The most optimistic among them are convinced that Russia’s military effort may end in the next two months. They speculate that Russia will run out of the microchips it needs to engage in modern warfare, or ammunition, or even soldiers. Russia’s push for Donbass could very well be Moscow’s last major offensive, one that may have already been exhausted. Could the end be already visible, even when Ukraine seems ready to lose another city from the Russian invasion? Looking at the war as it is today, there is a seductively easy prediction of how this war will always end: the battle lines will move forward and recede, some cities and towns will fall and be recovered, the innocent will be forced to leave their homes. their. soldiers will die in battle, more Russian generals will be killed and, gradually, the Russians seem destined to lose their momentum. With Ukraine benefiting from a long-term strategic advantage and backed by NATO power, time, it seems, will lead to their inevitable victory. The idea is seductive, but it is almost certainly very simple. This terrible war, in which tens of thousands were killed and millions displaced, was never recognized as such by Russia. For strangers, this is a joke. The whole world is accustomed to the constant and perpetual lies and unreality of the Putin regime. Of course this is war! How could it be anything else! You would be right to ridicule such a proposal, but it is important to keep in mind that the Russian invasion was carried out by military forces in peacetime. If Russia declares itself at war, then it will be able to mobilize its people and devote more resources to defeating Ukraine. Careful observers of this conflict have been concerned about this possibility almost from the beginning and now it may soon become a reality. The flames erupted from a construction site after being hit by a missile on June 20 in Druzhkivka, Ukraine.
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Far from an inevitable Ukrainian victory, a mass mobilization could breathe new life into the Russian invasion. Learning from a series of hard lessons, it is unlikely that Russia’s military will continue to commit the long series of blunders that characterized its initial invasion. Even without this mobilization, there is good reason to wonder how powerful the Ukrainian army really is at this stage. While we are constantly bombarded with information about Russian casualties, especially generals and their commanders, dangerously little has been said about Ukraine’s losses. We could very well have fooled ourselves into believing that the Russian losses are high, while the Ukrainian army is relatively unharmed. While we can hope that this is true, it would be foolish to believe without criticism that it is so. This leads us to an increasingly likely scenario. As the non-war continues to rage, the conflict in the east will end in a war of attrition and a stalemate. President Zelensky said the impasse was not an option, but that events on the battlefield were not decided by proclamation. The United States has learned this lesson repeatedly in its commitments in the 21st century. The momentum of the inevitable, of victory, could well be eliminated in a war defined by massive losses. Then, perhaps even without Russian mobilization, this conflict will continue as the humanitarian tragedy escalates. The battle lines may harden, Russia may annex its territory, and the conflict may shift from an unrecognized state of war to a ceasefire that allows exhaustion to lead to a peace that is not at all peaceful. We can not be sure that the war will end this way, even if some people are increasingly afraid that it will happen. Wars depend on battlefield conditions, structural strategic considerations, logistics, economics, politics, and more. We may fall into a trap if we fail to consider alternative ways in which this war can unfold. An elderly woman is being helped on a train carrying displaced people trying to escape the first-line war with Russia on June 20 in Pokrovsk, Ukraine.
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The idea that Russia will escalate when faced with defeat is not new and has been the primary motivator for growing calls for disaster for Russia. At one end, there are those who are calling on Ukraine to make territorial concessions as a means of buying peace if needed. Some believe that this may be the only thing Putin would accept to end the war, and at the same time consider it completely unacceptable. One end that has some chance of success is a return to the status quo ante bellum, but Putin is unlikely to do so in the short term. Ukraine could try to impose this end by sending forces to Donbas, perhaps even to Crimea. This scenario, reminiscent of Douglas MacArthur’s unfortunate decision to approach the Chinese border during the Korean War, could very well be the encouraging move that leads Russia to a war base for general mobilization purposes and possibly other escalating . The chances of this happening are high if Ukraine and its supporters do not take the Russian military and their determination seriously. If we treat the Russian army as a joke and its threats as empty, then we could be in for a big surprise if Ukraine pushes too far when victory is visible. And yet, the most important factors in how this war can unfold have nothing to do with the immediate conditions on the battlefield of Donbass and Eastern Ukraine. An important decisive factor leading to Russia’s long-term disadvantage is its limited ability to renew some of its military capabilities. At the beginning of the war, many worried that China would supply Russia with a war machine. This possibility would be detrimental to Ukraine’s long-term ability to win this war. Fortunately, China does not seem to be doing that – at least not on such a scale as to provoke much public debate. However, in light of recent statements by President Biden in Taiwan, this is likely to change. If China believes that the United States has abandoned its long-term policy on Taiwan or that it considers Taiwan’s fate to be linked to Ukraine, then it may be more decisive with Russia. This would be one of the easiest ways to “kill with a borrowed knife”. After all, the more time and effort NATO has to spend to support Ukraine, the less freedom the US will have in the Indo-Pacific. Cracks in the pro-Ukrainian coalition could play another important role here. At the beginning of the war, there was massive public and political outrage. This was a war for the future of Europe and 141 countries voted in favor of condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As time goes on, however, there is a real danger that the political leaders and peoples of the world will gradually become numb and tired of the war. In the future, it is only natural that the basic nations of NATO should push for greater punitive action against Russia, only to fragment the coalition as priorities change. Already, economic downturns and inflation are threatening the livelihoods of people around the world. With high inflation linked to the Russian invasion, record fuel prices and impending food shortages, some may lose the appetite to support a war that is causing them trouble at home. Rand Paul may have been a lonely voice in May, but he could very well be accompanied by many later this summer, if the poll is predictive. This is especially true if Ukraine seems to be winning the war or if the conflict is increasingly isolated in a single theater of conflict that the wider world finds less threatening than Putin’s initial move to Kyiv. If aid to Ukraine is reduced, this could have dire consequences for Ukraine — and not just on the battlefield. Ukraine’s economy is in crisis, which means it needs financial and humanitarian aid, not just weapons and ammunition. Too often we forget things that have nothing to do with weapons and soldiers, but financial problems and the complaints of others are just as important for understanding the course of war. Time will tell which expert got what detail correctly about how this war will end. But for now we must focus all our efforts on understanding the war as it is today and how it can change tomorrow. Only then will we be prepared for the next one.
