Posted on 02/16/2024 5:30:03 PM PST by Kazan
The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 26, contains this invaluable insight: “As dogs return to their vomit, so fools repeat their folly. You see those who are wise in their own eyes? There is more hope for fools than for them.” Invaluable because, in connection with the Russia-Ukraine War, the passage powerfully illuminates the current debate about Ukraine’s future strategic prospects.
The past few months have witnessed the dog returning to its vomit in the form of any number of efforts to once again make the case that Ukraine still has a path to total victory in its war against Russia. In professional journals, on influential websites and across the full spectrum of media outlets, observers, analysts and pundits alike continue to inform us that, yes, there is a way for Ukraine to prevail over Russia, expelling the latter from all of its territory, including Crimea.
One might claim that these arguments are being advanced because the facts on the ground warrant them; because the shifting geopolitical and battlefield realities clearly indicate that the military balance is tipping in Ukraine’s favor. As Ukraine acquires more weapons (and more sophisticated weapons), it will inevitably achieve the kind of tactical advantages that will propel it first to operational and then to strategic breakthroughs, culminating in total victory. All that’s required is one more mobilization of Ukrainian youth, one more tranche of Western financial aid, one more delivery of American, French or British wonder weapons.
But the strategic, operational and tactical realities of the war simply don’t support any version of this argument. Ukraine is not prevailing at the tactical level — if anything, Russia’s advantage at there is growing rather than diminishing, as Russia outpaces Ukraine in adapting to the evolving realities of the battlefield. The net result? Russia not only remains capable of sustaining the kind of defense-in-depth that has completely frustrated all Ukrainian offensive efforts, but is increasingly able to mount successful offensives in places like Avdiivka.
In short, Russia is winning the war and there is little to suggest that any foreseeable political, economic, tactical or technological developments are likely to alter that fundamental reality. So why are we seeing arguments about an ultimate Ukrainian battlefield triumph, in the face of all the devastatingly contradictory evidence?
Well, applying Occam’s razor — the principle that “other things being equal, simpler explanations are generally better than more complex ones” — I would suggest that the delusional belief that there is a pathway to total victory for Ukraine is based less on evolving military or geopolitical realities than on a simple psychological dynamic, one best summed up in the concept of “commitment escalation.”
According to this concept, individuals or groups sometimes exhibit a tendency to persist with a failing argument, even as that argument becomes increasingly untenable in light of the facts. This behavior is marked above all by an adherence to prior commitments — sunk costs, as the economists might put it — regardless of their present plausibility or rationality. It is a psychological dysfunction.
Applying this concept to Ukraine explains the delusional belief that despite all of Ukraine’s devastating defeats and strategic setbacks, victory is just around the corner. Those who committed publicly to the view that Ukraine was destined to inflict a decisive defeat on Russia during the much-heralded but ultimately failed spring/summer “counteroffensive” in 2023 have irrationally doubled down on that public commitment. They have, in other words, escalated their commitment even as the facts on the ground dictate that this faith in Ukraine’s ultimate total victory is simply baseless, and that a rational person would adjust their views in light of those facts.
Put slightly differently, the more dire Ukraine’s strategic prospects have become, the more these true believers have felt compelled to concoct imagined pathways to total Ukrainian victory — despite the increasingly incontrovertible evidence that no such pathway exists.
And so, like the proverbial dog returning to its vomit, those observers who originally committed to the “Ukraine will prevail” thesis continue to return to their delusion — ever more manically expressed — that there is a pathway to total victory for Kyiv. But there isn’t. And the sooner policymakers and influencers on both sides of the Atlantic grasp this, the sooner we can get to a negotiated cessation of hostilities that stems, at least for the moment, the obscene carnage that has come to define this war.
And, as Romans 4:18 of the Christian Scripture would have it, we must “hope against hope” that this epiphany comes sooner rather than later.
