![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
One year on, and I am still seeing articles in leftist media focusing on the role the US has had in preventing peace talks and blowing up Russia's pipelines. Articles which then go on to say that, because of the horrible risk of a full scale atomic war breaking out between NATO and Russia, there has to be a peace agreement, if only a trustworthy 3rd party could negotiate one. (tears hair).
https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/02/15/hersh-the-us-and-the-sabotage-of-the-nordstream-pipelines/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/02/16/how-spin-and-lies-fuel-a-bloody-war-of-attrition-in-ukraine/
Yes, of course, the best solution is always to stop the killing and use diplomacy. But sometimes, diplomacy cannot and will not work because one or both sides refuse to negotiate, or are only going to approach negotiations in bad faith. Sometimes you have to have a fucking war and people have to suffer horribly and die needlessly, because the alternative is to let an imperialist dictatorship expand their territory, build up their empire, and create even more suffering and death (and ethnic cleansing and genocide) than any war ever could.
The butcher's bill for World War II is hard to conceive, but the toll that a German empire would have created if it had been allowed to carry out its plans for Lebensraum? Would have been worse. I am not sure what is causing today's leftists to think that negotiating peace with Putin would have a different outcome than it did 80 years ago with a different imperialist power that insisted on conquering its neighbours, but I really wish they would stop.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_for_our_time
And yes, America, as the dominant imperialist power in the world, is happily taking advantage of the war to pursue their own aims. But you can't right the wrongs America continues to commit by letting Russia gobble up more parts of Ukraine, which is what a negotiated peace settlement would mean. And, because evidently it needs to be repeated endlessly until the leftist media stop acting like the only actors that matter are America and NATO: Ukraine is an actor in this war, and they have opinions and desires that matter:
https://truthout.org/articles/a-ukrainian-socialist-lays-out-the-aims-and-struggles-of-her-countrys-left/
The only way to make an empire give up the territory it has conquered at the negotiating table is by arm twisting... and the fundamental problem is that, it's impossible to arm twist a country that has enough nuclear weapons to destroy civilisation on Earth. The only other way to get a peace agreement is for enough death and suffering to happen that both warring sides decide they want the war to end. And, unfortunately, that seems to be a long way off.
After going on about a lot of military nuts and bolts stuff, here's the conclusion of the Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry blog's post last week:
https://acoup.blog/2023/02/24/collections-one-year-into-the-war-in-ukraine/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/02/15/hersh-the-us-and-the-sabotage-of-the-nordstream-pipelines/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/02/16/how-spin-and-lies-fuel-a-bloody-war-of-attrition-in-ukraine/
Yes, of course, the best solution is always to stop the killing and use diplomacy. But sometimes, diplomacy cannot and will not work because one or both sides refuse to negotiate, or are only going to approach negotiations in bad faith. Sometimes you have to have a fucking war and people have to suffer horribly and die needlessly, because the alternative is to let an imperialist dictatorship expand their territory, build up their empire, and create even more suffering and death (and ethnic cleansing and genocide) than any war ever could.
The butcher's bill for World War II is hard to conceive, but the toll that a German empire would have created if it had been allowed to carry out its plans for Lebensraum? Would have been worse. I am not sure what is causing today's leftists to think that negotiating peace with Putin would have a different outcome than it did 80 years ago with a different imperialist power that insisted on conquering its neighbours, but I really wish they would stop.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_for_our_time
And yes, America, as the dominant imperialist power in the world, is happily taking advantage of the war to pursue their own aims. But you can't right the wrongs America continues to commit by letting Russia gobble up more parts of Ukraine, which is what a negotiated peace settlement would mean. And, because evidently it needs to be repeated endlessly until the leftist media stop acting like the only actors that matter are America and NATO: Ukraine is an actor in this war, and they have opinions and desires that matter:
https://truthout.org/articles/a-ukrainian-socialist-lays-out-the-aims-and-struggles-of-her-countrys-left/
The only way to make an empire give up the territory it has conquered at the negotiating table is by arm twisting... and the fundamental problem is that, it's impossible to arm twist a country that has enough nuclear weapons to destroy civilisation on Earth. The only other way to get a peace agreement is for enough death and suffering to happen that both warring sides decide they want the war to end. And, unfortunately, that seems to be a long way off.
After going on about a lot of military nuts and bolts stuff, here's the conclusion of the Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry blog's post last week:
https://acoup.blog/2023/02/24/collections-one-year-into-the-war-in-ukraine/
All of which is to say that unfortunately I do not see the war as being likely to end any time soon. Putin’s remains determined to carry the war through to a conclusion and indeed politically he probably cannot do otherwise, having backed himself into a corner with his annexation of Ukrainian territory he doesn’t control. Meanwhile Ukraine isn’t going to bargain away at the peace table territory that they could still win on the battlefield. There’s a psychological aspect to this as well, I suspect: it would be a hard ask for most Ukrainians at this point, after experiencing the cruelty and brutality of Russian attacks against civilians, to let the Russians ‘win.’ Human beings are willing to absorb a lot of hardship and suffering if it allows them to punish the people causing that hardship and suffering.
Consequently, so long as Putin remains in power – and there is little prospect of him being removed – Russia is unlikely to negotiate in good faith to end the war on terms that would be acceptable to Ukraine (as Ukraine is not going to give up towns and cities they’ve held or recaptured just to end the fighting). Meanwhile, as long as Ukrainians believe they can make gains on the battlefield both to secure territory (and protect the people in that territory from Russian atrocities) and to avenge the damage they’ve already sustained, they are unlikely to be willing to negotiate for anything short of a full Russian withdrawal, which would be politically fatal to Putin and thus unacceptable to him. So while I hope everyone is thinking about potential war termination scenarios, in practice the preconditions for an end to the conflict are likely far off.
And unfortunately that is where we stand a year in to the fighting. Russian forces have largely failed on the battlefield, losing territory consistently since April (but still a net gain compared to the January 2022 lines). Given the severity of Russian losses and the geopolitical consequences for Russia, I think it is fair to say that in a sense Russia has already lost. The question that remains, one year on, is if Ukraine can win and how bad the damage will be once the war ends.