All discussions about Ukraine, particularly the tentative Istanbul peace talks, remind me of the 1939 film adaption of Gone With the Wind. Early in the movie, the southern gentry learn that President Lincoln is building an army to attack them and are enraged. The shrewd and self-serving scallywag Rhett Butler tries to persuade the other men that going to war is crazy because the North has vastly superior industry and many times more guns. But his warnings are ignored and the Southerners ride off to battle, completely convinced they’ll win before Christmas.
In the end, the Southern cause wasn’t just defeated, it was utterly destroyed, and the young male aristocracy wiped out. Yes the North suffered devastating losses too, but they were big enough to eat those losses and keep going, while the South could not. They just blew through their finite pool of officers and soldiers until there was somewhat literally not enough able men left to fight.
Ukraine and the American Confederacy have a lot in common. If social media existed in the 1860s, no doubt there would be Englishmen commenting “haha the US has the second best army in the US.” Or insist that the US uses human wave attacks of Irish and Negro cannon fodder. When the Sioux revolted in Minnesota, the English would probably write 10,000 word essays on Quora about how the Indian freedom fighters are about to capture Washington.
The main thing is that wars are won by superior numbers and firepower. A small country can win only if they deal the bigger adversary a bloody nose and quickly negotiate a peace treaty. This must be done while the enemy population is still arguing amongst themselves and haven’t mobilized for war. After dissent has been placated and/or silenced and the economy mobilized, it is too late. The smaller country will be crushed, even if it takes 4 years to happen, it will eventually happen.
Peace talks in March-April 2022 was Ukraine’s big window of opportunity to walk away with a negotiated settlement they could market as a victory. Now there is no way to go back to the negotiating table and claim a victory. Any deal Russia offers now will be far worse than what was offered three years ago.
Another and perhaps larger problem is that the negotiation isn’t even being initiated by Ukraine, but by the USA. I have said this repeatedly, that the war would end when the USA lost interest in participating for whatever reason. And note I was saying this even when I was convinced that Biden was going to have a second term. My assessment went beyond whoever happened to be president, the US deep state would just get tired of the conflict and want negotiations. I said this, and the slavaukrainiis screamed that it was just Russian propaganda. And yet here we are.
Ian Kummer
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An alternative the Ukrainians might be hoping for is that they can be the Viet Cong against the American military machine, or the Afghans against the Soviets, holding out and inflicting enough damage over the long term that eventually their adversary’s population grows weary of the whole thing.
But I think that would be a misunderstanding of the Russian mindset, who have quite justifiably come to see this war as part of a larger attack on their very existence.
… an attack on their very existence in a way that Vietnam and Afghanistan were not, from the perspective of the more powerful participant.
The Viet Cong represented the Vietnamese people, and this was a struggle for national liberation.
In Ukraine, everybody speaks Russian, and about half speak Ukrainian.
Only 20% wanted to be in NATO according to 2014 polls.
Self-identification of ethnic origin has varied wildly in the past with the political tides.
Large numbers in Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, and Odessa wanted independence in 2014, like the LDNR.
Ukraine is not a landscape of villages the way Vietnam was. People depend on modern infrastructure.
Russia is not an alien culture moving in across thousands of miles of sea — it is completely compatible and familiar.
In short, the situations are not comparable.
People do way too much comparison of historical situations without thinking about how superficial analogies are meaningless.