"By contrast, stalemates lead to protracted negotiations".
The Russian "special military operation" in Ukraine is not facing stalemate. On the contrary, the Russians have already won decisively. This may be hard to understand for most Westerners, who do not grasp the extent to which war has changed since WW2 and Korea, and who may believe that the invasion of Iraq was a serious modern war rather than a one-sided "turkey shoot".
The dominance of missiles and drones, together with the sophisticated American and NATO intelligence-gathering system that has been put at the disposal of Kiev, makes traditional "big arrow" offensive prohibitively expensive in soldiers' lives and loss of vehicles. Therefore, although the forces on both sides are very large and the front extremely long, operations are almost always conducted piecemeal, using units of a few dozen and sometimes only a handful of men. That suits the Russians well enough, as they have no need to hurry. Their goal is not to win territory, but to compel the Kiev regime to surrender.
Both militarily and morally, the West has no say at all in the matter. NATO has successively sent all its "Wunderwaffen" to Ukraine, only to see them all go up in flames. (Russian soldiers compete for special bonuses and the honour of destroying hyped Western machines such as Abrams tanks and F-16s). Fighting Russia in Ukraine is a fool's game that flies in the face of all three of Field-Marshal Lord Montgomery's laws of war:
1. Never march on Moscow.
2. Never fight a land war in Asia.
3. Never march on Moscow.
If Texas had seceded from the USA, and the US armed forces were fighting to force it to submit, would it make sense for Russia to support Texas and hope to defeat the USA? The situation is precisely analogous, except that the Russian armed forces have better weapons and morale than the American, and are backed by a far more powerful and reliable military industry.
Last but not least, the USA has no business and no moral right to interfere in Ukraine. The following map may help to make the point.
"Decisive German military defeat was the pre-condition to both the punitive Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and then the military occupation and reparations imposed by the Potsdam Agreement of 1945. By contrast, stalemates lead to protracted negotiations".
Actually, the German surrender in WW1 was caused not by "decisive military defeat" but mainly by the British naval blockade which was starving German civilians - and which was continued well into 1919 until the Treaty of Versailles was signed. As many as 763,000 German civilians died as a result of the blockade during the war, and 100,000 after the armistice.
This was one of the principal causes of WW2, as most Germans never forgave the Allies for forcing the German government's hand by starving its civilians.
"By contrast, stalemates lead to protracted negotiations".
The Russian "special military operation" in Ukraine is not facing stalemate. On the contrary, the Russians have already won decisively. This may be hard to understand for most Westerners, who do not grasp the extent to which war has changed since WW2 and Korea, and who may believe that the invasion of Iraq was a serious modern war rather than a one-sided "turkey shoot".
The dominance of missiles and drones, together with the sophisticated American and NATO intelligence-gathering system that has been put at the disposal of Kiev, makes traditional "big arrow" offensive prohibitively expensive in soldiers' lives and loss of vehicles. Therefore, although the forces on both sides are very large and the front extremely long, operations are almost always conducted piecemeal, using units of a few dozen and sometimes only a handful of men. That suits the Russians well enough, as they have no need to hurry. Their goal is not to win territory, but to compel the Kiev regime to surrender.
Both militarily and morally, the West has no say at all in the matter. NATO has successively sent all its "Wunderwaffen" to Ukraine, only to see them all go up in flames. (Russian soldiers compete for special bonuses and the honour of destroying hyped Western machines such as Abrams tanks and F-16s). Fighting Russia in Ukraine is a fool's game that flies in the face of all three of Field-Marshal Lord Montgomery's laws of war:
1. Never march on Moscow.
2. Never fight a land war in Asia.
3. Never march on Moscow.
If Texas had seceded from the USA, and the US armed forces were fighting to force it to submit, would it make sense for Russia to support Texas and hope to defeat the USA? The situation is precisely analogous, except that the Russian armed forces have better weapons and morale than the American, and are backed by a far more powerful and reliable military industry.
Last but not least, the USA has no business and no moral right to interfere in Ukraine. The following map may help to make the point.
https://www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/EuropeMapMW.jpg
"Decisive German military defeat was the pre-condition to both the punitive Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and then the military occupation and reparations imposed by the Potsdam Agreement of 1945. By contrast, stalemates lead to protracted negotiations".
Actually, the German surrender in WW1 was caused not by "decisive military defeat" but mainly by the British naval blockade which was starving German civilians - and which was continued well into 1919 until the Treaty of Versailles was signed. As many as 763,000 German civilians died as a result of the blockade during the war, and 100,000 after the armistice.
This was one of the principal causes of WW2, as most Germans never forgave the Allies for forcing the German government's hand by starving its civilians.