Ukraine is making massive headway against Russia right now. Putin’s forces are crumbling all over the front line. So my question is this.
Should Ukraine keep hammering Russia even after they have regained all of their territory?
Because all Putin will do is lick his wounds and rebuild. (if his own people haven’t taken him out that is)
I’m not saying stepping onto Russian soil, but simply continue to destroy Russia’s military until they’re so broken they will never recover quickly. If at all.
What do you think?
I believe Ukraine will lose this war. I do not believe Ukraine can win the war, it is too small and has lost too many soldiers. The only way to win the war with a Russian defeat is through a coalition of countries pooling their resources, or for a country stronger than Russia (which right now looks like only China and the USA) to engage directly. China won’t do that. I don’t believe the US will do it either.
So what would have to happen for me to update my belief would be for other countries to form an alliance with Ukraine, amass materiel, and send their troops to the front line. Otherwise, the US and Western Europe will continue to feed only enough support to keep Russia threatened sufficiently that it will not choose to voluntarily end the war, and enough to keep the Ukrainians in this constant win-a-little-lose-a-little space that keeps them all fighting and not willing to negotiate a surrender.
Do you think Russia continues their invasion if Putin dies?
I think this is an accurate assessment of the past 3 years.
Depends entirely on the circumstances of his death. His death alone? No. War is not primarily driven by an individual’s psychology. Not Russia/Ukraine. Not US/Venezuela, nor Iran, nor Syria, nor Somalia, nor Nigeria, nor Cuba.
I don’t agree with that whatsoever. And I don’t think any one should. This is 100% a war coming directly from an explicit effort to transform the character of Russia.
I think that it’s foolish to imagine that a complex and functioning bureaucracy can manage the third largest military in the world on the whims of single histrionic and delusional person for decades. That’s just not how the world works.
What are you talking about? Entire regimes are held together through dictators for literally decades, and collapse almost instantaneously when the central figure is removed.
Not as often in the modern era as you might think. We’re seeing it play out right now. It’s entirely possible to construct a bureaucracy that has the ability to function without dear leader, and in fact for a country, economy, and military as large as Russia’s, and with the experience of the USSR, one of the largest bureaucracies ever, it doesn’t appear at all as though Russia is held together by a mad man.
According to who? You and the mouse in your pocket? If Putin keels over, this whole thing is over in a week. Russia retreats entirely. If Zelenskyy croaks, same mechanism, opposite outcome. If Russia had been able to just “get” Zelenskyy, like was clearly their strategy, the war is over. They’ve won.
Bet me if you disagree. I want to know that you’ll stand by what you’ve said here.
According to who? You and the mouse in your pocket? If Putin keels over the war will continue. If Zelenskyy croaks, same mechanism, same outcome.
War is not a game of killing the king anymore. The world doesn’t work like that and hasn’t for long time. The US showed everyone how that worked when they showed everyone how they build distributed cellular terrorist networks in the Middle East. We see it with US foreign policy all the time that no matter who is in office the wars, crimes against humanity, and grift just continues and gets worse. Iran is demonstrating it now. Hamas and the PLO have shown it. Venezuela didn’t end the Bolivarian revolution when Chavez died, and Rodriguez is continuing the Venezuelan state in the absence of Maduro.
Syria is an example where death didn’t happen and the regime changed. Why? Because what matters is the wholesale change of control of power. Putin is the captain of a team that all share his understanding of Russia’s position in the world.
The man is paranoid. He is clearly constantly protecting himself against the potential of assassination. That means he’s spent years building redundancy into the state in order for it function with out him.
And again, for a military that large, and a country that large, you absolutely need a mostly autonomous bureaucracy. Individual humans cannot manage things that large independently.