Is the Proxy War in Ukraine Lost?

[WestCanMan]

https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/11/01/the-ukraine-war-is-lost-three-options-remain/

I've never heard of counterpunch before, but this article is brilliant.

• I started listening to George Beebe a few years ago when he was warning about tensions in Ukraine, the real risk of escalation to nuclear war and the dangers of groupthink.  Back in 2021 he assessed that Russia was likely to invade Ukraine given the combination of the US’s determination to bring the country into NATO and the fact that it was a “now-or-never moment” for Moscow to stop this happening. 
• Beebe says the West has an erroneous idea as to the very nature of the conflict. The US and the Europeans defined the Russian invasion as a “deterrence model problem” rather than a “spiral model problem”.   In the former, the adversary is a kind of Hitler that must be stopped at all costs.

No one actually believed that was the case, it's just propaganda.

• In reality, Beebe says, the conflict conforms to what Robert Jervis defined back in the 1970s as a “spiral model problem” – where you have one state that attempts to enhance its own security by taking measures (for example, Ukraine joining NATO) that another state (Russia) believes are threatening. You get into a dynamic of action and reaction that can spiral to the point where you get into a conflict.

•  US triumphalism after the fall of the Berlin Wall led, he says, to the US feeling it could abandon statecraft.

  “We no longer felt that we had to engage in normal diplomatic give-and-take, attempting to balance interests as well as balance power – the kinds of things that statecraft has involved for thousands of years. We thought that wasn’t necessary. Number one: we know we’re right. And number two: US power was just so disproportionately greater than any other country’s power, we could simply impose our views, whether they liked it or not.”

• That moment – the Unipolar Moment – has passed and we are now in a multipolar world.  There is no sharper confirmation of this altered geopolitical landscape than the fact that Russia, by force of arms, has almost certainly defeated US plans to extend NATO into Ukraine.

• the Ukrainian army, which has put up an astonishingly stout and courageous resistance, is increasingly unable to hold the line.

• This week the fortress city of Selydove fell with scarcely a mention in the mainstream media. A couple of weeks ago Vuhledar, another key in Ukraine’s defenses, fell after months of pressure from the Russians.  Every day villages and towns are tumbling at a quickening tempo. Chasiv Yar, one of the toughest nuts for the Russians to crack, is close to collapse. The Russians are closing in on Pokrovsk, a key logistical hub in Donetsk.

• The Ukrainians face a terrible dilemma.  Most seem to realize the war is lost.  Any attempt at negotiation with the Russians, however, would unleash internal pressures inside Ukraine that could lead to a coup, assassinations or other upheaval.  The US won’t want the war to end before President Biden leaves office in January 2025 – and may prolong the agony, loss of life and the ceding of yet more territory to Russia for US domestic reasons rather than the best interests of Ukraine. Where is all this leading?

Wait for it.... This is a CRAZY indictment of the west if it's true...

• The third option, and clearly the preferable one for Beebe, is that the West changes course and “picks up the phone”, ending its refusal to negotiate.

"The west" is who's refusing to negotiate?

All the f-tards here were saying that it's "a Russian war of aggression against Ukraine", why would "the west" be the ones stopping the war from ending? How does 'the west' even have a say in how or when the war ends if it's not a proxy war?

Edited November 4 by WestCanMan

[DUI_Offender]

 

There is a thread for this subject. Stop cluttering up the forum with duplicate threads.

[DUI_Offender]

PS....counterpunch.org is literally Communist, it is extreme left, and backed by Russians:

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/counterpunch/

For several years, you ahve been going on about "The left" and "libbys," yet you are too lazy to check your sources. You just posted a far left, pro-Russian website article. 

Edited November 4 by DUI_Offender

[WestCanMan]

20 minutes ago, DUI_Offender said:

PS....counterpunch.org is literally Communist, it is extreme left, and backed by Russians:

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/counterpunch/

For several years, you ahve been going on about "The left" and "libbys," yet you are too lazy to check your sources. You just posted a far left, pro-Russian website article. 

Where does it say that they're "Russian-backed" in your link?

• Overall, we rate CounterPunch Left Biased based on story selection and editorial positions that favor the progressive left. We also rate them Mostly Factual in reporting rather than High due to sometimes not sourcing information.

• ---

  Detailed Report

  Bias Rating: LEFT
  Factual Reporting: MOSTLY FACTUAL
  Country: USA
  MBFC’s Country Freedom Rank: MOSTLY FREE
  Media Type: Magazine
  Traffic/Popularity: Medium Traffic
  MBFC Credibility Rating: HIGH CREDIBILITY

It says that they published content from one person "who purported to be a freelance writer but was, in fact, a pseudonymous employee of the Russian government"... So what? Was it just some letters to the editor or something? It doesn't say that they had a full-time writer doing that...

