golden sloth said:
BearForce2 said:
"President Biden on Wednesday said the US will deliver another $1 billion worth of military equipment to Ukraine, including weapons to defend the country's coast."
Total US cost of this war after just under 4 months: $55 billion.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/world/europe/us-defense-secretary-lloyd-austin-military-aid-ukraine.html?smid=url-share
IMO, that is money well spent.
Throwing money and bodies into this fight is not likely to change the final outcome, it will only add to the body count and the misery. The plucky underdog with western wonderweapons narrative has played itself out, once Russia regrouped and run its offense, the outcome was nearly certain - Kansas vs. Nebraska.
Ukraine should have accepted the initial offer of ceding Crimea (which was pretty much a fait accompli, and done with the support of the local population), granting autonomy to the two Donbass rebel regions and staying out of NATO. Instead they believed they could have militarily defeated Russia with the US' support, and also thought that they could maneuver NATO into the fight and tilt the scale. Arestovich and the other Ukrainian policy makers knew all along they couldn't beat Russia without NATO boots on the ground, that's why he predicted a very long war vs Russia extending to the 2030s. That's not a good thing from the perspective of the average Ukrainian.
US policy planners as well were happy to use Ukraine as a cannon fodder to bleed Russia, the same way they backed the Mujahideen to bleed the Soviets in Afghanistan...
The more this war goes on, the more territory Ukraine stands to lose. Ukraine with a more pragmatic stance could still hold on to its second city, Kharkiv, as well as Odessa and its coastline. It's going to end up losing all of historic Novorossiya unless it reverses course and takes the L. That's why you have hawks like NATO boss Jens Stoltenberg now pragmatically floating the idea of Ukraine ceding territory for peace, essentially converging towards Kissinger's recommendation.
Ukraine's situation today is similar to that of Japan in late Summer 1945. Japan managed to save Hokkaido from permanent Soviet occupation by unconditionally surrendering to the Allies. Back in that Summer, their fear of losing territory to the USSR was at least as great as their fear of nuclear devastation, and might have been a greater impetus for them surrendering to the US.
Japan had already lost their half of Sakhalin Island to the Soviets in august of 1945, territory they knew that they would never recover, with Russia having settled the northern half of the island in the 19th century, and were fully cognisant that they were about to lose Hokkaido for good:
Quote:
In the last days of World War II, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, as Stalin secretly agreed at Tehran and Yalta. The Soviet declaration of war was a major factor for the surrender of Japan on August 15. Although all other Allies, including the United States, ceased all hostilities upon the surrender, Stalin ordered his troops to continue fighting to capture more Japanese territory: 28 and put the Soviets in a stronger bargaining position to occupy Japan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_Soviet_invasion_of_HokkaidoUnfortunately I don't see Ukraine changing course, the most likely outcome to the war is this final partition map, or something very close to it, with the red parts outright annexed by Russia:
