Has anyone done a decent job explaining what the most likely outcomes actually are?
https://acoup.blog/2022/02/25/miscellanea-understanding-the-...
If anything, this is a return to historical tension levels between the West and Russia.
If poster feels tension, do something to prepare. Whatever that means to them, and whatever gives them comfort.
There are never any true "winners" of a war, it will costs millions, the Russian people have greatly suffered (and will continue to for years as a result of this), many Ukrainians have equally suffered and lost their lives.
It will also have an impact on the worlds economy (to what extent, I don't know, I'm not an expert).
What a waste.
My prayers goes out to all those suffering.
There is only one outcome here: Ukraine becomes a Russian client state.
Russia then decouples from the West. Other African and Asian countries start thinking in similar terms. You cannot have the US and Europe determine your national security interests by using the threat of sanctions as a Damocles sword all the time.
Russia controls the second most powerful military on the planet. Any suggestion that they will be defeated in Ukraine is wishful thinking.
The US is not Russia and Bush/Obama/Trump/Biden is not Putin. While no one can predict what he is thinking, the Second Chechen War could be a template if the Ukrainian leadership does not yield.
I, too, can needlessly zoom in to try and refute any comparisons to other situations.
If anything, not being applicable to Afghanistan is even worse for Russia, considering how little international support Afghanistan received, and how much worse at urban warfare the Russian military is compared to the US military.
It is not about random comparisons but the will to follow through on what must be done. The US had no real stake in Afghanistan. Russia did in Chechnya and it does in Ukraine.
We will know in a few weeks what his plan is as it is executed on the ground.
And no, we won't have any clue about what "his" plan was, because it's already failed. Now we will see how Russia's military reacts to initial failure.
You don't win insurgencies, especially when people are defending their homes and money and material is coming from outside.
Who are they going to sell their oil and gas to, then?
The world is full of countries who want oil and gas. Even the US and Europe have left open a big hole in their sanctions for oil/gas supplies because they need Russian fossil fuels.
So they’re going to replace “selling to the highest bidder” with “selling to the 10th highest bidder”. That’ll do wonders for Russia’s economy, I’m sure.