Ukraine – Endless Death

I’ve probably said too much already about the Ukraine War but it’s one of those horrible things that can’t just go away.  So, ignoring it is just denial.  At this point there are no longer any good options.  Both sides have lost so many men that they feel they must win in order not to appear to have sacrificed a generation of young men for nothing.  But one of them will have to.  And if I were to guess I’d say it’s the Ukrainians that will lose.  But I think it will take another year for them to get to the point of collapse.    By then, the Russians will have lost a million men and the Ukrainians will have lost two million.  At that point the Russians will be so enraged that they’ll inflict crippling conditions and may increase the ceded territory beyond the four provinces they’re currently claiming as theirs.

And most of the blame for this should be laid at the feet of the neo-cons who put together this whole war during the Obama and Biden administrations.  They organized and sponsored the color revolution and armed the Ukrainians and told them that with the aid of the United States and Europe they would not only beat Russia but they would become a part of NATO.  The neo-cons saw this as an opportunity to test out all of their weaponry on a battlefield against the Russians without having to risk many of their own troops or nuclear war.  And they figured it would bleed the Russians dry and then humiliate them in the eyes of their own people and thereby destroy Putin.

Well, they were half right.  We have managed to cause the Russians great harm.  But from where I stand what we’ve accomplished is making them our implacable foes for the next hundred years.  And we’ve thrown them into the arms of China and hastened the end of the US dollar as the global reserve currency.  Well done, neo-cons.

But now Donald Trump is stuck with this mess.  That sideshow he put on with Zelensky in the oval office is part of some plan to get the Ukrainians receptive to a peace treaty.  I assume what he’s setting up is a take it or leave it deal where he negotiates with Putin, and then Zelensky gets his side to accept.  Well, Trump likes to negotiate but I’m not sure how much give there is on the Russian side.  I think the things that are written in stone are:

• No NATO membership ever.
• Permanent Ukrainian neutrality.
• Substantial reduction in Ukraine’s military.
• Some proviso against the Azov leadership ever holding power again.
• Complete protection of Russian ethnic institutions (language, religion, etc.) in Ukraine.
• Substantial territorial transfers to Russia.

I think there is probably some give on exactly how much land will have to be ceded to Russia.  I think the Russians are very tired of the meat grinder that transfers Ukrainian territory to Russia at a rate that translates to just a few square feet per hour but also can be measured in hundreds of deaths per week on each side.  It’s a sickening spectacle.

I don’t envy Trump’s job in trying to negotiate a peace treaty.  Not only does he have Putin and Zelensky to reckon with but he also has that pack of idiots in Europe.  The clown car filled with all the globalist “leaders” from Britain, France, Germany and all the rest of those useless countries will be howling and shrieking and demanding that we provide enough arms and money to continue the war until the last Ukrainian is dead.  If he does manage to negotiate an end to the war, he shouldn’t just get a Nobel Peace Prize they should also take back the one they gave to Obama.

But I’m not so certain anything but time will end this war.  If (when) the Ukrainians are forced to capitulate the outrage they will experience because of the brutal conditions of surrender will probably result in a witch hunt for the leaders who were responsible for this debacle.  I’m guessing that if Zelensky doesn’t have a bunker in a friendly nation that won’t extradite him he’s not going to live much beyond the end of the war.

And there will be other consequences of this brutal war.  What’s left of Ukraine will be destabilized and there are hints of Hungary, Poland and Romania looking to make territorial claims based on ethnic enclaves that were long ago added to Ukraine.  All in all, the fallout from this brilliant geopolitical catastrophe threatens to haunt the world long after we’re all dead.  Once again, well done, neo-cons.