Fred Mora: In my reading of the histories of WWI, I have been amazed at the endless effort of historians to discount entirely the importance of the arrival of American troops, sometimes to the point of absurdity. You do the same.

Why did the Austro-Hungarian empire sign an armistice? One fact that cannot ignored (but repeatedly is) it that it could have also seen the arrival of those million American troops as tipping the balance of the war against it, and decided to get out while the getting was good.

Similarly, the loss of moral among rank and file in the German army and navy was certainly instigated in large part by the new threat they faced (a gigantic army from one of the world’s most prosperous nations) that also tipped the balance of war against them. Soldiers are no fools.

However, I agree with you that Russia faces no such threat. No army of one million additional soldiers is going to arrive from somewhere else.

Simultaneously, mutinies among sailors had erupted on Oct. 29 and threatened to become a revolution. So in November 1918, Germany saw the threat of invasion from the South while disrupted by riots. This is what caused the war to end.

Russia faces no comparable threat today.

But instead of trying to convince you that conquest and genocide are actually wrong — probably a futile task — I’ll keep my comments to more logistical concerns.

”There isn’t going to be much more western equipment and ammunition coming to Ukraine.”

On the contrary, the Ukrainian army is better equipped now than at any other time in the war, and every month it gets better. Storm Shadow missiles and cluster munitions recently arrived in theater. Additional Strykers, Bradleys, and Patriots are on the way. They will be joined by Abrams, ATACMs, and Falcons next year. Those Falcons will carry integrated HARMs, JDAMs, and SDBs.

Every month the Ukrainian military gets better. Every month the Russian military attrits away more. The Russians have no additional weapons to bring to the field, only more of the same. More — not new — tanks and artillery pulled out of storage and sent to the front. More men fed into the meat grinder.

I don’t know how long Russia will continue to throw away men and machines in their fit of rage, but eventually they will run out. A war of attrition favors the West. A crying shame it has to be this way.

RDittmar: I finally got around to changing Axis to Central Powers. This is a mistake I’ve made before, even though I know these facts. Thank you.

Andrew_W: I should always include a quick analysis of ISW in any of my updates of the Ukraine War. ISW is clearly on the side of the Ukraine. While it provides great detail about Russian deployments and defensive and offensive placements, it tells us nothing about the Ukrainians. It also spins all reports to emphasize Ukrainian success while emphasizing Russian failure.

Having noted these facts, ISW still remains a very reliable source of information. Once you factor in its biases, you can use it to get a very good assessment of the war itself.

The qualifications and publication histories of the people at ISW are on the site, so you don’t even need to “think” what their expertise is, you can go read, then you will “know”.

But since you’re calling them trolls, what are your qualifications in military strategy?

There isn’t going to be much more western equipment and ammunition coming to Ukraine, for the simple reason that the west can’t make it fast enough anymore – our industrial capacity has been completely hollowed out. And Ukraine is already scraping the bottom of the barrel for recruits.

By the end of the year if not sooner the tides of the war will have shifted decisively to the Russians as Ukraine starts running out of men and equipment. Only then will people see how completely stupid and meaningless this war actually was.

Oh, and ISW is just a bunch of Ukrainian trolls, and I don’t think most people there, “studying war” even have a military background. So don’t take them seriously.

I will tell you right now … any negotiation that does not result in a significant loss for Putin, such that he gets the same message Reagan sent to his predecessors: you will not be allowed to prevail … will only pause the war, not end it,

Name one expansionist tyranny in history that did not stop without such a confrontation. At least Reagan was able to consummate the confrontation without going kinetic. I hope we can do that now.

And peace will not be sustained as long as Putin – and the West’s social technocrats, and Xi – continue to prioritize their agendas and “good” intentions over the reason governments are instituted among men: to secure the unalienable rights of the individual.

While the globalists within NATO are scheming for their own gain, its Eastern European members have a different – and with their history, legitimate – motivation to support Ukraine. The latter certainly aren’t inclined to cross the Russian border and wage offensive war on Russian soil, unless in response to Russia doing so against them … the idea that NATO is out to do so is preposterous because of that.

Both Putin, and the globalists, need to lose. The latter is our fight, even as free people in eastern Europe use what the globalists meant for evil, instead for good in fighting Russian expansionism.

