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"If Western leaders are serious about preventing a Russian victory, they should demonstrate their resolve via long-term commitments to Ukraine with the clearly stated objective of a decisive Ukrainian military victory."
Long-term commitments like EU membership and military production and budgets already spanning the next years? Why has no one thought about this yet? Oh, wait...
Right now many Western leaders talk about Russia loosing the war, which is not the same is Ukraine winning.
Yes, it actually is.
But let's just stop arguing and pretend I win that argument, which is not the same as you losing...
War isnt a zero sum game. It is very possible for both sides to loose in the context of input vs output. Russia could gain some territory that is lost for Ukraine,but pay such a heavy price for it, that it wasnt worth it in the end.
And the longer the war drags on, the more attrition happens to Russia, unless they give up. And it seems to be the western strategy to make Russia incurr as much damage as possible, whereas a decisive Ukrainian victory could allow both countries to start revover sooner.
It really isn't, Russia might grind itself to nothing but unless Ukraine is well equipped enough that will still leave the Ukrainians ruined by the conflict in the aftermath.
Even if they're able to get themselves a Marshall Plan tier recovery package they're still going to be rebuilding for a long time after the war, and a lot of already departed Ukrainians will hesitate to come back if the war drags on long enough for them to have developed lives in whatever places they found shelter in.
I actually don't think the aftermath is going to be the issue here. The seeming interminability of the situation is. Unless the West finally commits to the goal of a Russian defeat in Ukraine the situation will keep dragging on until one side collapses. And banking on the Russians being the ones to collapse first seems like an increasingly dangerous proposition, moral aspects aside. The trouble is that realistically, only the US has the arsenal to supply Ukraine right now as the other partners have pretty much exhausted their available stocks. And even with a firm commitment, building up the production capacity to keep Ukraine alive is going to take time which is fast running out for that embattled nation. If Ukraine can prevail and is fast tracked into the EU, rebuilding it will be almost trivially easy despite the high cost. Because money the Europeans can spare. Arms they cannot.
Ukraine has gotten EU money to buy arms from the EU and most of the have to be made first. Ukraine has placed a lot of orders with that money and they are in production right now. Last summer Ukraine ordered 100 PZH-2000, 60 Krab and France has started CAESAR production at war time level. For air defence there are newly made IRIS-T coming to Ukraine as well as a lot of similar systems. There is a deal with Rheinmetall to set up a tank factory in Ukraine. There is a lot more happening behind closed doors and a lot of the known stuff is German propably because German opsec sucks, but more is coming from Europe. A lot more.
For Ukraine this always has been a fight for survival. Anything that results with Ukraine resotring the border to what it was prior to the invasion can be considered a win. Double so if Ukraine regains control over Crimea. And tripple so if Russia loses its ability to launch another invasion. But these are just bonus objectives, it isn't the goal of the war for Ukraine, even if some rethoric makes it seem that way.
The alternative to winning was always ceasing to exist. It might not have happened after this invasion but would have been inevitable. The cost of rebuilding doesn't matter considering the alternative. And I don't see the West abandoning Ukraine in their rebuilding efforts. The EU is almost certainly going to open conversaitions about Ukraine becoming a member. It would probably include a multi year plan of rebuilding with restricted membership before becoming a full member.
And there are tons of people waiting to swoop into Ukraine and buy up the cheap land and develope it. They aren't going to do it out of the good of their hearts but it will still speed up the rebuilding of Ukraine.
One thing not being mentioned much... when it comes to war exhaustion, your casus belli, or the reason you got into the war in the first place, matters quite a lot.
Overseas adventures in communist-leaning or oil-rich countries is one thing. Many people won't agree with those excuses, war exhaustion will be rapid and severe.
Helping a people defend their homes is something every human can understand and, in principle, agree with. War exhaustion, while still present, will be more limited, growing slower and to a smaller overall degree of intensity.
Because of this very basic fact, I do not foresee western will to assist Ukraine flagging as much as many analysts worry. Some flagging is inevitable. A severe reduction in will is not.
How many calls were there to end WW2? Some, but not many. People mostly understood the broad strokes of it. I think people mostly understand the broad strokes of the Russo-Ukrainian War as well, despite the best and continuing efforts of Russian war propaganda.
I want to believe you are right. But ethical considerations only go so far when a growing part of your own population is suffering an existential crisis of its own. Moreover, the past years have shown just how fickle and irrational many people are. It might not take a whole lot of convincing by the demagogues lurking in the shadows to get the people of the West to drop Ukraine. The fact that many of them, like Orban, Trump, and the German right-wingers are all buddy-buddy with Putin is surely a coincidence.
Don't discount the influence of Kremlin propaganda on social media.
How many calls were there to end WW2?
The countries involved all heavily relied on propagana
Not everyone needs to lie in order to get people to help them. If you're on defense, and every war has a defender and an attacker, then people should be able to figure it out if they're not too dumb.
From the official Russian viewpoint, Russia is merely defending the poor oppressed people of Ukraine from their evil Nazi western oppressors
Putin will not win..he is at a huge deficit, is getting old and facing threats from within, and has been giving up more and more to fake allies like China to stay alive.
Him saying he has doubled the military budget this year means nothing. For one, we know where the military budget goes, and 2, budget means nothing if you can't buy the goods. These other countries will not be able to keep selling to Putin, while all the powers of europe and the West are giving these things for free.
Part of this conflict, and to the detriment of the Ukranians, is to completely ruin Putin while not directly getting involved in combat, removing Russia as a world power entirely. Dragging it along is sadly a good thing for our politicians.
Putin is 71 years old now, has been the president of Russia in some form for over 25 years. He will die in that seat before the war is over.
Putin is 71 years old now, has been the president of Russia in some form for over 25 years. He will die in that seat before the war is over.
Yeah, but that could be in decades. I.e. the west shouldn't merely commit to making Ukraine win, it should commit to make Ukraine win soon. That would obviously entail delivering more and more controversial weapons systems and lifting limits on those, but I don't see much of an downside in that.
Russia won't risk its entire population being wiped out just because Western cruise missiles fired by Ukraine blew up a few military bases in the Russian mainland and maybe the odd ministry in Moscow. At this point Russia likely questions whether it actually could start a nuclear war. The Americans have shown how much intelligence they have and how much more advanced their weaponry is. I.e. if Russia escalates in the direction of nuclear, it may very well be decapitated before any of its missiles leave the ground. So fears that delivering weapons to bomb Russian mainland will lead to world war 3 are overblown. That would require a lot of rich people in Russia being willing to die for nothing.
Are we supposed to take for a fact what Putin expects? The title doesn't even mention that this is not fact but opinion. And worse, it's not even Putin's opinion, it's what someone else thinks what Putin's opinion looks like.
I'm for sure not starting to take Putin's (supposed) claims serious now.
the west, as in the EU?
The real shortage Ukraine faces isn't weapons, it is manpower.
And that will ultimately what the West will have to contribute.