[picafrost]

The US funded wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for 20 years with no idea what the next move was, no tangible end in sight, and stakes far lower. The so-called threat of weapons of mass destruction was enough to swiftly defeat Iraq's army, topple its government, and start an unprecedented manhunt for its leader.

Russia has invaded a neighboring country twice and spent the first two years of the war they started threatening nuclear weapons. They disregard all negotiated agreements and treaties, poison dissidents in countries the US is allied with, with impunity, engage in asymmetric warfare against Europe and the US, meddle in elections. The Russian government has nothing but contempt for a rules based world order.

Why, suddenly, is the US cowering back when the stakes are much higher and its direct involvement much lower?

[aerostable_slug]

Because this President campaigned on ending the long wars, which he opposed. I'm not sure where the confusion lies because Trump has been very clear about getting the US out of what he views as foreign entanglements.

I'm not passing judgement on it, just noting that what we're seeing is consistent with his campaign messaging.

[JumpCrisscross]

> getting the US out of what he views as foreign entanglements

The point is our alliances are also foreign entanglements. These idiots didn’t think through that withdrawing from those means fewer weapons (and other) orders from America, more nukes pointed at America and less strategic depth between our adversaries and our shores.

[SpicyLemonZest]

The US hasn't withdrawn from any of its military alliances, and thus far has expressed no plans to do so.

I feel like this is where a lot of NATO commentary gets bogged down. There's a large group of people, conventionally referred to in US media as "the blob" (https://www.vox.com/22153765/joe-biden-foreign-policy-team-r...), who believe that the United States has an affirmative duty to engage in lots of global military interventions above and beyond the actual commitments it's made. I don't think they're lying - people seem to genuinely believe, for example, that the US is betraying NATO by cutting off support for Ukraine when most NATO members would prefer to expand support. But the North Atlantic Treaty simply does not contain a promise to align foreign policy in this way.

[JumpCrisscross]

> people seem to genuinely believe, for example, that the US is betraying NATO by not supporting Ukraine

You’re correct in this being incorrect.

The informed concern is in Trump and Musk’s coziness towards Putin. That brings up questions around what, if anything, Trump would do if Putin annexed Latvia.

[SpicyLemonZest]

It does, and it would be wise for the US to take steps to defuse those questions. This is why US troops often (and have continued in the new administration) engage in various celebrations and joint drills with NATO allies; there was a detachment of US troops in an Estonian Independence Day parade late last month, which I'm quite confident will not be happening for Russia Day in June no matter how much US-Russia relations warm.

But reasonable questions about the strength of an alliance aren't the same at all as withdrawal from or betrayal of the alliance.

[chronid]

The NATO treaty doesn't imply in his wording any obligation for a military reaction to an invasion of a member of NATO. There's no penalty to just respond with a strongly worded letter, but there's an expectation an ally will react militarly.

Will your allies trust you any longer if you just follow the letter of the treaty? I don't think they will. More critically, nor will anyone else.

The US have historically positioned themselves as "defenders of democracy" and have multiple times used that positioning actively. It's inevitable for an expectation to be there for them to do just that. The US is free to violate expectations and just follow the letter of the treaties it has, it is a sovereign nation after all, but the surprised and frankly childish "we have no obligation!" reaction to the blowback is more unreasonable than the expectations for its support of Ukraine, particularly in how it has been handled politically.

[SpicyLemonZest]

One of the US's most recent foreign deployments is the Iraq War, which was based on a lie and extraordinarily unpopular among NATO members. I think abandoning Ukraine is very bad, and I agree it's unreasonable to expect Europe to be OK with it, but the US's current position in NATO was never based on a foundation of good behavior or uniform foreign policy alignment.

[chronid]

There was effectively uniform foreign policy between the US and its allies for the last thirty years, even under the first Trump presidency, and this included at least a certain degree of interventionism (first Iraq war, Yugoslavia...) which solidified international institutions (differently from the second Iraq war and Afghanistan, which weakened them).

Even if they didn't agree, EU nations and Canada at least sent their soldiers to die in Iraq and Afghanistan anyway.

Why are you surprised people expect such policy alignment after thirty years of it?

Why are you surprised people consider this a betrayal of what NATO stood for in the past, as a proxy of the democracies of the west? Just because there is no violation of the letter of the treaty?

[clivestaples]

Yeah, agree that's what is happening. My original question wasn't rhetorical in nature. I would really like to know what would secure victory without escalating it to involve American troops on the ground and/or potentially a nuclear exchange.

