@ins I’m not seeing any evidence for the outcome you’re calling inevitable. There’s an awful lot of Zaporizhzhia still in Russian hands. What makes you think trench warfare will cease and maneuver warfare will commence? What do you think the tipping point will be?
Of course boots on the ground is important in warfare. That has literally always been true. Like I said above, the supply of infantry does not appear to be running low on either side as of yet. Plenty of meat remains to be ground.
@zecarlo Russia has already suffered grave losses. Their ability to prosecute another war is severely diminished for years to come.
As for Churchill, he’s a complex guy. He had a lot of shifting opinions on the Soviets, which included providing aid to Finland against the Soviets in The Winter War shortly before becoming an ally of the Soviet Union.
Japan was invading China in 1937, eventually massacring millions, and Churchill had this to say…
“If the Chinese now suffer the cruel malice and oppression of their enemies, it is the fault of the base and perverted conception of pacifism their rulers have ingrained for two or three thousand years in their people….China, as the years pass, is being eaten by Japan like an artichoke, leaf by leaf.”
If he had facebook back then, something tells me he wouldn’t have a China flag as his profile picture.
The previous year he had this to say regarding the Spanish Civil war.
“It is of the utmost consequence that France and Britain should act together in observing the strictest neutrality themselves and endeavouring to induce it in others. Even if Russian money is thrown in on the one side, or Italian and German encouragement is given to the other, the safety of France and England requires absolute neutrality and non-intervention by them. French partisanship for Spanish Communists, or British partisanship for the Spanish rebels, might injure profoundly the bonds which unite the British Empire and the French Republic. This Spanish welter is not the business of either of us. Neither of these Spanish factions expresses our conception of civilization.”
What he obviously didn’t do is bet the empire’s well-being on further stretching his already stretched resources to take some great moral stand against every evil of his day. Say what you want about him and his flaws, but he acted in a way that advanced the broad interests of the British Empire.
@Silyak I agreed with that goal last year, and I believe it has been achieved. It is not possible for Russia to successfully invade any NATO member, and every Russian who matters is well aware of this at this point. They can’t even invade Ukraine.
I do care. This war strikes me as a bloodbath that’s not accomplishing any higher purpose given the situation as I can discern it. My greatest concern is that a severely weakened Russia could result in the unthinkable use of NBC weaponry or even a much broader conflict.
Absent any decisive gains being made, the war is definitely getting more crooks rich and more people killed.
You’re arguing for attrition warfare. As I asked above, to what end?
To the last Ukrainian?
To the last American middle class household?
What should be the limit to US support?
I think we’ve had a very good ROI if you measure it by weakening the Russian military. We’ve crippled an adversary with our inter-generational credit card and some spare stuff, with poor Eastern European boys doing the dying instead of American boys.