27 minutes ago, DUI_Offender said:

 

There is a thread for this subject. Stop cluttering up the forum with duplicate threads.

Dedicated to what? The fact that Ukraine may have lost the war, and they want to capitulate? Where is it...?

[DUI_Offender]

I can no longer take you serious @WestCanMan.

 

After ranting about "the left" for years, you now are publishing far left articles, to back your positions. 

I think you secretly are a left of centre socialist.

 

 

This should be your new avatar.

Edited November 4 by DUI_Offender

[robosmith]

IT'S NOT A PROXY WAR. PUTIN INVADED UKRAINE AND ZELINSKY IS TRYING TO KICK HIM OUT. DUH

[WestCanMan]

1 minute ago, DUI_Offender said:

I can no longer take you serious @WestCanMan.

 

After ranting about "the left" for years, you now are publishing far left articles, to back your positions. 

I think you secretly are a left of centre socialist.

You just said it was communist, now you're saying far left.... Just what are you confessing to here?

1 minute ago, robosmith said:

IT'S NOT A PROXY WAR.

Why does Zelenski need permission to end it?

[DUI_Offender]

Just now, WestCanMan said:

You just said it was communist, now you're saying far left....

I will give you a crash course in politics.

Communists are on the far left end of the political spectrum.

[August1991]

What a thread: Vietnam and China.

====

You Americans defeated the Communists.

Now, you must face a multi-polar world.

 

[robosmith]

1 hour ago, WestCanMan said:

Why does Zelenski need permission to end it?

Who said he does? You know what happens to him if he surrenders, don't you?

[CdnFox]

To be honest, both sides seem to be at the end of their rope.

Ukrainians are still fighting and honestly the Russian advances are measured in yards not miles, as well as thousands of deaths. I haven't been paying as close attention as I used to but the last three or four battles I read about the Russians took an unbelievable pounding and it's clear that their troops are getting worse and worse in quality.

The Kremlin has said they can't do another round of conscription, and Russia is basically down to calling On North Korea of all people for backup. The logistics problems with that alone make those troops of very limited use.

Ukraine is definitely suffering the effects of this long war and while they may be losing territory very very slowly and making the enemy pay a horrendous price, that doesn't change the fact that they're still losing territory slowly. Admittedly the curse raid on russian soil has been an amazing story and certainly offsets some of their losses but it can't go on forever.

But Russia cannot keep taking these losses. They simply cannot lose thousands of men each week indefinitely.

So it's hard to say who would break first. If the Russians run out of usable troops they're going to start losing ground and they've still got the incursion in their own territory to deal with. Ukraine can't keep going forever.

I think both are going to be pretty motivated for a negotiated solution sometime next year. I suspect this is going to be a severe loss for Russia. They might gain a little territory and they might have a land root to Crimea and secure cry me a permanently, but I think the price for that is going to be Ukraine will indeed join NATO or become an ally that's as close to the real thing as you can get. I think the allies will pour a crap ton of military hardware into that area as a buffer zone against France Germany and the west.

And the war has badly crippled Russia. They have depleted all of their military supplies, they have depleted they're able-bodied men supply, and their reputation and the quality of their equipment has taken a brutal hit. It may well be a generation or two before they recover.

Of course all of this is good for us. The west got to test out all kinds of new equipment, get rid of a bunch of old crap they didn't want, severely we can Russia without losing any men, and discover all kinds of new tactics drones in warfare whitch has utterly changed the game, and with Advanced American development and technology we could see some Of the biggest changes in warfare since the invention of the tank and the aircraft.

So in the end the only ones that really win are neato and its allies. For a relatively cheap cost they basically brought Russia to its knees, and will now have a permanent and willing partner and base in Ukraine that will be dedicated to arming itself against Russia for the foreseeable future. Plus there's the money to be made helping with the rebuilding.

 

That's basically the reality in the Ukraine right now

[User]

14 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

All the f-tards here were saying that it's "a Russian war of aggression against Ukraine", why would "the west" be the ones stopping the war from ending? How does 'the west' even have a say in how or when the war ends if it's not a proxy war?

It is Russia's war of aggression. The West is not stopping the war from ending. Russia can stop this any time they want to. All they have to do is turn around, go back home. 

Seriously... you just spew the same crap in thread after thread after repeatedly being called out for it. 

You already ran away from your last thread where you claimed to have predicted this war... but can't even figure out where your prediciton is. 