[aerostable_slug]

I would as well. It's unclear to me what would change the picture there. Do they just need more of the same (155mm artillery shells, drones, tanks, etc.) or are there qualitative things that need to change?

This speaks to the fact that I haven't seen any clear "this is how we win it" proposals. I could understand why the details would be classified, but I've not seen broad strokes, either. Has anyone else?

[clivestaples]

I don't need a lecture on Russia's character. What I was curious to learn from you, or anyone, what could be done differently to defeat them? How would Russia respond if we send more advanced weaponry? Does Ukraine have the men to fight?

I'm getting downvoted but honestly looking for answers.

[ssssvd]

You can’t fully defeat a nuclear power. You can, at best, drive it back — if you’re willing to pay the price.

And that price means Europe will have to absorb a dramatic, sustained drop in quality of life — plus forced mobilisation.

Even the Poles - the most serious player in Europe right now — only have about 200,000 troops.

The British and French combined have maybe 40,000 soldiers actually capable of high-intensity combat. That’s enough for, what - four weeks of real war?

After that, there will be no volunteers. That means a draft.

So the real question is: Are you ready to be drafted to “defeat Russia”?

[picafrost]

It’s a war of attrition now, which is a war of will and logistics. Can anything be done differently? I don’t know, but I don’t think so. Isn’t victory under these circumstances making the war so costly that your opponent must find a way out?

The US was doing that. Russia’s will has won out over the US’s, that is a defeat, and we can only hope next time it isn’t the same.

[clivestaples]

War of attrition. I thought we'd be further along after three years of sanctions and weapons but I wonder if Ukraine has the manpower to keep it up. From what I understand, Ukraine is drafting men ages 25-60 which may signal they need boots on the ground soon.

[picafrost]

Ukraine probably does not. Is Russia willing to risk the possibility of US/EU troops ending up on the other side of the trenches? Probably we’ll never know now, and maybe that’s better. But is it better that Russia knows maybe three years and the US might call it quits?

My country, Norway, shares a border with Russia. We have 5.5 million people. Would the US abandon us because we’re running out of troops? That’s the question we’re asking ourselves.

[yks]

The realistic answer is to say that Ukraine is going to be supplied with weapons for as long as needed, case closed. The whole Russian strategy after the initial blitz failure was to wait for Trump to get into power, who telegraphed to anyone with the brain, that he doesn't care about Ukraine and loves Putin very much. Russia can't do it forever, but it focused on appearing "strong" until the elections, the bet that paid off for them. Now imagine they were facing a prospect of non-friendly US administrations for decades, they would've already stopped.

[ssssvd]

Except Putin doesn’t need to outrun America — he just needs to outrun Ukraine.

There’s a finite number of Ukrainians, and an even smaller number of Ukrainian men actually willing — or physically able — to fight.

20% of the population already left, and around 1.5 million of them went to Russia. Another 15% are stuck under occupation.

Ukraine’s demographics were already a disaster after the WW2 wipe-out, the Soviet collapse, and 30 years of economic decline and emigration. Now they’re drafting 18 to 60-year-olds just to keep units filled - at 40%.

So what happens in a year or two, when there’s no one left to draft?

The Poles aren’t volunteering to die en masse, and they’re the only EU country with anything resembling a real army — and even that is one-fifth the size of Russia’s.

So who’s holding the line then?

The US Army? The Marine Corps?

Is anyone actually ready to send Americans to die in the Donbas?

[yks]

Russian economy doesn't have enough juice to "outrun Ukraine" under the sanctions regime and the war intensity they maintain to impress the Westerners. It's not a "year or two", it's a decade at least.

[ssssvd]

So what’s the plan here, exactly?

Keep Ukraine on life support for a decade, hoping Russia collapses under sanctions?

Cuba’s still standing after 60 years. Iran after 40. The USSR took decades to fall — and none of them had China bankrolling their survival.

Russia’s economy bleeds, but it’s not cut off. China sends tech and machines, India buys the oil, and Europe keeps quietly paying top dollar for gas through backdoors.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s population shrinks, its economy is wrecked, and its army can’t fight without Western money, Western weapons — and soon, Western bodies.

Because if you actually want to push Russia back — not even collapse it, just push it back — that means European and American troops on the front line. Conscription, mobilized economies, the whole package.

Without a sustained meat grinder to chew up Russian forces, Russia just consolidates and digs in — with China keeping the whole thing afloat.

And if the West isn’t ready for that, who exactly do you think will still be standing in 10 years?

The only guaranteed winner? China — with Russia as a client state, Europe as a deindustrialized theme park, and America too exhausted to stop them.

