Subject: Re: Let’s See If This Pans Out for Putin
I'm not "sentencing" them to anything. They could always choose not to fight, if they wanted to. I'm merely saying that if they want to defend their country and get Russia out, it will not be quick. We will help them to fight, but we are not forcing them to fight.

We have to push <CTRL>-<ALT>-<DELETE> here and try to break the running loop we're in. There's nothing wrong with trying to find other avenues to up Russia's pain. That's all I'm saying.

We'll give the Ukrainians as much weaponry and resources as they need to stay in the field, but there's too much of a risk of WWIII for NATO to send troops directly into battle.

There's other things. I'm 99% sure we're doing targeting analysis for them as well as mission planning. There's nothing stopping us from say, flying an AWACS over Poland and data linking what those innocent radar sweeps say about Russian fighters approaching the Ukrainian border. What some Ukranian ground controller/fighter pilot do with that information is their business, not ours.

You asked if the board was comfortable with NATO troops, but you never said whether you were comfortable with NATO troops. Are you?

I got zero takers. The board definitely doesn't want to go there.

As for me, see my sideshow principle upthread. I don't want American assets bogged down in Eurasia; we will need them elsewhere in 2027. And by "assets" I mean American troops. Intelligence support and Dirty Tricks people are fine.

If Europe wants to station a division of troops there on permanent training duty I'm fine with that.

I'd put the over-under at around 1.5 to 2 years. I've seen differing reports on how bad their financial situation is, complicated by the fact that they're not the most transparent. But it's bad. Russia's blown through most of its reserves and has incurred massive debt, as noted by Bloomberg:

I'd think it would be more like 10. 1.5 to years is a very rosy scenario but we can hope that Putin's budget busts open that fast.

If you really want to understand the likely endgame, I suggest you read that article. Russia's teetering on the brink. They're likely to face a huge debt crisis and a major collapse of its government financing, together with a likely economic collapse, sometime within the next year or less.

This is assuming that an outside actor doesn't step in with significant debt relief. As we've said, the Chinese have a vested interest in as much chaos as they can sow worldwide. Here's their win/win/win/win/win scenarios:

Win 1: The West expends time, energy and lots of ordinance on the Russians
Win 2: The West stays distracted and lacks the ability to focus on China's ambitions in the Pacific Rim
Win 3: The Russians - always a threat to China - get a vastly reduced military as NATO munitions cut them down to size
Win 4: The Russians become more and more of an economic vassal to China over the long run
Win 5: China gets all this by expending literally zero effort.