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What will be left of Ukraine after Russia and the West are done with their proxy war?
It's hard to get good numbers as both Russia and Ukraine lie about everything. But it feels that Ukraine is exhausted and will soon lose this war. My heuristic for this is reading between the lines of the news. Every optimistic story about Ukraine's war effort in the last year has failed to bear fruit. And nuggets of facts go unchallenged, such as the average age of Ukraine's soldiers now being 42.
The U.S. estimate as of August (according to Wikipedia) is that 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed with another 120,000 wounded. I would treat this as a floor, personally. The Ukrainian forces at the start of the war were 200,000 regular soldiers and 100,000 paramilitary. I think it's safe to say these troops have been utterly gutted. The size of the Ukrainian army is reportedly 800,000 today but at this point it must be nearly entirely conscripts. Conscripts with an average age of 42. To channel George Carlin, think of the average 42 year old. How would they fare in a trench? Now realize half of Ukrainian soldiers are older than that.
Millions of people have fled Ukraine. The population (as of 2022) had already declined from 51 million to 36 million within the 1991 borders. It is likely much lower today. We will soon see the first instance in more than 150 years of a country losing half its population. (Either the Potato Famine or the Paraguayan War seem like the last potential candidates for this happening).
What people don't realize is how incredibly RARE this is. The population of other war-torn regions such as Afghanistan and Iraq has skyrocketed. You can't even see the conflicts on a population chart. Syria had a brief decline but has rebounded and is now higher than ever before. The population of Russia dipped during WWII by about 10% but by 1955 had rebounded again to an all-time high.
The combination of low fertility, huge emigration, and war deaths will depopulate Ukraine to a degree that hasn't been seen in modern times.
I have to ask, at this point, why does the West still support Ukraine? Yes, it's very convenient that Ukraine is willing to destroy itself to hurt Russia. But, as a utilitarian, I am very skeptical of the benefits of "grand strategy" type decisions like this. The world is complicated. If we let Putin have the Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine will he then demand the Polish-speaking parts of Poland? No. It's not like this war has been a resounding success. Furthermore, he could die tomorrow.
But the deaths suffered by Ukrainian conscripts (and yes Russian conscripts too) are very real. We are trading the deaths of real people for theoretical future benefits. And we are destroying an entire country in the process. Why not go to the bargaining table and end this cruel and pointless war?
Ideally Ukraine will be a part of NATO as its allies fund its reconstruction. Even better if it means the death of current Russian regime. No better message for every other tyrant eyeing the lands near them.
"Both sides lies" is a meaningless platitude. Perun covered this exact topic 2 weeks ago and argued that Ukrainians are still incredibly supportive of fighting Russia, though they recognize that its going to be hard and grinding. Russians are harder to poll due to fear of state punishment for the "wrong" opinions, but even then, there's less support on the Russian side for fighting the war to its conclusion than there is on the Ukrainian side. He also doesn't ignore all the things "between the lines", talking explicitly about the average Ukrainian soldier's age issue in the linked video.
Supporting Ukraine is an affirmation of the post-WW2 status quo in which war for the sake of expansion will not be tolerated. Russia may fear Ukraine slipping from its control, but the reason Eastern Europe did that is precisely because Russia has acted on this notion of spheres of influence. Moreover, every dead Russian, while tragic, and every spent ruble on military equipment is part of the cost that Russia will have to deal with. No better cost-effective solution for depleting the resources of an expansionist and corrupt system.
Moreover, you know why Putin won't demand the Polish parts of Poland? Because Poland is in NATO. That's precisely the threat of Ukraine after the 2014 revolution, it may join America's umbrella and then it can never be touched.
Peace would be nice. But, and I recognize that I have less stake in the issue given that I'm not losing people myself over the issue, I believe it would still be good for the Ukrainians to continue fighting. I support giving them as much as they ask for and more.
Correct. When the rules say, "every option to influence other countries is allowed except the only one you're good at", your unspoken assumption is that your vis-a-vis will hold back and not just exploit their advantage in every other category, but they proceed to do exactly that, there's an overwhelming desire to just say, "fuck your rules, I'd rather die as a rabid wolf than live as a domesticated version of myself".
