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Notes -
Ukraine suspends consular services for military-age men in draft push
It's been interesting to watch the reaction from Western pro-Ukrainians to Ukraine's sweeping new mobilization orders. The prevailing sentiment seems to be "that's a tragedy, and obviously the draft shouldn't exist to begin with, but what can be done?" Suggesting that it would be better to negotiate a peaceful end to the conflict is outside the Overton window. It's a foregone conclusion that Ukraine must fight to the last man.
There is something hellishly dystopian about fleeing to another country, possibly even across the ocean, and your country of birth is still trying to pull you back. Particularly because women are given a free pass. It's natural to feel like there should be some cost associated with the privilege of not having to be forcibly conscripted to fight against an invading army.
This raises questions about Ukraine's ability to keep their fighting force well-staffed going forward, and also questions about the morale of Ukrainian soldiers. Every conflict has some number of draft dodgers, but I wonder if there are any hard stats about whether dodgers are particularly overrepresented in this conflict? That could help adjudicate the question of whether the Ukrainian resistance is an authentic homegrown phenomenon, or if it's largely being sustained by Western pressure.
So now Reuters is stating that Russia is a "larger, better-equipped enemy"? Really? This is where we're at, after more than 2 years? They actually have the cheek to say this? Every single liberal leftist normie-oriented talking head I ever encountered kept repeating for months that the orc invasion force is completely undersized for the task, their rapist orc cannon fodder is deserting en masse and running from their positions like rabbits, they ran out of artillery shells and missiles, have no food, no gear, no body armor, no tanks, what equipment they have is all a piece of crap etc.
This is nothing new. The pro-war case has long rested on cognitive dissonance, holding these two mutual incompatible views at the same time:
Russia is so weak that one more round of $X billion will win the war for Ukraine.
Russia is so strong that if we don't stop them here, they'll take Estonia, Poland, Germany!
has anyone serious claimed that? Has Biden ever described for example some round as final and sufficient to win the war?
Perhaps not this stimulus or that stimulus, but the implication is that $X will win the war (for some value of $X).
Otherwise, we are just giving money to prolong the conflict, killing hundreds of thousands of young men in the process. And that would be truly evil.
I don't think, in a conflict like this, there's likely to be a binary, clear cut win/lose situation. Western nations providing aid to Ukraine does two things:
So even if Ukraine "loses" it's possible that military aid to it causes a better outcome than the outcome with no military aid. Notably, the second point holds regardless of the ultimate outcome of the war.
In fairness, it seems possible that things could backfire on one or both of these points (e.g. over the long run Western aid hardens Russian support for the war, driving them to successfully pursue more expansive war aims) – one historical example of this might be England during the US Civil War – but generally speaking "more military power" is traditionally thought to improve ability to negotiate a favorable conclusion to a conflict, even if said conclusion is not entirely satisfactory.
I'll add a third point, that Ukraine holding ground is beneficial to NATO countries in the Black Sea. If Russia had pushed to Odessa early in the war, it would have had significant naval control that would heavily impact counties like Romania and Bulgaria. Instead, with Western support, Ukraine has destroyed (last I heard) about a third of the Russian Black Sea fleet. In fact, Ukraine is shipping more grain now than before the war, despite the 'grain deal' being ended, because Russia can no longer affect trade in the Black Sea. This is a major benefit to Eastern Europe as a whole.
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