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Nobody seems to talk about the RU-UA war here anymore. I guess it's because we're saturated with it everywhere else.
Yet given that Ukraine has launched what is unquestionably the largest offensive since the Kharkov surge in late September when it took back wide swathes of territory, I believe a status update is warranted.
First, it is immediately clear that the Russians are much more prepared this time. The area that Ukraine took back in autumn was barely defended by a rag-tag group of volunteer militias. That was a big lapse by the Russian general command, which also led to the big mobilisation drive. This time is different.
Even pro-UA accounts like Julian Röpcke are conceding that Ukraine is losing lots of armored vehicles with very marginal gains. Western officials like the CIA chief or the US foreign secretary have all pointed out that the aftermath of the offensive will shape upcoming negotiations. Given that Ukraine has little to show for their offensive thus far, this inevitably casts a dark shadow on any prospects for large territorial compromises. Why would the Russians give the Ukrainians something at the negotiating table which they cannot gain on the battlefield?
To my mind, the best that Ukraine can hope for now is a stalemate. This war has shown that in the era of ubiquitous ISR capabilities, trying to surprise your enemy is much harder if he's on his toes (which the Russians weren't in the autumn, but they are now). Consequently, offensives are simply far costlier and harder. The Russians had the same problems, which is why capturing Bakhmut took such an absurdly long time.
For those of us who would want to see a negotiated settlement, the reality is that neither side is running out of money or arms. Russia is spending a moderate amount of money and the West can keep supplying Ukraine enough to keep going for years if the decision is made that defensive action is the way to go. The only way this war ends is if the West tells Ukraine to give in and accept large territorial losses in return for a settlement and possibly security guarantees. Such an outcome would be nearly impossible to sell to Ukraine's domestic public and would almost certainly end the career of whoever was leading the country, including Zelensky. Whatever comes out of this war, I'm not optimistic about Ukraine's long-term prospects.
I've become exceedingly fatalistic about the 'outcome' of this war because it really feels like the ultimate destiny of each nation (for the next 50 years, at least) is largely baked into the cake at this point.
Ukraine may very well be able to maintain autonomy over most of its' own territory. But their population has been in decline for decades now. Now add in a few facts:
Lots of Ukrainian men are dying on the frontlines instead of starting families.
Even those men who survive have been deployed for a year+ and probably won't be starting families anytime soon.
Russia has apparently been abducting tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian Children. The prospects of getting these kids BACK even if Ukraine wins are slim-to-none.
I don't see any way to slice it to avoid Ukraine entering terminal population spiral/decline, and it may as well already be there. If the war drags on for another year then even if Ukraine prevails and all the men return and start enthusiastically knocking up women it'll be 16 or so years before those kids can become economically productive in any way.
In short, win or lose I don't see how Ukraine maintains itself as a functional nation as their demographics become untenable to support economic activity. Unless perhaps all the other nations of the world commit to pouring massive ongoing support into the country.
And most other countries face a similar, though less sharp, demographic crunch.
Russia, well, they're slightly more likely to hold together as a country but it seems increasingly unlikely they'll achieve their overall goals for territorial security and so I would assume they will just continue to fight a war of attrition to their last man rather than return to the status quo ante.
IIRC the statistically average Ukrainian woman wanted to be a mail order bride before the war, so it’s entirely possible that the vast majority of the most fertile women leave and never come back.
It isn’t exactly uncommon in desperately poor Eastern European countries for young people to really want to leave, after all.
Geeeezus.
But gets to my point. If Ukraine wins, they've got a decades-long rebuilding project ahead of them, and their standards of living will be comparatively horrendous in the meantime. How do you convince people (esp. females) to return, stick around, and have babies when they could just retreat to a wealthier country and shack up with a local there?
And if you CAN'T convince them to return and have kids, then the country dies out in a couple generations anyway, despite rebuilding efforts.
That said, the thought has crossed my mind that if my dating life doesn't improve over the next few years, the idea of finding a displaced Ukrainian woman who would presumably be quite grateful to not be in an active warzone vs. the current elevated standards of American women has a certain appeal.