Reserve Price – Common to auctions, a reserve price or a reservation price is the minimum amount that a seller will accept as the winning bid. Note: The point at which the buyer and seller are no longer willing to negotiate is the walk-away point.

Ukrainian Neutrality is non-negotiable for Russia. I don’t think they could have made this any clearer with this invasion, er, special military operation. Should they trust the Nulands, Blinkens, Sullivans to keep their word if they call a halt to this in exchange for neutrality (no NATO membership), the Donbas and Crimea? I wouldn’t. So this will go on until there is a change in the neocon, uniparty apparatus in the US. In the meantime, the sanction regime will look more feckless and silly as the global trade blocks shift and realign. This will cascade into other areas. Somebody might think they can grab a recalcitrant island when there is a shortage of munitions, missiles and operational platforms. Throw in a global recessiona and a soveriegn debt crises. May you live in interesting times.

used by both the Allies and the Axis militaries from 1915 to 1918

Not trying to be a smart-***, but the Germans and Austrians were called the Central Powers in WWI. The Axis is a WWII thing.

The USA is in no position to call other countries corrupt. Washington D.C (District of Corruption) appears to be a loose collection of criminal gangs, sometimes co-operating, sometimes competing.

What Trump said in the CNN town hall was great. But then recently he said “I will tell Putin if he does not negotiate the US will double down on aid to Ukraine”. He said that in the context of telling Zelinsky he has to negotiate also. Anyway, it presumes the US has some role in how the two countries resolve their differences.
The breakup of the USSR did not happen because the West supplied bombs. Or threatened to supply them. It came about because of the internal sorting out of long standing cultural, social and political ties and relations between the people and countries of that part of the world.
Both RU and UKR are far too corrupt. There are oligarch factions in the two countries battling each other for control and spoils. It is a mess that all involved are well incentivized to work out internally.

From the perspective of demographics, however — see https://zeihan.com/a-ukraine-war-and-the-end-of-russia/ — neither Russia nor Ukraine has the long term capacity to suffer such casualties, even if TPTB in Washington are entirely sanguine about other people dying and having their cities destroyed.

Sadly, nothing is likely to change until after the US elections of 2024, and the needless slaughter and destruction of infrastructure will
likely continue until there is a new occupant in the White House.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Let me put it a nicer way. If I’m president, I will have that war settled in one day, 24 hours.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN: How would you settle that war in one day?
TRUMP: I’ll meet with Putin, I’ll meet with Zelenskyy. They both have weaknesses and both have strengths and within 24 hours that war with be set settled.
COLLINS: Do you want Ukraine to win this war?
TRUMP: I don’t think in terms of winning and losing. I think getting it settled so stop killing all these people.
COLLINS: Mr. President, can I follow up on that? That’s an important statement you made. Can you say if you want Ukraine or Russia to win this war?
TRUMP: I want everybody to stop dying. They’re dying. Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying. And I’ll have that done in 24 hours I’ll have it done. You need the power of the presidency to do it.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2023/05/10/trump_i_want_everybody_to_stop_dying_theyre_dying_russians_and_ukrainians.html

Andi: Gosh, I reread that several times and never saw it. Thank you. Fixed.

Trump, DeSantis and Ramaswamy want out of Ukraine through negotiations and not further war. Not sure about the others, but Christie and Pence are all in. I believe that Robert F Kennedy jr is also in favor of ending the war quickly. Democrats make RFK, jr to be crazy, but he seems to be one of the more sane people in their party.

I don’t know how the others plan to accomplish this, but Trump thinks that properly applied charm and threats will do the job. Obviously, Zelenskyy will do what his arms dealer tells him to do. So, the threats will be used with Putin if charm doesn’t work.

It would seem that the high casualties on both sides combined with the lack of progress on the ground would be a major motivation for both sides coming up with a freeze in place to end the war. That makes sense to me except that many are making a lot of money off the war. Putin could claim a victory with things frozen at present boundaries and he could then work on stabilizing his power. It must be Zelenskyy/Biden where the resistance to ending the war rests. Does this mean that that those making money are tied to Zelenskyy and Biden?