About a year ago, I wrote a few posts about the still ongoing war in Ukraine (link 1, link 2, link 3) about why western “experts” and most of the mindless public in those countries were so delusional about the obvious eventual outcome of that conflict. In this one, I will ask a different question. Have you ever wondered why people in some east-European countries such as Ukraine, Poland and the miniature Baltic states are so prone to a child-like belief in the competence of the rapidly declining West. Let us begin by talking about Ukraine. While about 8-10 million people have already left that country since the war started, either through emigration to other countries or living in territories conquered by Russia, those (25-30 million) still living in the territory of that embattled country provide enough military recruits, increasingly forced, to be sent on an endless series of futile attacks against an opponent with many times more artillery, aircraft and other military resources than them.
I saved an image off Twitter that showed how the USA has treated some of its former allies from Colonel Gaddafi to Saddam Hussein. Quite a few met not-so-peaceful ends. If the current president of Ukraine Zelenskyy had any sense and/or sense of self-preservation he would resign from his post and let someone else live under the Sword of Damocles.
I do think there a combination of reasons for why Eastern-European countries have a such a strong child-like belief in empty Western promises.
1) They fell for the image shown in the brochure of what life in the West is like. Ya know the shinning city on the hill, streets paved with gold, and so on.
2) There is propaganda. Then again, propaganda works in part to feeding into whatever beliefs people have already or want to believe. Propaganda can be one helluva a drug eh?
3) They are engaging in a form of magical thinking.
I am sure there are other reasons and likely they are interrelated. Hell, the few I listed are related or connected in some way. Just a few quick things off the top.
I can't stress enough the Ukrainians should ignore some of its Western "allies" and influencers and do what its in its own best interest. Setting oneself on fire to supposedly keep the West warm (or anyone else warm) is pretty dumb to me. Makes one a sucker. They should sue for peace or find some working arrangement with Russia.
Extra note. I won't be surprised if some Western companies get contracts to help rebuild Ukraine after all this.
They may be delusional but that might work to their advantage in the long term against the largely unmotivated military personnel of Russia. If the mujahidin/taliban could drive the two largest powers of the planet out of their country, the Soviet Union and the USA respectively, while being outnumbered, outgunned and wearing flip flops, then the ukranians can do it too.
As I wrote in a couple of posts in 2022, the main goals of Russia in Ukraine are as follows:
1] Destroy as much of Ukrainian economy and infrastructure as possible.
2] Occupy regions with high percentage of ethnic Russian population and make Ukrainians in those areas move west (soft ethnic cleansing).
3] Split the country into at least two regions (Russian occupied part and rump Ukrainian state).
4] Cause mass emigration of younger Ukrainians out of that country.
5] Destroy ability of rump Ukrainian state to fight any future wars on behalf of USA by killing off and crippling as many military age men as possible.
6] Destroy as much NATO equipment as possible and expose it as a paper tiger.
7] Do 1-6 with minimal expenditure of Russian lives and equipment.
Thus far, they are doing everything right. Also, they have no interest in actively occupying the more western regions of Ukraine. They will just keep attacking and destroying those parts until most people in them decide to move out on their own- due to poverty, lack of jobs and safety concerns.
Ukraine isn't Afghanistan. It isn't as if the Russians are in some Alien and unfamiliar land.
Afghanistan, and Vietnam for that matter, go vastly differently if half the population is ethnically your own and the population of your country has a long and intimate history in the region and most of your citizens can name the major cities of these regions.
Kurdistan and vietnam aren’t attached to the European mainland.
This is a once in a millennium chance to remove an otherwise worthless land adversary from the scene.
Every country east of the Oder has been imploding demographically for decades, this is just speeding up the process.
The read army method of warfare is fighting from stockpiles created during peacetime, their tank supplies have been so magnificently eroded that trench warfare is their only surviving play. We hear very little about the daily wastage happening on the Russian side, and Ukraine is purposefully catastrophizing every conceivable situation (run out of artillery shells so you get himars, run out of bombs so you get storm shadows, etc).
We’re going back to the days of Greeks holding back the ottomans. Painful, expensive, highly destructive - but necessary.
By the way things are going, it is USA who is being exposed as a paper tiger. Even the gulf countries no longer care what USA wants or is saying.
Based on the ability of Russia to keep producing new military equipment, combined with inability of West to do so- I am not sure what you are talking about. You might have noticed that Russia has no shortage of tanks, AFVs, APCs, artillery of all types, aircraft, helicopters, missiles, drones. The same cannot be said about Ukraine. Also Ukraine is increasingly running out of soldiers because they keep attacking across open ground without any air cover among many other deficiencies.
Also see my other reply to understand what Russia is aiming to achieve. At the rate things are going, there might not be a Ukrainian state by the end of this year.
The poles will step in, for them it’s a matter of life and death. Russia’s going under one way or another.
Additionally, there are a multitude of stockpiles across the world that can be tapped easily - for one the saudis, Israelis, South Koreans, Ethiopians, and Libyans all have large stockpiles. By the time they run out, American enterprise will have created a generation of simpler weaponry just like we have done in every single conflict. The super sophisticated devices are hard to manufacture, difficult to teach, and are easily diverted elsewhere (ample evidence of Ukrainian commanders selling gear). Right now, if it wasn’t for the the Russian air missiles defenses ,, everything would already have become a target.
World War Two wasn’t ended on the 48 hour news cycle. Buckle up, it’s not over any time soon
If the Poles step in, they will finally find out if Article 5 of NATO treaty applies to them. They are in for a rude surprise.
As far as other countries are concerned, none can match ability of Russia to produce weapons. Also, even Israel has no desire to help Ukraine because Russia would make things difficult for it in the Middle-East.
