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Notes -
Who do you think has the ability to ensure Ukraine gets nothing?
It's certainly no American- the Americans haven't even been the majority supplier of aid to the Ukrainians. The single biggest supplier, yes, the single most important yes, but EU institutions have given more financial aid to Ukraine than the US has given in value of all combined military / financial / humanitarian, and this is without addressing European national contributions.
Even if the US gives nothing, Ukraine still gets quite a bit. And if the cause of a cutoff is Donald Trump- and I'll just note that people have long downplayed his willingness to conditionally support Ukraine to take his opposition as a given- the Europeans are not going to meekly follow him, when both their own domestic-political interests and strategic interests remain with supporting Ukraine even, or especially in definace to, American pressure otherwise.
Why do you think Realism is any friend of freezing the fight along the current lines and surrendering?
Realism would note that the current war is at least the third continuation war Russia has pursued against Ukraine since the initial invasion of Crimea. (The first continuation war being the astroturfed Nova Russian campaign intended to spark a civil war, and the second continuation war being the direct military intervention when the Nova Russian uprising failed and was on the cusp of complete collapse.)
Realism would note that the Russia's leadership intentions and objectives that drove the current war are still unresolved, and thus the motivation basis remains for a fourth continuation war.
Realism would note that Russia's terms of cease fire and negotiations have for years hinged around limiting Ukraine's ability to resist a future incursion, and thus been conditional on the conditional basis for a fourth continuation war.
Realism would note that the center of gravity of Russia's conventional military strength at a strategic level, the Soviet inheritance of stockpiles, are being expended at unsustainable and functionally irreplaceable rates, and that once they are expended Russia's long-term capacity to conduct a fourth continuation war would be removed.
Realism would note that Russia's military edge is ebbing, that it's current rate of expenditures are unsustainable, and thus that relative negotiating position power will decrease away from Russia's favor of the coming years, and thus potentially create the conditions for negotiations that would not lead to a fourth continuation war.
Realism would note that the Western coalition, on the basis of supporting Ukraine against Russia, is actually mobilizing the political and economic capacity to scale military production, productions that must be greatly scaled to meet other major global competitors but which historically have observably not been invested in solely on the notional basis of those other competitors.
Realism would note a great many things that would work against arguments for a ceasefire in the near term.
'Realism' is no more a legitimization of 'what I want' than trying to claim to be a 'Rationalist' means your positions are any less monkey-brained than your opponents.
It would be interesting in hearing why you think the sanctions strategy was a massive mistake for the US, given that the US/European sanction strategy has clearly delivered it's intended goals of limiting Russian economic capabilities (which is why Russia's only meaningful growth is now a result of a militarized economy rather than it's civilian economics), restrict access to global markets (which is why Russia has to pay significant mark-ups and risk-premiums on both imports and sales, and gets stuck with things like it's India Rupee savings), and done so in a way that didn't cripple the pro-Ukraine coalition's economic and political viability in the midst of major economic input rearrangements (the Europeans haven't cratered their own economies in the process of building up import-substitution infrastructure, and negated the Russian energy blackmail threats).
Is this going to hinge on arguments that the US didn't go far enough to try to enforce some sort of global embargo on Russian exports- which it wouldn't have had the political capacity to do? Or that the Europeans continued to import energy from the Russians- when building the physical infrastructure to import from other sources was going to take time? Or that Russia is expanding its economic dependence on China- a factor which has led the Europeans to be far more concerned and willing to distance themselves from China than they were before?
What percentage of Ukrainian men aged 18-35 are dead?
According to the Russians, 0%, because Ukrainians aren't a real nation, just Russians with wrong politics.
To an abstract Realist, not enough to change a position without ascribing to non-Realist values.
The question was not rhetorical. What's the actual percentage? "Not enough" isn't specific enough.
