What course of action and outcome are you arguing for?

To me the most hopeful and least destructive outcome would be a diplomatically managed de-escalation (with all the ongoing dangers and risks that entails, and an effective frozen conflict) and a negotiated peace with territorial concessions to Putin, which would probably include Crimea and the Donbas. I don't think I've said anything different for a long time.

Here is how that Payson and Cohen piece ends:

Ukraine is not on the verge of collapse, and it is Russia, not Ukraine, that is losing the attritional war, which makes the Trump administration’s decisions particularly shortsighted and tragic. Ukraine has plenty of cards, even if Trump and Vance cannot see them. If America’s leaders could only bring themselves to put pressure on Russia comparable to what they put on Ukraine, they could help Ukraine achieve something much more like a win.

I get that my views mean I'm a Russian mouthpiece or a Chamberlain-esque surrender monkey or whatever. But in the camp that wants this war to keep going I don't get what the criteria are for supporting a negotiated peace.

What does "something much more like a win" actually mean?

    HomeSteak "it's used for defending" wasn't a viable excuse during the cold war when even the US agreed to sign the ABM treaty prohibiting the development of more ABMs like the RIM-161. "You cannot use it to attack man" those missile shields were in all likelihood the weapon that brought humanity the closest to extinction ffs.

    "Syria for 14 years, Burkina Faso or Mali" you're just throwing out anything at this point. If you really believe countries are independent and sovereign and can do what they want I don't think there's much common ground to find, we'll have to agree to disagree mate.

        Burnwinter it means more dead Russians and destroyed Russian tanks at the cost of however many Ukrainians needed and left standing, the article is explicitly saying "Smaller powers can, through the intelligent application of attrition, succeed in advancing their own goals."

        Wild that this has become an acceptable thing to say in polite society - talking about the Tolly here not the shithole that is the Atlantic or the US.

            Burnwinter I think what you fail to understand for about 20 pages now is that no-one wants to keep the war going. You want to end the war in favour of Russia, because you believe there is no other way. Others want to end the war in favour of Europe. That's what the disagreement is about. Stop with this disingenuous I'm a peace activist bullshit - which by the way is an identical point of view both at the extreme right and extreme left in this conflict, another thing they have in common. Absolutely everyone here wants a peace agreement and an end to war. The disagreement is about what that means.

            I think we also need to stop pretending that any one of us knows who is ultimately capable of doing what on the battlefield and that there are certainties about the outcomes being reached. Wars are extremely unpredictable and even people close to the action are very often completely wrong in their assessments. I don't know for use that Ukraine can achieve a positive outcome but you also don't know for sure that it can't.

                Gurgen Stop with this disingenuous I'm a peace activist bullshit - which by the way is an identical point of view both at the extreme right and extreme left in this conflict

                Asked already, but spare me the personal attacks. The distortions—Russian mouthpiece, faker, etc—are childish and way off the mark.

                What about the question I asked? Are you able to say what would be enough of a change in the current position to permit you, personally to endorse a negotiation for peace?

                Some possibilities you might or might not agree with. Russian forces expelled from Crimea and the Donbas. Regime change in Russia. 100,000 more Russian casualties and 5,000 more Russian tanks blown up, some kind of aggregate "attrition". French nuclear weapons staged in Poland and pointed at Moscow. Polls saying Ukrainians want to negotiate. A popular vote in Ukraine to negotiate.

                Gurgen I think we also need to stop pretending that any one of us knows who is ultimately capable of doing what on the battlefield and that there are certainties about the outcomes being reached. Wars are extremely unpredictable and even people close to the action are very often completely wrong in their assessments.

                You're dead right. For starters, every imperial war waged in my adult life hasn't panned out anything like we were told. It's the most predictable aspect of war, that we get lied to about what is going to happen and why.

                That's why we should question war and its pretexts more sharply than we do almost anything.

                The IDF has been in Gaza to destroy Hamas, of course. Surely none could doubt it? Well in October 2023, western commentators broadly endorsed Operation Iron Swords as a moral necessity. Now tens of thousands of Palestinian children have been gunned, shelled or bulldozed to death, and the land grab is on.

                Well, blow me down. It's a real surprise but at the time, old mate Eliot Cohen supported all that. And he used the same language and the same analogical reasoning for Israelis and Ukrainians (the "civilized nations") on the one hand, and Russians and Palestinians (the "barbarians") on the other.

