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Approved Posture's avatar

Another scenario is that the war rumbles on quietly for years. It strikes me that neither side is weak enough to lose nor strong enough to win.

War could continue on a two or three fronts along the >1,000km border. Suppose in a given year casualties are below 5,000 on each side and no more than 0.5% of Ukraine’s territory changes hands. This looks more like a stalemate than a war.

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Philippe Lemoine's avatar

Yes, I doubt it will happen because I think it would be difficult to coordinate into that kind of equilibrium, but I guess it could happen.

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Philippe Lemoine's avatar

I just did!

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Cinna the Poet's avatar

First 90 days seems insanely optimistic!

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Nicolas Delon's avatar

Indeed.

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Dan Hochberg's avatar

Interesting piece.

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Julias's avatar

I think "stream of randomness" for this blog title is correct, as it's not particularly informed or coherent.

The conclusion is correct, but the analysis is wrong. The framing here is that Ukraine's refusal to make concessions is the stumbling block. The concession they need to make to get Russia to agree is to surrender. You could easily get Ukraine to give up what they've lost in return for a ceasefire and perhaps a token force of european peacekeepers in the western half of the country. Russia would agree to this as long as the Ukrainian military is also completely neutered.

Ukraine isn't eligible to join NATO, and won't happen regardless, so I don't see this as a real stumbling block. I also doubt whether legal title to Ukraine's lands are the key stumbling block, although it is problematic. It's whether Ukraine's military should be severely limited and whether there should be more than a token force of European peacekeepers there. If Ukraine agrees to decapitate its military, Putin won't insist on having legal title. If Ukraine gets a fleet of F-35s, then giving up title won't be enough for him.

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Julias's avatar

With the benefit of hindsight, it does look like Trump did manage to severely cut Ukrainian aid. But this just had the effect of increasing European aid.

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Nathaniel Walden's avatar

Agreed, across the board. So if we take as a premise that Trump won't be able to force an end to military aid and the war writ large, the question remains; what will the Trump administration actually do? Curious to hear your thoughts - I'm sure you have many that you understandably neglected to share in this piece due to the difficulty of predicting how all the different chess pieces move, regardless of what Trump himself does (who is an unpredictable guy to begin with)...

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Philippe Lemoine's avatar

It's hard to predict exactly what is going to happen, but if I had to bet, I'd say that we should basically expect more of the same. As I say in the post, I wouldn't even rule out that Trump will end up increasing military aid to Ukraine and the pressure on Russia, though I believe there is only so much he can do realistically before he starts running into opposition.

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Julias's avatar

Philippe -- I'll give you 4:1 odds against an increase in lethal aid from the Trump administration if you'd like to make a wager -- your $200 vs. my $800. We can confirm publicly on Twitter, or get polymarket to put up the bet.

Here's my rationale: The Trump administration has already made steep cuts to Ukrainian aid already, and given that they now regularly repeat Kremlin propaganda, it's clear they favor Russia.

However, Trump will allow the Europeans to buy stuff from US defense contractors for Ukraine. The Europeans are making noises of increasing aid b/c of Trump, and probably in the future they are going to redirect most of that spending to European defense contractors. I think it's unlikely the Europeans give nearly enough to scare Putin into a ceasefire. He must believe he's on the verge of total victory.

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Cinna the Poet's avatar

Interesting, really plausible explanation for Zelenskys recent behavior. The "weird" cabinet picks do increase my probability that Trump is willing to be disruptive and piss people off, I doubt Vance and Rubio are happy about Gaetz and Oz. But clearly peace in Ukraine is not such a priority for him that he's filtering foreign policy choices on that basis.

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forumposter123@protonmail.com's avatar

I don't see the point of not officially acknowledging the exchange of territory.

Would the Ukrainian's really want to retain the legal justification to restart the war to seize the territory by force? If that is the case, what exactly is Putin gaining from such a deal? Certainly not peace.

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Cinna the Poet's avatar

The hope would probably be that it increases the likelihood that a future nicer or less powerful Russian regime would cede or trade the land back.

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forumposter123@protonmail.com's avatar

Why would they do that? What does nice have to do with it?

The territory in question is historically Russian and populated by majority Russians. It's arguable that it never should have been in Ukraine in the first place. Now that hundreds of thousands have died for it, the case for ceding such land is even less compelling.

This seems like a really stupid reason to keep the dying going.

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Cinna the Poet's avatar

I'm just describing their reasoning, and I think my description is accurate. I agree it's not the smartest.

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