Embarrassment doesn’t win wars. Ukraine is losing—badly. The symbolism of attacks against Moscow and Crimea ring hollow for the Ukrainian people who are being devastated.
It is amusing to watch the subtle yet ongoing shift in the "narrative." The game reminds of Clinton's "it depends on what the meaning 'is' is."
"Gen. Milley on if Ukraine can win: Define ‘win’," Washignton Post, 18 August 2023.
"On if Ukraine can win""Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/08/18/gen-milley-ukraine-tuberville-wokeness/“That depends on what you mean by the word ‘win.’”
“For Ukraine, this is an existential fight. It's a fight for survival. But for the rest of Europe and for the rest of the world, really, for the United States, it's about those rules, to make sure those rules stay in place. What Putin has done is a frontal assault on those rules of the international order that have been in existence now for eight decades since the end of World War II.
"If the end state is Ukraine is a free, independent sovereign country with its territory intact, that will take a considerable level of effort yet to come. And this is a long, very difficult, high casualty-producing war that's ongoing. You can achieve those objectives through military means. That's gonna take a long, long time, but you can also achieve those objectives maybe possibly, through some sort of diplomatic means.”
So, "a frontal assault on those rules of the international order" is not only now a still "unofficial" war between non-NATO Ukraine and non-NATO Russia, with proxies a plenty emptying their economies of waeth and materiel, but it is also an event which has brought BRICS+ into being, dismissed by some and hailed by others, alongside the fact that SWIFT and the BIC will not be the only game in town, and Biden-Blinken-Nuland the only diplomacy to be reckoned with as time goes by.
Define what winning is.
Define what losing is.
Apparently, "it depends on what the meaning is 'is' is."
But Milley, while not leading NATO into a still-not-NATO land war with Russia on behalf of non-NATO Ukraine says, "this is a long, very difficult, high casualty-producing war."
Hurrah for war, "but you can also achieve those objectives maybe possibly, through some sort of diplomatic means."
The narrative shifts day by day.