Honestly, if you’re a conservative American man like most motteizeans, finding a middle of the roader to moderate liberal by Ukrainian standards woman from a country poorer than Mexico(or for that matter some of the even worse shitholes south of it) is probably a lot easier than finding a local who shares your values.
I've noticed an appreciable number of my old acquaintances who have gotten married to and had kids with women who are first generation immigrants, including from Latin-American or Eastern Asian countries. And by all accounts they appear happy and stable.
Compare that to friends who married a woman they met in college, most have kids now, some don't, and a handful are divorced already.
But the real eye-opener is the female friends who didn't lock down a guy in college or shortly thereafter, a few of whom do have kids now, and they seemingly spend most of their time angry at the world/males for letting them down, and 90% of them are clearly letting their personal health slip, too. I'd be hard pressed to think of any who seem happily single AND seem appealing as a potential partner. Thems just the breaks.
To make my point explicit: It seems like near 100% of friends who married immigrants are still married and currently happy, 75-90% of those who married American women are still married and currently happy, and MAYBE 10% of the women who are still unmarried are currently happy.
The almost inescapable conclusion is that if you're an American guy who is entering his thirties and is single, if you limit your dating options to women who are in your peer group in terms of age, nationality, and education you'll find exceedingly slim pickings. The best partners will have been snagged early and those that remain will have high standards and shitty attitudes to go with it. So finding a woman who isn't a ticking divorce bomb almost certainly does require broadening the search.
I don't know about that. Granted, Burners and medical students might not be the most representative sample, but I've seen plenty of people that couldn't get dates despite their best efforts. To me they seemed like more or less decent human beings. The medical students were short; the burners were autistic and sometimes short as well. I will give you that there might be a kind of assholery that only comes out when these people interact with women.
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Would you describe this man as being evil?
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How does that square with that men convicted for crimes have about same number of sexual partners that men which were not convicted do?
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Also frankly a lot of attractive 30+ men aren't going to be dating women their own age as a preference, which further muddies the water.
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Well said. This was the conclusion that I came to. You should re-post this next time we have a thread on relationships.
I think I've made similar statements before, but I certainly will add that thought next time I see a thread on it.
The dating market in the U.S. is far worse than it was even 15 years ago, and if you've been out of said market for a while you probably don't realize how the combination of women raising their standards to absurd levels while simultaneously having less to offer in a relationship... SIMULTANEOUS with (and related to) millennial white women becoming far more politically liberal than average has made it absolute hell for your average guy to navigate, and has likely killed many mens' hope of ever finding a suitable long-term partner. Not just creating incels, mind, but creating the type of guy who ends up in Andrew Tate et al.'s orbit because at least they offer a positive view of masculinity and some hope of getting laid.
And literally nobody seems to have any plans on how to improve the situation. Indeed, the not-so-subtle cultural zeitgeist instead tells women that they're doing everything perfectly and don't need to settle... ever, and telling men to suck it up and stop whining.
So my TOTALLY HYPOTHETICAL thought experiment: how might this dynamic shift a bit if we intentionally imported, say, a few hundred thousand attractive and eligible female Ukrainian 'refugees?'
I've heard it said that only women and children should be accepted as refugees; the men should have been fighting for the fatherland. That makes sense for wars. I don't know if it makes sense for natural disasters.
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Very slim personal anecdote but I recently got pulled into a major event for a Young Conservative group over here in Australia. Black tie affair, lots of young people etc.
I found it pretty shocking to notice that of say 50ish young (Under 25) male attendees they only had about 2 female partners between them, and it's not like this was a Breitbart gathering. Reasonably attractive, suit-wearing, university & private school-educated young men of decent breeding and yet being a conservative makes you so staggeringly unable to compete in domestic dating circles these days. The very tiny smattering of girls who were there as members seemed to be dating 10+ years older and for either career progression or tapping developed finances.
I've seen the impact myself of having a Hinge profile set Conservative v Liberal (legitimately 99% decline in matches by indicating rightward leanings), though I've been off the market for a few months now due to finding a foreign-born girl who's a sane, reasonably-conservative slender woman.
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Why do you say that millennial white women are more politically liberal than non white millennial women?
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If the past is any indicator, schlubby American guys would marry them, and as soon as they managed to get citizenship the women would divorce them, leaving everyone (except the Ukranians) more miserable than before.
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