LOL

[WestCanMan]

6 hours ago, User said:

It is Russia's war of aggression.

So answer this honestly, User.

After all this time you still think that the threat of Ukraine joining NATO had nothing to do with this? You never heard anything from the peace talks about Ukraine agreeing never to join NATO? You never read or saw anything about the US and other NATO countries telling Russia that NATO would never move one inch past Germany?

I just wanna know how much of this info is actually inside of your head and how much you're denying. 

[robosmith]

1 hour ago, WestCanMan said:

So answer this honestly, User.

After all this time you still think that the threat of Ukraine joining NATO had nothing to do with this? You never heard anything from the peace talks about Ukraine agreeing never to join NATO? You never read or saw anything about the US and other NATO countries telling Russia that NATO would never move one inch past Germany?

I just wanna know how much of this info is actually inside of your head and how much you're denying. 

The NATO thing is a fig leaf to cover for Putin's STEALING Ukraine's huge gas reserves.

[WestCanMan]

9 minutes ago, robosmith said:

The NATO thing is a fig leaf to cover for Putin's STEALING Ukraine's huge gas reserves.

The path to peace was obvious. Zelenski could easily have avoided this war, and now he's burying people as fast as he can, and ceding 20% of his country to Russia. 

Try to learn from it, robo, instead of just spewing your stupid God-damned propaganda all the time. People are dead you f'ing ghoul. Approximately a million people are dead in that war alone, and you just wanna keep pretending that Biden isn't stupid and suffering from senile dementia. You're pathetic. 

[DUI_Offender]

5 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

The path to peace was obvious. Zelenski could easily have avoided this war, and now he's burying people as fast as he can, and ceding 20% of his country to Russia. 

Zelenskyy could have surrendered, and let Russian tanks march into Kyiv, but he stood up to Russia. Most people would consider that admirable, but for some reason, you cheer for Russia to win.

5 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

Try to learn from it, robo, instead of just spewing your stupid God-damned propaganda all the time. People are dead you f'ing ghoul. Approximately a million people are dead in that war alone, and you just wanna keep pretending that Biden isn't stupid and suffering from senile dementia. You're pathetic. 

The amount of people killed in combat on both sides, is nowhere remotely close to 1,000,000 people. Where do you get that fictitious number from? Did you just make it up?

[robosmith]

6 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

The path to peace was obvious. Zelenski could easily have avoided this war, and now he's burying people as fast as he can, and ceding 20% of his country to Russia. 

Try to learn from it, robo, instead of just spewing your stupid God-damned propaganda all the time. People are dead you f'ing ghoul. Approximately a million people are dead in that war alone, and you just wanna keep pretending that Biden isn't stupid and suffering from senile dementia. You're pathetic. 

Pathetic is you blaming the war on Biden when it was Putin who invaded. Duh

He thought the gas reserves would be easy pickings, but Ukrainians proved him wrong. 💡

1 hour ago, DUI_Offender said:

Zelenskyy could have surrendered, and let Russian tanks march into Kyiv, but he stood up to Russia. Most people would consider that admirable, but for some reason, you cheer for Russia to win.

The amount of people killed in combat on both sides, is nowhere remotely close to 1,000,000 people. Where do you get that fictitious number from? Did you just make it up?

It might be approaching 500K, since Russians were dropping like flies.

[DUI_Offender]

21 minutes ago, robosmith said:

Pathetic is you blaming the war on Biden when it was Putin who invaded. Duh

He thought the gas reserves would be easy pickings, but Ukrainians proved him wrong. 💡

It might be approaching 500K, since Russians were dropping like flies.

Russia has 700,000 casualties. Considering the historical ratio of wounded to killed is 3:1, that would mean there are roughly 175,000 Russian military deaths. The casualty rate is 2:1 in favor of Ukraine, so that would mean 350,000 Ukrainian casualties. The approximate number of Ukrainian military deaths would be about 90,000.

 

The total number of military deaths would be roughly 265,000

Edited November 5 by DUI_Offender

[Nationalist]

And the dance of destruction and denial goes on. What a mess.

@WestCanMan thanks for the insight your OP provides. This proxy war would never have happened, had Trump been in the Whitehouse. 

Years ago Trump floated the idea the the USA and Russia should be allies instead of enemies. That idea scared the b'jeebers out of the military-industrial complex. But Trump was right. Such an alliance would have bolstered global power to such a degree that nobody would risk crossing them. It probably would have saved the petro-dollar as well.

NATO and in particular the US war hawks, have been doing as they please ever since the fall of the Soviet Union. And why not? Hell Russia was a mess at the time. They had the IMF and the World Bank buy the Central European countries and tried the same thing with Russia. But alas, by the time they got around to Russia, Putin was in power and he told the west's banks that Russia was not for sale. He snubbed them.

