The “weakening” of Russia is what they considered “second prize,” but they didn’t even get that, because Russia is now stronger. The sanctions have backfired. Russia has severed its ties with the “garden” and strengthened its ties to the “jungle.”
Unlikely. If the west was pushing to destroy Russia they would have provided Ukraine with adequate arms to do so. They deliberately created a drawn out long conflict. Whether Russia has been weakened as they hoped is debateable. It does not yet appear so.
They wanted to destroy Russia economically, not militarily, you know, the usual “bog them in forever war and sanction them to death because we control the world finance systems” and it had a good chance of success, but they miscalculated since Russia relations with China and global south in general proven to be much more robust. It was also first time after 1991 so many countries just told US “no” when they demanded another country be destroyed economically. As result BRICS managed to build their own alternative for US controlled finance system, which is pretty ad hoc by now, but it already works and is being strenghtened.
I don’t think their goal was to create a drawn out conflict however. The idea was to use Ukraine as fodder and then break Russia economically. Western planners fundamentally misunderstood the nature of Russian economy, and thought that it would collapse after they froze Russian foreign assets and put sanctions on. Not only did that not happen, but major countries like China and India snubbed the west and continued trade with Russia. That’s where the whole hare brained scheme started to come apart, but the time this became obvious the west was already too invested to pull back.
The Americs really pushing Zelensky to not accept the ceasefire in 2022 is what mostly made me think they did not plan for victory. There were no new plans afterwards and it has been meat grinder ever since.
It’s bewildering to me that they didn’t have a backup plan. Like they just banked everything on Russian economy collapsing, and when that didn’t happen they just kept doubling down instead of adjusting the strategy.
Realistically, what other plan could they have? They’ve used the same playbook since Vietnam and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but since it always funnels a shit ton of money to the pentagon and its contractors pumps the value of the dollar nobody gives a shit, it was a success by the only metric they care about.
The west has to balance providing adequate arms and not getting bombed/invaded themselves. They only do invasions on enemies they think can’t defend themselves.
They thought the sanctions would do to Russia what it did to Libya, Venezuela, Iraq, and many others, and that they’d only need to drag this one out to win it on the economic rather than the military front. That obviously hasn’t worked, so rather than broker the peace talks a majority of Ukrainians want, they’re escalating because they don’t know how to do diplomacy, they only know how to do extortion. They’re talking about “negotiating from strength” ffs.
Only permawar provides for the most weapon sales. The sanctions on Russia was tighter colonization of EU by the US. To the last Ukrainian is opportunity to buy Ukraine assets for cheap, and making the war last longer, means cheaper, and more EU subservience.
Also more debt. The same people whining about the fictitious Chinese debt trap are really silent about how the US are lending billions to Ukraine so they can finance these arms deals, we know what these countries do once you can’t repay, they confiscate all your shit.
If Russia was ever truly pushed to the brink Russia could always nuke Ukraine. There is no real way to win against nukes besides giving Ukraine their nukes back because America did not hold up their end of the nuclear deal.
What the West wanted ideally was the balkanization and re-neocolonialization of Russia. https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/04/17/the-west-is-preparing-for-russias-disintegration/
The “weakening” of Russia is what they considered “second prize,” but they didn’t even get that, because Russia is now stronger. The sanctions have backfired. Russia has severed its ties with the “garden” and strengthened its ties to the “jungle.”
Unlikely. If the west was pushing to destroy Russia they would have provided Ukraine with adequate arms to do so. They deliberately created a drawn out long conflict. Whether Russia has been weakened as they hoped is debateable. It does not yet appear so.
They wanted to destroy Russia economically, not militarily, you know, the usual “bog them in forever war and sanction them to death because we control the world finance systems” and it had a good chance of success, but they miscalculated since Russia relations with China and global south in general proven to be much more robust. It was also first time after 1991 so many countries just told US “no” when they demanded another country be destroyed economically. As result BRICS managed to build their own alternative for US controlled finance system, which is pretty ad hoc by now, but it already works and is being strenghtened.
People planning this stuff aren’t idiots and they knew that there was no scenario that Ukraine could defeat Russia militarily no matter what weapons they provided. For example, back in 2016, Obama declared Ukraine to be not a core American interest and that he is reluctant to intervene in the country, because Russia will always be able to maintain escalatory dominance there.
I don’t think their goal was to create a drawn out conflict however. The idea was to use Ukraine as fodder and then break Russia economically. Western planners fundamentally misunderstood the nature of Russian economy, and thought that it would collapse after they froze Russian foreign assets and put sanctions on. Not only did that not happen, but major countries like China and India snubbed the west and continued trade with Russia. That’s where the whole hare brained scheme started to come apart, but the time this became obvious the west was already too invested to pull back.
The Americs really pushing Zelensky to not accept the ceasefire in 2022 is what mostly made me think they did not plan for victory. There were no new plans afterwards and it has been meat grinder ever since.
It’s bewildering to me that they didn’t have a backup plan. Like they just banked everything on Russian economy collapsing, and when that didn’t happen they just kept doubling down instead of adjusting the strategy.
Realistically, what other plan could they have? They’ve used the same playbook since Vietnam and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but since it always funnels a shit ton of money to the pentagon and its contractors pumps the value of the dollar nobody gives a shit, it was a success by the only metric they care about.
That’s very true, the MIC will be happy either way. They’re looking at decades worth of contracts from Europe already.
The west has to balance providing adequate arms and not getting bombed/invaded themselves. They only do invasions on enemies they think can’t defend themselves.
They thought the sanctions would do to Russia what it did to Libya, Venezuela, Iraq, and many others, and that they’d only need to drag this one out to win it on the economic rather than the military front. That obviously hasn’t worked, so rather than broker the peace talks a majority of Ukrainians want, they’re escalating because they don’t know how to do diplomacy, they only know how to do extortion. They’re talking about “negotiating from strength” ffs.
Only permawar provides for the most weapon sales. The sanctions on Russia was tighter colonization of EU by the US. To the last Ukrainian is opportunity to buy Ukraine assets for cheap, and making the war last longer, means cheaper, and more EU subservience.
Also more debt. The same people whining about the fictitious Chinese debt trap are really silent about how the US are lending billions to Ukraine so they can finance these arms deals, we know what these countries do once you can’t repay, they confiscate all your shit.
If Russia was ever truly pushed to the brink Russia could always nuke Ukraine. There is no real way to win against nukes besides giving Ukraine their nukes back because America did not hold up their end of the nuclear deal.
If the west gave nukes to Ukraine, Russia would obviously treat that as a nuclear attack by the west. At that point everybody dies.
Possibly. Which is the point. There is no way for Ukraine to win unless the west wants to risk nuclear war.
Exactly, the whole thing was a folly from the start.
Maybe don’t give nukes to a fucking nazi government in hopes that’ll bring peace? Why not start with diplomacy and iterate from there?
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