Big_Zucchini
Well-Known Member
On longevity of wars and negotiations:
Some wars are short. Some aren't. The war in Ukraine is just one instance of a much larger, longer conflict that started before anyone here was born and unlikely to end when the fighting in Ukraine stops.
Wars are also usually initiated by one or more parties, rarely by accident. Therefore for their end to last, they must be decisive.
What does it mean for Russia to be decisive? I do not know. They want the entirety of Ukraine but I assume their ambitions are larger.
What does it mean for Ukraine to be decisive? Is it to simply end the war? No.
Is it to crush Russia's military so hard it will take many years to restore? Many might believe so, but I don't.
Or perhaps to negotiate a freeze and have NATO deploy massive forces as peacekeepers? Been there done that, I know it doesn't work.
One theory is that for a war to be decisive in the absence of objectives, one must either become inherently stronger, or the other become inherently weaker. Becoming inherently stronger is something difficult to quantify.
I'll use Israel as an example. In the Yom Kippur War on 1973 it became inherently stronger by obtaining the US as an ally. Such disparity of wealth and power meant that even as US power declines, it's still an immensely powerful ally. But did the Arabs become inherently weaker in the wars before that? No, and the result is clear - they attacked again and again.
But Syria in 2025 is an example of an adversary soon to become inherently weaker, by forcing its division into multiple autonomous regions so that there will not be a single unified mass called Syria that could pose a threat to Israel or other neighbors in the forseeable future.
Does building a defense industry or ruining the adversary's a method of obtaining inherent advantage? No. Because as soon as war ends, defense industries are dismantled, while a productive people can restore theirs.
Negotiations themselves, even if successful, rarely decide the conflict. And as I said, in the absence of decisive victory, another war is soon to come. Example: Minsk agreements. They ultimately failed not because Russia is unreliable, but because the west considered it an end rather than a pause. It cannot end without decisive action which as of 2025, never came.
Also, negotiations are typically intertwined in the war itself. The progress on the ground is itself much of the negotiations work. It creates the leverage. Other forms of leverage can be political, economical etc, but the reality on the ground is the most effective.
In the context of Ukraine, there is simply nothing really to negotiate with. Realistically both sides would much prefer to have some clear edge, just to make negotiations possible. Europe's neglect of its defense means any security guarantees provided by it are likely void, and so Ukraine's leverage vastly decreases. The US pushes a policy of strengthening Europe and making it more independent by threatening to leave it, so that lowers the US's leverage and in turn once again Ukraine's.
This not so good position means that even if the negotiations were real, which IMO they're not (but a facade), then prospects of success are practically none.
Some wars are short. Some aren't. The war in Ukraine is just one instance of a much larger, longer conflict that started before anyone here was born and unlikely to end when the fighting in Ukraine stops.
Wars are also usually initiated by one or more parties, rarely by accident. Therefore for their end to last, they must be decisive.
What does it mean for Russia to be decisive? I do not know. They want the entirety of Ukraine but I assume their ambitions are larger.
What does it mean for Ukraine to be decisive? Is it to simply end the war? No.
Is it to crush Russia's military so hard it will take many years to restore? Many might believe so, but I don't.
Or perhaps to negotiate a freeze and have NATO deploy massive forces as peacekeepers? Been there done that, I know it doesn't work.
One theory is that for a war to be decisive in the absence of objectives, one must either become inherently stronger, or the other become inherently weaker. Becoming inherently stronger is something difficult to quantify.
I'll use Israel as an example. In the Yom Kippur War on 1973 it became inherently stronger by obtaining the US as an ally. Such disparity of wealth and power meant that even as US power declines, it's still an immensely powerful ally. But did the Arabs become inherently weaker in the wars before that? No, and the result is clear - they attacked again and again.
But Syria in 2025 is an example of an adversary soon to become inherently weaker, by forcing its division into multiple autonomous regions so that there will not be a single unified mass called Syria that could pose a threat to Israel or other neighbors in the forseeable future.
Does building a defense industry or ruining the adversary's a method of obtaining inherent advantage? No. Because as soon as war ends, defense industries are dismantled, while a productive people can restore theirs.
Negotiations themselves, even if successful, rarely decide the conflict. And as I said, in the absence of decisive victory, another war is soon to come. Example: Minsk agreements. They ultimately failed not because Russia is unreliable, but because the west considered it an end rather than a pause. It cannot end without decisive action which as of 2025, never came.
Also, negotiations are typically intertwined in the war itself. The progress on the ground is itself much of the negotiations work. It creates the leverage. Other forms of leverage can be political, economical etc, but the reality on the ground is the most effective.
In the context of Ukraine, there is simply nothing really to negotiate with. Realistically both sides would much prefer to have some clear edge, just to make negotiations possible. Europe's neglect of its defense means any security guarantees provided by it are likely void, and so Ukraine's leverage vastly decreases. The US pushes a policy of strengthening Europe and making it more independent by threatening to leave it, so that lowers the US's leverage and in turn once again Ukraine's.
This not so good position means that even if the negotiations were real, which IMO they're not (but a facade), then prospects of success are practically none.
