Posted on 03/20/2023 4:14:42 AM PDT by FarCenter
A gloomy assessment of Ukraine’s prospects for victory against Russia emerged from a recent private gathering of former top US soldiers, intelligence officials and scholars with resumes reaching from the Reagan to the Trump administrations.
Short of trained personnel and ammunition, one speaker argued, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky might consider a Chinese peace plan, especially after Beijing’s successful mediation of the Iran-Saudi dispute.
The several dozen attendees, many of whom had held cabinet or sub-cabinet positions, met under Chatham House rules, which forbid identification of individual participants but allow the content itself to be presented.
Overwhelmingly, the sentiment of participants leaned towards escalation in the form of providing additional weapons to Ukraine. One prominent analyst proposed the formation of a “foreign legion” of fighters from other countries to supplement Ukraine’s shrinking pool of trained manpower.
The great majority of participants favored risking everything for absolute victory over Russia. None of the attendees mentioned the qualms that former president Donald Trump voiced on May 17 about the risk of nuclear escalation in Ukraine.
The question of how the Russia-Ukraine war might escalate into a broader conflict received no attention. Their frustration, rather, was that Ukraine seems less likely to defeat Russia, even if the West makes the maximum effort and risks escalation.
We should not be surprised, one of the lead presenters said at the end of the conclave, if Ukraine’s President Zelensky takes up China’s peace plan. No one in the West anticipated that China would mediate between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Although Washington has dismissed China’s peace plan for Ukraine, Zelensky has not. Russia would keep the Sea of Azov and most of the Donbas, a settlement that might be forced on Ukraine as it runs out of manpower and ammunition. America’s view of China is “primitive,” the expert added, and tends to underestimate Chinese sophistication.
A spokesman for the National Security Council dismissed the Chinese initiative, which calls for an immediate ceasefire, noting that a ceasefire would allow Russia to remain in place on territory it seized from Ukraine.
Ukraine has sustained two-thirds as many casualties as Russia, but with a third to a quarter of Russia’s population, is far less able to sustain them, according to one expert who spent many months on the ground in Ukraine.
The entire army that NATO trained between 2014 and 2022 in preparation for a Russian attack is dead, and recruits are being thrown into battle lines with three weeks of training.
Put Super Walmart Centers in the Ukraine and Russia.
Russia is withering on the vine precisely because Walmart and other Western companies have left.
Walmart has said to Putin........ No soup for you
I gotta come to Canada’s defense on that one. Surely their approach would be something like this: “You haven’t even declared war against North Vietnam. Why should we treat them like adversaries?”
The US & the West has lied to Russia so often that Russia would be foolish to leave any portion of Ukraine unconquered.
RT @RT_com Russia state-affiliated media
Ukraine ceasefire ‘unacceptable’ – White House
Bringing the ongoing hostilities to a halt would only ‘ratify’ Russia’s ‘conquest’ of Ukrainian lands, says John Kirby
5:30 AM · Mar 20, 2023
Sure, feel free to point out which treaties the US & the West has broken with Russia.
While numerous other options were possible before the SMO started and even early into the SMO, given the statements from the Neocons and their European Puppets over the past year, it’s clear to me (and many others) that the Russians have only two ways to end this war (short of WW3), which are the following:
1: Total liberation of Ukraine from Western Colonialists followed by Russian occupation, with possible full incorporation by Russia.
2: Ukraine (or what remains of it) is effectively occupied by a third party, trusted by them and Russia.
The first option is what seemed to many to be the only choice for Russia, as it is the only sure way to prevent what remains of Ukraine from being armed to the teeth by NATO.
The second option is new and China might be willing to provide the manpower to make sure NATO doesn’t get cute again with Ukraine. It would certainly be FUN to see how the Neocons deal with that!
The Russian problem is that it is quickly withering on the vine and lacks the wherewithal to conquer a few city blocks in Bakhmut
Vladimer Putin is now a war criminal who has committed crimes against humanity. He is unable to leave Russia because he will be arrested.
NATO sux!
Yes, Russia is sustaining 33% more casualities than Ukraine. However, Russia's conscript pool is 66 to 75 percent larger than Ukraine's.
Absent NATO or other outside forces in meaningful numbers fighting for Ukraine, the numbers indicate that Russia will ultimately win their war of attrition.
The brain spatter would be epic.
Biden is not right, in the head.
“No one in the West anticipated that China would mediate between Saudi Arabia and Iran.”
That is scary.
Up to 40,000 Canadian men did come south to join the American army with hopes of fighting in Vietnam.
Yeah sure… and what nation do you think has the balls to Kidman and lock up the Russian president when he travels? That won’t end at all like you think. They ain’t Serbia.
They pretty much took the trained portion of the Russian Army with them. But, with so much less population, they will lose the war of attrition. Russia will just throw waves of bodies at them as the Soviets did in World War II.
So? What is your point?
Strong points Bob. This NATO driven war was inevitable since, at least, 2014. John Mearsheimer in one of his lectures mentioned that Russia might pause at the Dnieper after liberating the East. If sanity doesn’t grab the West, a total liberation of Ukraine is then an option. Russia views this as an existential threat to their nation and will fight to the end. I think this all gets worse before it gets better, thanks to the lunatics in Washington and London.
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