Subject: Re: Let’s See If This Pans Out for Putin
Russia in Georgia and Crimea and us in Grenada. What do I win?

Nothing. The question was to name three large countries that have managed to conquer and absorb a smaller countries over the active opposition of that smaller country’s military. When the bigger country actually eliminated the smaller country when the smaller country fought back. None of those three are examples of what the circumstances are now.

The why do you and the other guy keep talking about “insurgency”, then, if we’re not in the “insurgency” phase? And are there not people behind the lines right now?

I don't think I've mentioned "insurgency" once. The reason that 1pg might be mentioning it is that typically it's an insurgency that's doing it, because typically the bigger country hasn't failed to manage defeating the formal army the way Russia has.

I think you misunderstand the key element of asymmetric warfare. What we've learned is that a smaller power doesn't need to have the military resources to drive out a larger power trying to occupy them. Instead, all they need is enough resources to keep inflicting heavy damage on the larger power. If the fighting never stops, the only way that either side can "win" is if the other side gives up. And that equation always favors the country being invaded, no matter how small - because while the invading forces always have the option of giving up and going home, the native forces have no other home to go to. So the invaders can give up with no cost, but the defenders cannot.

Again, usually the bigger country just eliminates the formal army, so the ongoing damage and casualties usually</b. fall to an insurgency. Here, Putin has failed to even do that - so the dynamic is playing out with the heavy damage and casualties still being inflicted by the regular army.

You may hate the repeated phrasing of needing guns, dudes and money to fight but that doesn’t make it any less true.

I don't hate it - it's just simply false. Ukraine has access to effectively unlimited guns and money, relative to the size of the conflict. And their supply of dudes is adequate. You keep saying they don't have enough guns and money to drive Russia out of Ukraine, but they don't need to do that. They just need to have enough guns and money and dudes to keep the war from ending, and they certainly have that.

Russia's economy and military production capacity is small compared to the NATO support available to Ukraine. They still have it - as you point out, China and India are still doing business with them full stop, and Europe has only partially cut them off. But it's not enough to allow Russia to fight a war of this magnitude indefinitely. Their economy isn't big enough to keep doing it at this scale, even if they still have customers.

And again, this goes back to the asymmetry of the combatants. NATO will continue to supply Ukraine because NATO cares very deeply about whether Russia is able to get away with this atrocity. China and India won't supply Russia beyond their normal business dealings, because they don't care whether Russia succeeds or not. Every EU nation's national security interest is affected if Russia can get away with conquering a neighbor, but China and India are indifferent.

And that returns me to my original question: how far are you willing to go? How many Americans do you want in the fight?

We don't need any Americans in the fight. This is what you keep missing. Ukraine will win if we just keep doing what we're doing. They don't need to militarily drive Russia out of their territory. All they need to do is keep the war going at current levels, as they have the last three and a half years. And then Russia will eventually not be able to maintain their military operations there.

Punitive sanctions on India aren't the only single tool that we can use to get them to reduce their purchase of Russian energy. Indeed, the normal approach would be to build up our energy exports to them over time and work on close cooperation with Modi's government to improve our relations and try to drive a wedge between him and Putin....rather than punishing and embarrassing him the way Trump did, with the effect that we saw. Trump turned to tariffs not because they were the only, or even a good, option - it's just that's what he wants to do generally (he loooooooves tariffs) and it's the sort of thing that doesn't involve actually having to be a decent negotiator.


Or instead of all this how about we try and get Putin to the table and at least TRY for a negotiated settlement?

Because you cannot and should not bring Putin to the table "instead of all this." The only way you bring Putin to the table for anything (other than your unconditional surrender) is if you negotiate and all of this. Putin loses if Ukraine keeps fighting indefinitely....so the only way to get an actual negotiated settlement is if the West takes the position that it will assist Ukraine to keep fighting indefinitely. That means not succumbing to the "surrender monkeys" (remember those?) who insist that Russia can't be beaten and the wise choice is to give up now so that at least there won't be as many soldiers killed.

You can't have negotiations with Russia unless Russia reaches the point where it is willing to give something up in exchange for the war ending. You can keep the conversations ongoing and lines of communication open, but a pre-condition to actual negotiations is that Russia has to be willing to put its position in Ukraine on the table for bargaining. If their pre-negotiation stance is that their conquest of Ukrainian territory is not subject to negotiation, then you can't start negotiating.