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I actually largely agree with your specific points, though the statements I made were to service a different argument. Don't get me wrong, I was hardly implying that the Ukrainians were winning or had a clear path to victory laid out before them. The Russian mistakes of 2022 have been largely corrected and Ukraine is set for a slow and inevitable defeat, as befits the poorest and most corrupt nation (stated in order to highlight the lack of state capacity not to denigrate the Ukrainians) in Europe going up against the Russian Armed Forces who out of sheer pride would - and have - endured humiliating loss ratios to eke out a path to victory. Similarly, my statement on Israel being able to live off the US teat merely shifts the existential burden more on Israeli shoulders, largely in line with all the points you raised.
No, I should be explicit in what I mean: US aid is not charity, or even soft power projection to hurt US enemies. US aid is there to keep dangerous dogs leashed and to keep them from making further disruptions. Unchecked, Ukraine may decide to go down swinging and in turn utterly destroy all manner of Europe bound infrastructure because hurting Russia is all that matters. Similarly Israel may give zero shits about the delicate balance of power in the mideast and take 'decisive' action against Iran, regsrdless of its implications to the Strait of Hormuz.
US allies aren't just recipients of US generosity, they wed themselves to continual compliance with the restrictions imposed from the top lest the tap shut. The converse also applies, if the tap shuts then the 'allies' become free to wreck shit.
I commend you for recognizing a rare piece of insight that many don't realize. Both the premise that a leash can be tugged from both ends, and that military aid is as much a means to regulate as to enable violence.
An example of almost certainly-not-sanctioned Ukrainian resistance to Russia was the Nordstream pipeline explosion, which on further investigation was very likely- and plausibly- a Ukrainian operation of considerably sparse means of not much more than a rental boat, some divers, and far-from-impossible to procure explosions. As a result, the entire German economic strategy was derailed as the strategic premise of Nordstream blew apart, every resistance group around the world gained a sudden interest in scuba certification, and Russia lost its monopoly on under-seas infrastructure violence that it had been trying to leverage until then. Every power in the region had reason enough to cover it and pay it no further mind, not least because the people who would have wanted to take issue with Ukraine for doing so couldn't stop it from happening again, and there ceased to be an economic case for breaking with NATO in favor of Russia when any of the people between Germany and Russia could blow up the business case of Russian energy.
Giant geopolitical and global economic implications, teensy little boat. And not something particularly seen sense, despite impressively deep Ukrainian special forces intrusions to strike deep within Russia.
Restraint can be a function of inability as much as unwillingness, and as much as renting a boat and finding some surplus explosives is relatively conceivable to us, the net frictional effort may be less efficient than remaining in the wests good books in exchange for artillery and A2AD. Specifics on why a mass special force terrorism campaign has not been seen yet is for armchair generals on NCD, since discussing operational or tactical or technical military matters here is generally lacking as actual subject matter experts are circumspect and blowhards are unrestrained.
More germane to the topic of discussion, the broadly philosophical 'why' of these wars, seem to be tinged with aspects of the culture war. I am suspicious of claims that one party is slave to the whims of another, especially if that 'other' is a stated proximate enemy. The real enemy after all are the cowardly democrats forcing Ukraine to fight innocent Russia who champions true hero of the anti-woke (Trump), or the real enemy are the LGBTQIA+ Harvard DEI consultants encouraging the ummah to strike back against the bastion of Western Colonialism. The vague stink of culture war obviously permeates anything, but Ukraine in particular seems to attract a specific strain of aggrieved 'peacenik' who cannot fathom at all why someone would fight back against an aggressor.
When these discussions do not pass the smell test, it certainly invites suspicion that the discussions are not going to be held in good faith. No amount of discussion, good faith or otherwise, will dissuade a party set in their opinion, and the discussions bog down into mutual whining. Its certainly can be fun and even enlightening by accident, but the core arguers are unlikely to budge.
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