Subj : Russia's Defeat
To : Dumas Walker
From : Kaelon
Date : Sun Jul 30 2023 10:26 am
Re: Russia's Defeat
By: Dumas Walker to KAELON on Fri Jul 28 2023 08:30 am
> If Belarus gets more involved on the Russian side, or if Russia does
> something to bait the US or other countries into the fight more directly on
> the Ukrainian side, there could be a few other outcomes. If it is the
> latter, I suspect those outcomes will be more drawn-out, costly, and deadly.
I genuinely think Ukraine, from a vast geopolitical perspective, was the trial-run or beta-test for the next World War. Much like the Spanish Civil War was the practice round for the Axis vs. the Allies in World War II. And yet, unlike Spain, the Ukrainian example has demonstrated that authoritarian regimes are far less stable than they have suggested, and that corruption and mismanagement have placed their armed forces at a tremendous disadvantage. Remember: for China, who has been watching with baited breath, they have never had a successful military conflict with the West in their entire history. They need one to solidify their ascension to global superpower status.
> I think the whole point of this was not to take all of Ukraine but to take
> enough land to create a land bridge of Russian territory between the
> Ukranian break-away areas and Crimea. I am not even certain they will
> manage that without help.
I think if you look at the incremental efforts by Putin - first in 2014 with the seizure of Crimea, and then again at the start of this war in 2022 - the objective has been the complete pacification of Ukraine to maintain a buffer state for Russia against the west. By all measures, he has failed: Finland and Sweden have joined NATO, ending over two centuries of neutrality, and Ukraine really does seem like it will win back most, if not all, of its seized territories.
What comes next for Russia is deeply problematic. I am genuinely surprised that Putin has not been assassinated, or more likely "sent to a hospital in Siberia" and then replaced, because the string of failures Russia has encountered will lead to the emboldened separatism of its many republics (states). Remember: Russia is not ethnically Russian, and the demographic collapse of the Russian People and the Russian Federation as a whole, is largely existential. For Putin, he saw the restoration of the Soviet Empire as a way to forstall this sociopolitical collapse. That's clearly no longer genuinely possible, and with Russia's humiliation, it has become a regional player for the balance of its modern existence.
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-=: Kaelon :=-
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