One month into this the Ukes had a deal negotiated giving them control over all of Ukraine excluding Crimea. No NATO, but a large, neutral Uke army permitted. The long established economic ties were to remain. In other words, a neutral Ukraine would implement the Minsk Agreement. The neutral buffer Eisenhower had envisioned would be re established. The West talked Z out of taking the deal. The promised payoff for Z, total Uke victory. The fool followed right down the primrose path. After 300,000 more dead Ukrainians, a loss of at least a quarter of the Ukrainian population and an additional quarter of its territory, we’re asked to pay the $61 B toll in order to continue down the primrose path to total victory.
What crap. What total crap. Ukraine wants your damned Russian friends to go back to Russia. They don’t want a victory over Russia because they never attacked Russia.
But you know what? This might not end unless Russia is utterly vanquished and defeated just the same as Nazi Germany was utterly vanquished and defeated.
And I don’t want to see any victory parade in Red Square in front of the Kremlin.
If it were up to me I’d destroy them both and erase them from history. The world would be a better place and so would Russia.
“Vlad never closed their factories”
Partly because so much Soviet era military equipment like tanks, planes, and ships were built in Ukraine.
It’s all about money....
“allowing Russia to win is going to send a clear message to China and other adversary states that they can use military force to attack our allies and interests without the risk of any meaningful response?”
Exactly
“allowing Russia to win is going to send a clear message to China and other adversary states that they can use military force to attack our allies and interests without the risk of any meaningful response?”
Exactly
Why aren’t you in Ukraine fighting?
The Ukraine was part of the Russian empire/USSR from 1793-1991. That’s longer than Texas has been part of the USA. One of the MANY reasons why I do NOT “stand with Ukraine.”
The Minsk Agreements served as the territorial basis for the settlement. Pre 2022 borders were to be honored with the Minsk Agreements guarantees for the Russian speakers in those areas. That’s what Putin said. That’s what the chief Uke negotiator said.
You're absolutely correct. Ethnic Russians are the largest ethnic group there. Russian is preferred language. Those in that part of Ukraine voted for a President that in 2014 was driven out of office by an illegal coup.
The delusional people the author was referring to to in this piece are people like you.
You're the one that bet me that by end of this month Russia would have withdrawn from all "occupied" territory in Ukraine.
You're obviously going to lose that bet -- $100 to the current Freep-a-thon is what you will owe.
So, you're credibility is pretty low when it comes to predicting the outcome of this war.
Nobody I know thinks Russians are the good guys in this war. We don’t see a good guy only two horrible guys that have nothing to do with us.
Also, there is no amount of political will that can keep Ukraine from losing this.
‘...allowing Russia to win...”
Who the hell are you you to determine ?
and who the hell are you/we to determine?
Not reliant on your “..independent thought capacity” AT ALL, a total loser bet
You arent really understanding my point are you? The Ukrainians want to fight for their country, and we should help them do that, because if we dont, we are all going to end up fighting directly in a war that will involve us spending our own blood when for an investment in mere money, we could defeat Russia now and hold our enemies in check. And if we gave the Ukrainians the weapons they needed, this war would already be over with far fewer losses. It could still be ended if we resolved to supply them with enough gear to overwhelm the Russian material advantage and save hundreds of thousands of lives bleeding away in attritional warfare, but you cant see that. You think that the best way to avoid bloodshed is to project western weakness and encourage enemies to attack, but you are wrong, just as Britain and France were wrong to think that appeasing Hitler was going to save lives in 1938.
You will know I am right when you sea China invading Taiwan because they think the US wont have the stomach to stop them.
You are delusional if you think the US is going to fight China over Taiwan.
They aren’t supposed to win. They are supposed to die so that inbred NeoCons psychopaths can fight the Russians through proxies. They are expendable Slavs. No NeoCons’ kids will be put in harm’s way.
I don’t care about Taiwan or Ukraine. Same for Israel.
We won’t have to fight Russia. They can’t even take more than a third of Ukraine.
1938 is nothing like the current circumstance.
China will just take Taiwan by breeding and eventually elections.
I have only one allegiance.
Silentprofessionals is hiring mercs. Good luck.
The idea of total Ukrainian victory is delusional
It is a military contest, not a popularity contest. Anything but a Russian victory has been delusional since day one.
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