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Notes -
A few things:
-Regarding your point about the Vietnam War, escalation with China was a serious concern and explains a lot of the half-hearted prosecution of the war that you see from the United States. The Korean War was only about 15 years before Vietnam and there was a lot of fear that if North Vietnam was invaded you might see two million Chinese “volunteers” flood across the border like the last time. It was also one of the main things that prevented the United States from “pulling a Watchmen” and using nuclear weapons to end the conflict. It was assumed that if the United States used nuclear weapons the Chinese would retaliate by giving North Vietnam or the NLF nuclear weapons and short range delivery platforms to attack US bases in the region.
-Regarding “Option C” this is only a bitter pill to swallow if you assume that Ukraine would win an attritional conflict, or at least keep their heads above water. They won’t. Ukraine is taking enough casualties that it’s affecting their force structure. They can’t furlough anyone who isn’t seriously injured, and it’s increasingly getting to the point that they can’t even rotate out brigades on the front line. They have to keep them their until they are completely destroyed. We are rapidly progressing towards a Germany 1918 complete operational collapse of the Ukrainian army.
-Also regarding “Option C”, the front line is increasingly not static. 80 percent of Russian territorial gains made in the last two years have been made in the last three months. In another six months the Russians will likely have closed the Kursk salient, and taken both Pokrovsk and Chasiv Yar. After that they are past urban fortresses and bunker complexes and its cattle-country all the way to Kyiv.
I agree -- my point was it's bitter compared to actually equipping them actually fight to win -- with the permission to win.
I know it's a lot of assumptions based solely on conjecture, but I would bet that in a timeline where Harris won the election that the amount of aid and weapons would be proportional to the likelihood of Ukraine losing. Other than the thunder runs around Kharkiv and Kherson, there have been no really large-scale changes in land holdings. Even the incursion into Kursk isn't that significant land-wise -- basically one small town. The reason I make this argument is that every increase in the lethality of aid from the West was made seemingly perfectly proportional to ensure nothing changes.
The core of my argument is that continuing on this path of "just enough for stalemate" is the worst option for Ukraine, despite the fact that everyone seems to be for it based on their actions. Even if Russia doesn't take additional major cities, nothing is gained by not going for peace at this point. Worst still if Russia gains the initiative as you suggested and starts making real gains -- then you just have a smaller Ukraine and still more fighting and death. I don't see how that is a better option for them.
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