While this conflict was never going to be resolved in a few weeks or months, it will be resolved once one side lacks the manpower and materials to keep fighting- and we all know how it will end. The real question at end will be- was the avoidable death and crippling of almost a million Ukrainian men by the time Ukraine loses the war and most of its prime territory worth it?
I saved an image off Twitter that showed how the USA has treated some of its former allies from Colonel Gaddafi to Saddam Hussein. Quite a few met not-so-peaceful ends. If the current president of Ukraine Zelenskyy had any sense and/or sense of self-preservation he would resign from his post and let someone else live under the Sword of Damocles.
I do think there a combination of reasons for why Eastern-European countries have a such a strong child-like belief in empty Western promises.
1) They fell for the image shown in the brochure of what life in the West is like. Ya know the shinning city on the hill, streets paved with gold, and so on.
2) There is propaganda. Then again, propaganda works in part to feeding into whatever beliefs people have already or want to believe. Propaganda can be one helluva a drug eh?
3) They are engaging in a form of magical thinking.
I am sure there are other reasons and likely they are interrelated. Hell, the few I listed are related or connected in some way. Just a few quick things off the top.
I can't stress enough the Ukrainians should ignore some of its Western "allies" and influencers and do what its in its own best interest. Setting oneself on fire to supposedly keep the West warm (or anyone else warm) is pretty dumb to me. Makes one a sucker. They should sue for peace or find some working arrangement with Russia.
Extra note. I won't be surprised if some Western companies get contracts to help rebuild Ukraine after all this.
They may be delusional but that might work to their advantage in the long term against the largely unmotivated military personnel of Russia. If the mujahidin/taliban could drive the two largest powers of the planet out of their country, the Soviet Union and the USA respectively, while being outnumbered, outgunned and wearing flip flops, then the ukranians can do it too.
As I wrote in a couple of posts in 2022, the main goals of Russia in Ukraine are as follows:
1] Destroy as much of Ukrainian economy and infrastructure as possible.
2] Occupy regions with high percentage of ethnic Russian population and make Ukrainians in those areas move west (soft ethnic cleansing).
3] Split the country into at least two regions (Russian occupied part and rump Ukrainian state).
4] Cause mass emigration of younger Ukrainians out of that country.
5] Destroy ability of rump Ukrainian state to fight any future wars on behalf of USA by killing off and crippling as many military age men as possible.
6] Destroy as much NATO equipment as possible and expose it as a paper tiger.
7] Do 1-6 with minimal expenditure of Russian lives and equipment.
Thus far, they are doing everything right. Also, they have no interest in actively occupying the more western regions of Ukraine. They will just keep attacking and destroying those parts until most people in them decide to move out on their own- due to poverty, lack of jobs and safety concerns.
Ukraine isn't Afghanistan. It isn't as if the Russians are in some Alien and unfamiliar land.
Afghanistan, and Vietnam for that matter, go vastly differently if half the population is ethnically your own and the population of your country has a long and intimate history in the region and most of your citizens can name the major cities of these regions.
Kurdistan and vietnam aren’t attached to the European mainland.
This is a once in a millennium chance to remove an otherwise worthless land adversary from the scene.
Every country east of the Oder has been imploding demographically for decades, this is just speeding up the process.
The read army method of warfare is fighting from stockpiles created during peacetime, their tank supplies have been so magnificently eroded that trench warfare is their only surviving play. We hear very little about the daily wastage happening on the Russian side, and Ukraine is purposefully catastrophizing every conceivable situation (run out of artillery shells so you get himars, run out of bombs so you get storm shadows, etc).
We’re going back to the days of Greeks holding back the ottomans. Painful, expensive, highly destructive - but necessary.
This is gonna take decades, get over it
By the way things are going, it is USA who is being exposed as a paper tiger. Even the gulf countries no longer care what USA wants or is saying.
Based on the ability of Russia to keep producing new military equipment, combined with inability of West to do so- I am not sure what you are talking about. You might have noticed that Russia has no shortage of tanks, AFVs, APCs, artillery of all types, aircraft, helicopters, missiles, drones. The same cannot be said about Ukraine. Also Ukraine is increasingly running out of soldiers because they keep attacking across open ground without any air cover among many other deficiencies.
Also see my other reply to understand what Russia is aiming to achieve. At the rate things are going, there might not be a Ukrainian state by the end of this year.
The poles will step in, for them it’s a matter of life and death. Russia’s going under one way or another.
Additionally, there are a multitude of stockpiles across the world that can be tapped easily - for one the saudis, Israelis, South Koreans, Ethiopians, and Libyans all have large stockpiles. By the time they run out, American enterprise will have created a generation of simpler weaponry just like we have done in every single conflict. The super sophisticated devices are hard to manufacture, difficult to teach, and are easily diverted elsewhere (ample evidence of Ukrainian commanders selling gear). Right now, if it wasn’t for the the Russian air missiles defenses ,, everything would already have become a target.
World War Two wasn’t ended on the 48 hour news cycle. Buckle up, it’s not over any time soon
If the Poles step in, they will finally find out if Article 5 of NATO treaty applies to them. They are in for a rude surprise.
As far as other countries are concerned, none can match ability of Russia to produce weapons. Also, even Israel has no desire to help Ukraine because Russia would make things difficult for it in the Middle-East.
While this conflict was never going to be resolved in a few weeks or months, it will be resolved once one side lacks the manpower and materials to keep fighting- and we all know how it will end. The real question at end will be- was the avoidable death and crippling of almost a million Ukrainian men by the time Ukraine loses the war and most of its prime territory worth it?
The Ukraine literally is the borderlands. Kill or be killed has been the norm.
The fight will be bloody, and it’s not gonna end soon. Nobody’s coming to help the Russians. When their stockpiles run low, they’ll break.