russian candidate and Zelenskyy definitely isn't pro-Russian but for him to give up land to Russia, I think the public would be enraged after all they've lost. I also strongly doubt Zelenskyy would ever do such a thing anyway, he seems dead-set on fighting to the very end.

From an international standpoint as well it would be utterly embarrassing for the West and make us look weak, any opposition party would also have easy attacks ranging from "you wasted billions for nothing" and "you sold out our ally" and America would appear as though they "lost" to Russia, etc. It'd just be an utter embarrassment that would make all our enemies laugh at us.

And yeah, the public support will continue to drop the longer this takes which is even more reason why the West should be trying to end this ASAP rather than the slow bleed out we're currently inflicting on Russia. If Russia "wins" even a bit of land it would further encourage imperialism over the globe, other countries to do the same, Ukraine would have to join NATO ASAP as well (which wouldn't be possible) and Russia would just rebuild and resume taking the rest of the land. Georgia and Moldova would likely be next in line for Russia and China will be further convinced to make an attempt on Taiwan. Russian collapse may be bad but Russia winning will be worse for the global world.

In the end, Ukraine doesn't have a choice but to fight, if they stop fighting, they die. Russia won't stop, they'll only pause.

Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 02 November 2023