If this is a game of who bleeds out last, Ukraine’s already done, Europe bleeds out first, Russia bleeds to its usual stupid level — and China walks away without a scratch.

[yks]

The Westerners have been tirelessly making excuses about how it's impossible to defeat Russia for a while now, so forgive me for not being impressed, but the proposition is quite simple really — if you don't want to support Ukrainians fighting for themselves against Russia today, Ukrainians will be sent to fight poles and others for Russia tomorrow. Of course as it's clear now, the US wouldn't defend Poland either, fighting Canada is the new geopolitical priority, so there's that.

Agree that China is a winner of it all simply by virtue of not being mad, but as they like to say in Russia — it's not the evening yet.

[GeoAtreides]

> they’re the only EU country with anything resembling a real army

??????

guess France is out of EU or... ?

[ssssvd]

French land army is 77k total, with maybe 30k actually combat-capable — the rest are admin, logistics, and training. Add 9k Foreign Legion, but only a fraction of that is high-intensity capable.

With rotations, France can probably field about 15k troops on an actual frontline — and after that, it’s draft time.

For comparison:

* Russian armed forces: 1.1 million. * 500k deployed in Ukraine. * ~300k on the active frontline right now.

In terms of real land warfare capacity, France is in the same weight class as Belarus or Romania — and about 20 times behind Russia.

Even if you argue technical edge (better equipment per soldier), France has zero industrial mobilization capacity and no modern large-scale combat experience.

[clivestaples]

Realistically, does Ukraine have the manpower to sustain this tempo for years? If not, what countries should put boots on the ground?

[yks]

Ukraine needs to sustain significantly lower tempo than Russia and there are other options than boots on the ground. Simply flying in and shooting down slow-flying drones inside the Ukrainian airspace would probably give Ukrainian economy years of "runway". And any breathing room in the economy translates into more available manpower in the military and Ukraine still has millions available.

[cloverich]

> I was curious to learn from you, or anyone, what could be done differently to defeat them

Russia doesn't have infinite capacity, their primary strategy was to take as much as possible at all costs as fast as possible, while waging info campaigns against the far right, in the hopes that Trump would come to power and cement a deal with them. If that option goes away, it strictly reduces Russias exit strategies. They can't escalate, because the west has more leverage and more options, it would be zero sum at _best_ for Russia. The West would likely hand them Crimea for peace, but giving them all of Donbas is too large a victory for Russia. The post WW2 orders foundational principle is that appeasement of land grabs leads to stronger positions for the grabber - see Hitler's numerous escalations before his full on attack as an example. Ideally you don't wait until the attacker is on your door step before fighting back, that's what this whole debacle is about.

Some of the options could have been:

    - Continue on, but with aligned support from the left and right (read: Russian psyops campaign vs the US right failed). Probably enough on its own.
    - Pressure China (tariffs) to pressure Russia
    - Pressure Europe to increase commitments
    - Offer Russia Crimea (already done ages ago, when their position was stronger)
    - Setup an increasing schedule of more advanced weaponry

> How would Russia respond if we send more advanced weaponry?

AFAIK they haven't responded to the last several increases; what would they respond with? The Nuke is their last card, and in addition to pulling in more Western support would alienate the other players (India, China) who have their own leverage on Russia. IDK overall it seems like the only major limitation here was the psychology of Trump's party.

[ssssvd]

And what exactly is "The West" these days? A glorified open-air Continental museum, a failed British Empire with an army the size of Belarus, and a bickering hegemon half-convinced it should retreat to regional power status, house divided and all.

Europeans are still high on their own supply, fantasizing they’re global players, when in reality they’ve got no money, no energy, no industry, no credible army, no unity, and no diplomatic weight — not even within their own borders.

Europe spent decades as an American piggy bank and a strategic liability. Now the bill’s come due — and Uncle Vlad is doing Uncle Donald a favor, playing the bogeyman just well enough to scare Europe’s capital and industry back into the safe harbor of the New World.

And if Russian pressure helps deliver "MAGA in four years" by triggering capital flight from Europe to the US — is Ukraine really too steep a price for such a valuable service?

[yks]

> the only major limitation here was the psychology of Trump's party.

The party that has 50/50 chance of winning the elections has been communicating to Putin all this entire time that they will hand him Ukraine when they win. Now they conclude that this strategy didn't help Ukraine and therefore it's time to hand Ukraine to Putin. Brilliant strategy, I wish them to enjoy their Russian friends who will definitely not screw them over very soon.