Which also kinda explains why Ukraine won't just fold like @jeroboam wants it to.
Well, Russia has problems to win with one of poorest (maybe the poorest) country in Europe that has meager supply from NATO.
Turns out that Russia is fairly bad also at this.
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Those other options are literally all of soft power. I understand the distaste for letting charisma and popularity dictate all things, but if Russian soft influence can't compete, that's hardly anyone else's fault. Get good, as they say.
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I very much dislike the current Russian regime, but I also very much dislike the Ukrainian one. Ukraine is more free in many ways in Russia, but the current Ukrainian regime came to power by overthrowing a democratically elected leader, and once it had come to power, it attempted to use military force to prevent aggrieved supporters of that overthrown leader from seceding. To me that is much the same "tyranny eyeing the lands near them" as what Russia is doing.
Is there any good reason to not see it this way?
Are you referring to the 2014 Crimean referendum? I have qualms about a referendum on a topic directly impacted by the Russians importing their own into that land and deporting the Tatars for centuries, but even setting that aside, Crimea was recognized by all side to be part of Ukraine. It is not the same for a nation to insist its territory remain part of it and a nation to invade another with the goal of yoking the recipient because it has strategic interests to do so.
What makes the territory belong to the nation in the first place? Either it is raw force, in which case there is no point debating the morality to begin with, or it is some sort of argument from legitimacy. But how can one argue for the legitimacy of preserving previous territorial integrity after a violent revolution overthrows a person whom a bunch of the country had voted for?
Clearly borders themselves do not have a legitimacy that transcends all other considerations. If they had, then the breakup of the USSR would have been illegitimate to begin with. So we probably agree that in some cases changes of borders are legitimate.
So the question is, did the government that come to power in 2014 in Kiev have a legitimate claim to all of the territory that it claimed, despite the fact that many people living in that territory did not want to be ruled by that new government?
I do not insist that the answer is necessarily "no". But consider this scenario, by way of comparison. Let's say that Trump gets fairly elected in 2024, no fraud. A variety of anti-Trump groups then rebel and overthrow the Trump administration by force. Trump flees the country. Soon afterward, a bunch of secession movements break out in red states. The new DC government claims that the territorial integrity of the US cannot be violated and threatens military force to stop the secessionists.
In this example, who would be right and who would be wrong?
Of course, it would be fair to say, it is not quite so simple. Consider a version of the above scenario that continues with some nuclear power's military forces entering Texas on the grounds of helping the secessionists. Who is right and who is wrong then?
At the least, I will claim that this is not a simple black and white moral question.
I would certainly hope that the post-Maidan government sought to ratify its legitimacy after Yanukovich fled. If parts of Ukraine desire to secede, that desire should probably be listened to. But I don't consider it unreasonable for the government to assume that anyone wanting to do so has to engage with the existing systems in place to depart, not automatically be considered independent since a non-democratic change just took place. I understand the concern that they wouldn't agree, but there is nothing wrong with at least trying.
Considering that previous referenda (1991, 1994) in which Crimea overwhelmingly voted for independence and then greater autonomy from Ukraine were ignored by the central government, what grounds did they have to believe that they would fare better this time after a government got couped in that was explicitly against their ethnicity and chosen political representatives? (And then, consider the reasonably widespread repressions against the pro-Russian population that even Amnesty noted before almost getting cancelled for it.)
I wasn't aware of this, and I think my comment suggested my lack of knowledge about the Crimean independence issue. This is a fair rebuttal to the point. I don't think this changes my view that Kiev and Moscow's relationship to Crimea aren't equivalent enough to call both of them tyrants in the same measure, and I do endorse the idea that if Crimea wants to be free, Ukraine should seriously consider letting them be as such.
I'm not familiar with the repressions you're speaking of, got a link?
The main repressions story I was thinking of was this, but there was also an older report just shortly after Euromaidan. The "almost cancellation" incident, however, actually was a much later story about the Ukrainian army garrisoning in civilian objects from after the war broke out, which I had mentally conflated with the previous ones; sorry about the mistake.