Time past and while nobody was paying attention, Russia rebuilt. So I don't think the Americans thought Russia could muster any resistance and pushed forward with plans to inhale Ukraine, thus cutting Russia off from Europe. But OOPS...they underestimated Russia and today we live with the highest potential for global thermalnuclear war ever. And for what? The most corrupt country in Europe. 

Good work NATO.

[DUI_Offender]

49 minutes ago, Nationalist said:

And the dance of destruction and denial goes on. What a mess.

@WestCanMan thanks for the insight your OP provides. This proxy war would never have happened, had Trump been in the Whitehouse. 

Years ago Trump floated the idea the the USA and Russia should be allies instead of enemies. That idea scared the b'jeebers out of the military-industrial complex. But Trump was right. Such an alliance would have bolstered global power to such a degree that nobody would risk crossing them. It probably would have saved the petro-dollar as well.

NATO and in particular the US war hawks, have been doing as they please ever since the fall of the Soviet Union. And why not? Hell Russia was a mess at the time. They had the IMF and the World Bank buy the Central European countries and tried the same thing with Russia. But alas, by the time they got around to Russia, Putin was in power and he told the west's banks that Russia was not for sale. He snubbed them.

Time past and while nobody was paying attention, Russia rebuilt. So I don't think the Americans thought Russia could muster any resistance and pushed forward with plans to inhale Ukraine, thus cutting Russia off from Europe. But OOPS...they underestimated Russia and today we live with the highest potential for global thermalnuclear war ever. And for what? The most corrupt country in Europe. 

Good work NATO.

This post has been approved by the Kremlin.

[Nationalist]

21 minutes ago, DUI_Offender said:

This post has been approved by the Kremlin.

Poor war monger. You can't dispute any of it, so you try to shame me.

The truth is what it is and that's the bottom line whether you approve or not.

[User]

14 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

So answer this honestly, User.

After all this time you still think that the threat of Ukraine joining NATO had nothing to do with this? You never heard anything from the peace talks about Ukraine agreeing never to join NATO? You never read or saw anything about the US and other NATO countries telling Russia that NATO would never move one inch past Germany?

I just wanna know how much of this info is actually inside of your head and how much you're denying. 

First, you asked a loaded question. 

There was never a "threat" to join NATO. I have repeatedly called you out on this BS argument of yours. NATO is a defensive alliance for GOOD in this world. The only "threat" they pose to Russia is in opposing Russian aggression and harmful acts around the world. 

Second, you keep pushing this lie about not moving past Germany. You have already ran away from several threads on this where you have been called out before. No such formal agreement was ever made and NATO has been moving past Germany long before Ukraine. 

Third, there was never any formal agreement with Ukraine not ever joining NATO. 

None of this garbage is in my head because I am an honest person not engaged in pushing Russian propaganda to defend Russia like you are. 

 

29 minutes ago, Nationalist said:

Poor war monger. You can't dispute any of it, so you try to shame me.

The truth is what it is and that's the bottom line whether you approve or not.

You are the one who justifies this war for Russia, lies, and pushes Russian propaganda. You are the war monger. 

 

[Nationalist]

2 minutes ago, User said:

You are the one who justifies this war for Russia, lies, and pushes Russian propaganda. You are the war monger. 

 

Ya...that's why I keep saying I don't care who "wins" and that a peace treaty is needed.

On this US election day, you and I...I think...are pullin' for the same result. A Trump win. Tell me...what do you think Donny-Boy has in mind when he claims he will end this war before he's inaugurated?

BTW...I'll be shocked if he can do it that fast.

[User]

10 minutes ago, Nationalist said:

Ya...that's why I keep saying I don't care who "wins" and that a peace treaty is needed.

On this US election day, you and I...I think...are pullin' for the same result. A Trump win. Tell me...what do you think Donny-Boy has in mind when he claims he will end this war before he's inaugurated?

BTW...I'll be shocked if he can do it that fast.

No, you keep saying contradictory things. 

You say you don't care who wins, but you have literally cheered them on and all your arguments support Russia winning. 

Your notion of a peace treaty is one that comes with a Ukraine having to accept whatever terms Russia dictates. 

 

[Nationalist]

11 minutes ago, User said:

No, you keep saying contradictory things. 

You say you don't care who wins, but you have literally cheered them on and all your arguments support Russia winning. 

Your notion of a peace treaty is one that comes with a Ukraine having to accept whatever terms Russia dictates. 

 

Trump...what do you think he has in mind?