Sure it is. Neither the question or the answers are either an argument for or against a position born from Realism as an IR theory. Realism doesn't have any caveats or rules of 'if X% of your 18-35 population is killed, realism says do [policy], but if (X+1)% of your 18-35 population is killed, do [alternative policy].' The metric only serves if you bring in other models- which was the point of the critique of the appeal to Realism.
The Ukrainians have not and are not losing such a percentage of their fighting age population that they are unable to continue the war. Nor are their losses so grievous that continued resistance clearly inferior to accommodation in what started as a war of national destruction as well as the third continuation war by the Russians against them, whose proffered peace terms to date have consistently been structured to facilitate a fourth continuation war whose future losses absolutely are relevant to a realism paradigm.
Should I assume this means that you don't know?
I want to judge for myself. What is the number?
No, you should assume I reject the potential implied arguments.
If you want to judge for yourself, take whichever number you feel most credible and divide by the relevant 2020/2021 demographic numbers. Since what number you find credible is up to you, you'll need to do it yourself.
I feel it's the other way around.
It's strange to make the argument without providing the numbers. If the number of deaths is something like 1%, then that makes the argument stronger, and if it's 50%, the country is facing a demographic collapse even if it wins.
You provided a bunch of intermediate nodes without anchoring them to the particulars of the situation. The absence is conspicuous, as if the argument were deliberately structured to avoid providing the number.
What percentage do you think it is?
Not high enough to be relevant to the original argument. I believe I already said that, and your rejection of that without actually contesting the conclusion rather illustrates why the number is not necessary.
As do other aspects of your latest position. For example, this-
Is a poorly structured argument for the value of the number in the context of the prior argument you responded to the response to.
For one, it is assuming a conclusion on how a specific number would be used. You say, for this context, that a 1% statistic makes the argument (presumably that Ukraine should continue to resist) stronger, but the same 1% could just as easily be used or presented to argued as evidence of catastrophic damage that must be ended at all costs. For just one example as to how, it is a trivial technique, in general and in the course of Ukraine War itself, to simply convert absolute numbers into %s or %s into absolute numbers to make it seem larger or smaller for the sake of argument. There is no way of knowing what you, or anyone else, would consider a 'small' or 'too big' number for the sake of an argument's strength.
The number also does not imply the distinguishing factor you imply it would. You present an argument that the number is relevant to whether Ukraine is facing a demographic collapse as a consequence of its resistance. The later does not imply the former. Ukraine can be facing a demographic collapse even if it wins regardless, regardless of whether that % is 1 or 99%, if it was already facing a demographic collapse without the war. (Ukraine, and nearly all of Europe is facing a demographic collapse, for factors that trace back to the last century.) Ukraine can also be facing a demographic collapse if it looses, independent of whether it was already facing a demographic collapse before the conflict. The % killed in conflict only matters to a demographic collapse concern if the deaths as a result of fighting are the dominant factor in what determine the demographic trajectory of the Ukrainian nation- but they are not.
This is because the % requested also doesn't matter in terms of understanding the degree of harm at a national level. You are asking for a % killed from a subset of a subset of a demographic (an age bracket of men), but while this is most heavily impacted demographic (conscription-age men), it is neither the most relevant statistic for that broader demographic category, or even the most relevant demographic for discussing the implications for Ukraine's future (the women). It's not even a particularly impactful number in the context of the demographic consquences of the Ukraine war- like the 6 million or so refugees in Europe from the war. Whether the men of your demographic range killed is ten thousand, thirty thousand, or even three hundred thousand, 300,000 is peanuts to 6,000,000.
And this is without getting into which data sets to use, which you have demurred on specifying. So the magical % number could come from highly suspect sourcing, with highly maleable categorization... for a ratio that doesn't mean much in the first place.
Of course the argument was deliberately structured to avoid providing the number- that was part of the critique of the appeal to realism.
Realism is a theory of international relations, not an accounting mechanism or paradigm. It doesn't have a meaningful input factor for specific numbers. How numbers would be considered or used is bringing in other preferred systems of consideration- systems that are not realism in and of itself.
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