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See ¶¶ 99–103 of this PDF from a commission of the Council of Europe. The Ukrainian legislature has decreed that a publisher cannot print a Russian-language newspaper without simultaneously printing an equal number of copies in the Ukrainian language. Obviously, it is not likely that a Russian-language newspaper will have many Ukrainian-language readers, so this just forces Russian-language publishers to either waste huge amounts of money on translating and printing newspapers that won't be read, or stop printing altogether.
¶¶ 85–92 point out some other bad parts of the same legislation—e. g., it is illegal for a Russian-language tour to be given to a non-foreigner tourist, and the Russian language can be used in cultural, artistic, recreational, and entertainment events only if it is "justified by the artistic or creative concept of the event organizer".
(I say "Russian", but ¶ 39 explains that the law applies generically to all "minority languages", which most prominently include Russian, Byelorussian, and Yiddish. It does not apply to "indigenous" languages, such as Crimean Tatar, or to official languages of the EU, such as Romanian.)
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This is the standard American viewpoint. I think it's helpful to see it posted here and I value your contributions in general which are usually fairly straightforward statements of mainstream PMC thinking. (I think this is your intention and I intend this to be a compliment).
One of the things I like about the Motte is our ability to debate things outside the Overton window without escalating into purity spirals. Your comments help keep us grounded.
That said, I find myself becoming more and more disgusted with the consensus on Ukraine. It seems Pollyannish beyond all belief. Especially the idea that Ukraine is going to reconquer the Russian speaking parts of Ukraine or Crimea and then what? Deport the citizens? Occupy as a hostile force with US aid? Neoconservative nation building has resulted in so much death and destruction and for what? Sometimes I think we just have to let countries do what they will.
Now, there are times when I think it makes sense for the US to flex its muscles a little. But only when it can do so in a LIMITED way with BOUNDED casualties. For example, the US should intervene if Venezuela decides to invade Guyana. We could do it with zero US casualties and very few Venezuelan ones. I'd say the First Gulf War would be the outer limit of justifiable intervention.
To allow Ukraine to be destroyed for a theory is not worth it IMO. We had our chance to win, and we couldn't do it. Russia beat the sanctions and stopped the counterattack. Now it's a meat grinder. How many more young men must die for a theory of US world order?
Those are parts that all sides agreed were Ukraine's back when the USSR broke down. I have no reason to think Ukraine is going to engage in pogroms or other repression against its ethnic Russians. If they want to leave, so be it, but I'm not expecting a reverse Holodomor.
I have no problem withe ethnic Russians in Ukraine asking to secede. But that land first needs to be returned to Ukraine, and then we can go on.
This is the naturalistic fallacy. Since imperialist powers have a tendency to naturally want to expand, we ought to not interfere too much, or so it goes. I reject this argument entirely. We can and frequently do insist that people not follow through on natural desires - rapists do not get to escape punishment simply because they felt the very natural desire for sex. This holds for nations and their leaders just as much.
What theory are you even referring to? The idea that Russia will collapse? I said that would be nice, not that it would happen. If Russia fucks off and gives Ukraine everything including Crimea back, I'm happy with that too. Russia's regime imploding would be superogatory.
Secondly, it is unfortunate that the Ukrainians are disproportionately suffering in this conflict. But that's literally how reality works - war affects the people near it, not the people away from it. If China invades Taiwan, the Taiwanese will suffer more than anyone else. If they all fled, people would call them cowards for not being willing to defend themselves.
Thirdly, you should watch Perun's videos on Ukraine. He's done a fairly good job of arguing that Ukraine can win (not easily, but still) if the West provides far more support. Russia is holding for now, but they can't do it forever. Either more people will have to be recruited, or more spending will have to go towards the war. My understanding is that they plan to spend a third of their total budget on the war in 2024.
It may take years, but I do think that Russia can be defeated. At horrendous cost, yes, but the tree of liberty requires the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Hey I'm getting a taste of what it's like to be a liberal on this forum! Lot's of pushback and it's getting tiring. But I'll soldier on.
It's just so far out of the realm of possibility that Ukraine captures Crimea, let alone the other lands that were taken. It would cause hundreds of thousands of military deaths on both sides. And hundreds of billions of dollars. Minimum.
The theory that if we don't stop Putin here he'll take over Poland, then the Baltics, then the world! It's Hitler at Munich all over again unless we DO SOMETHING!
Yes, if we spend a couple trillion dollars and send in troops we can push Russia back to the 1991 borders. Maybe there won't even be a nuclear exchange. How much of the cost are you personally willing to bear? Would you spend $10k of your own money, $100k, volunteer in Ukraine, fight in Ukraine?
I don't have any illusions about the sheer difficulty of even coming close to Crimea, let alone actually taking it. This war is going to be slow, I accept that. I recognize that a lot of people have died and many more will continue to die. As for money, the US is drowning in it. If that can be thrown around to send Russia on a path away from its current one (and hopefully not one even worse than this), that's a wise investment.
I have no idea who you're even referring to or how popular this conception even is. The stronger argument you should contend with is the message this sends to every other wannabe conquerer in the world, in particular China.
The odds of nuclear exchange are very, very low. You should look up Russia's nuclear doctrine, it states that it won't use those nukes unless its actual core territory is threatened. What it has taken in Georgia might qualify, Crimea and the other Ukrainian gains are highly unlikely to count.
If I could donate $10k and be guaranteed that enough people would do so to ensure Ukraine is stocked to the gills on modern military tech? I think that would be a reasonable offer. I have human impulses that keep me from doing as much, but I can't really justify those. I am unlikely to have $100k any time soon, but depending on how much of my savings that would translate to, sure.
As for volunteering or enlisting? I'm a homebody. Not really my thing, and I wouldn't change that any time soon. But I admitted as much in my original comment to you, I said I have very little personal stake in the conflict. The closest is having a Ukrainian friend.
I'll take you at your word. I'm honestly a bit flabbergasted that someone would spend $10k (a large amount of their net worth) on trying to win a war that they have little personal stake in, even acknowledging that it will take years and kill presumably hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
I'll take it as a sign that passions run very high on this issue.
For my own part, I think the US should immediately broker talks between Russia and Ukraine to end the war, but I am not willing to donate $10k to help make it happen.
I have significant personal stake in it (I live in Poland).
Maybe we should hold it in Budapest? ( see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum )
Putin's promises are basically worthless and they refuse to climb down from maximalist goals of destruction of Ukraine as a state.
As a person with a stake in it, what percentage of your net worth have you pledged? Are you willing to fight?
Yes. Peace is so valuable that we should be willing to engage even with dishonest actors.
Russia has lost 100,000 soldiers so far. By the time they lick their wounds, Putin will be dead, and the world will be freaking out over some different crisis. But the dead soldiers will still be dead. They won't get the chance to marry or watch their children grow. Their mothers will still mourn the child who grew up to become a young man and then had his future cut short.
People are not chessboard pieces. The cost to war is high and the benefits uncertain.
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Well, it's not as much as you imagine. My expenses are low and I work a tech job, so $10k isn't too problematic for the time being. But that's my commitment to the current international order. I find that order valuable and want it to continue existing, so material support makes perfect sense.
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...Without touching America. Which is another way of describing the crystallization of tensions between nuclear-armed states that can only be resolved by armed conflict, of steering toward a situation where conflict is both inevitable and increasingly existential.
I have no idea what your point is. I don't see any issue with America exporting security to nations it doesn't border, especially when those nations have neighbors who have less-than-ideal respect for things like the sanctity of national borders in the current status quo.
Why not declare all of Russia except the room Putin currently occupies "under America's umbrella", where it can never be touched?
America's Umbrella works because it's a declaration that the things under it cannot be interfered with, "or else". "Or else" is an acceptable circumstance under some scenarios. The acceptability of an "or else" scenario can be directly manipulated by technology and engineering, among other things. Overuse of "Or Else" greatly incentivizes such engineering.
Overwhelming advantages have existed before, and have observably gone away before. thinking that they can't go away seems to make them go away faster.
I don't think it can't go away at all, but it seems to me like the US is sitting in a pretty comfortable lead against Russia and China. It also has a great many people working on ensuring that gap doesn't shrink and ideally expands much more. That's ignoring all the nations in the world which benefit from the US-backed order and thus also support it, either by having market ties or even agreeing to buy American military goods at a scale which makes those units cost less.
We place our bets and take our chances.
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