                Leaves a bit of a bad taste, doesn't it?

                Gurgen I don't know for use that Ukraine can achieve a positive outcome but you also don't know for sure that it can't.

                Yes, we definitely don't know whether Ukraine can or can't achieve some unspecified outcome.

                        Burnwinter "Americans have fought barbarians in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan."

                        Have to give it to him, he's nothing if not consistent. Special place in hell for people like him.

                          Burnwinter Did I ever say I am against peace negotiations? I am in favour of peace negotiations right now. The whole point is that there are no peace negotiations and what the US is proposing is not a peace negotiation. Your question - "what would be enough of a change in the current position to permit you, personally to endorse a negotiation for peace" - is something you should be asking Putin not me. Because it's the Russians who are not and have not ever been interested in peace, as this entire conflict shows.

                              Gurgen Did I ever say I am against peace negotiations?

                              Okay, sure. I'll take this at face value.

                              Yes, you did.

                              You've worked hard to rationalise the prolongation of this war. You've done it for years.

                              Yesterday you endorsed two neocons who claimed dubiously in the Atlantic "if only the United States would support the war effort, because it's being won".

                              Within the past week you called opposition to ongoing war "appeasement" and speculated about NATO military action against Putin analogous to the Allied campaign to remove Hitler.

                              You've described peace negotiations involving territorial concessions along the lines of Minsk 2 (paraphrasing) as folly that "rewards Putin with land" in your past few posts.

                              You use similar formulae often. Suggesting a peace on any vaguely realistic basis is the symptom of a recidivist, online poser, an ignoramus, an extremist, someone dogmatically anti-west, a Russian dupe, or whatever else is handy.

                              As far as the underpinnings of the conflict go it's very, very simple. Russia is pure historical evil and has "never had allies, only enemies and vassals". Any peace negotiated with Putin will immediately fail due to treachery. And importantly, "the west is better".

                              Even in your last post, you imply hopes for peace are futile because Putin would never enter into it. Well you might be right about that, and today you might be more right than you would have been a year ago, when you were saying the same things.

                              But you can't claim you've been open to testing it.

                              To add to this, for a good extended period you said that any call for an end to the war given its horrifying human costs was no more than a cowardly denial of Ukrainian political will.

                              That's your record, give or take. Did you ever say you were against peace negotiations?

                                Most of your post is factually incorrect but I'm a bit tired so I'll just respond to a few points:

                                • I didn't call opposition to ongoing war appeasement, I called giving away land for peace appeasement. That's simply what it is. You never gave me that example where this worked. It hasn't worked in 200,000 years of human history and never will;

                                • agreeing things with these guys has been tested, numerous times, also in the context of this very conflict. And the agreements have been violated every time;

                                • the underpinnings of the conflict are indeed very simple. Good that you finally get it. By the way, there isn't a single Russian who doesn't know or think the West is better. That's why their children all live and go to school in the West, when they can afford it.

                                  Gurgen I didn't call opposition to ongoing war appeasement, I called giving away land for peace appeasement. That's simply what it is. You never gave me that example where this worked. It hasn't worked in 200,000 years of human history and never will;

                                  What does "worked" mean? If you mean stopped expansionist imperialism, fine. You could argue it hasn't worked in that sense. But ceding territory to an enemy after losing in combat has, historically, marked the end of just about every discrete war in human history. This means the end of combat operations, shelling, destruction of heritage and infrastructure, and the mass killing, torture, and rape of civilians and military personnel alike. These are more important goals than maintaining ephemeral political boundaries or labels on maps.

                                  If you cannot secure the military, financial or political capacity to deter an invasion, it's likely you've already lost. Playing out the war is so archaic at this point in human history. If NATO wanted to, they would have matched and exceeded Russian military presence on the Ukrainian borders. They didn't. They wanted a drawn-out conflict for their war-mongering corporate benefactors and Ukrainian leadership played their part perfectly.

                                  The losers are the dead, the wounded, the tortured and disenfranchised - they are resistance fighters who have been lied to, children whose futures are stolen, and families torn apart. Ukraine isn't worth all that, because a nation-state is unequivocally not equivalent with its people. Why fight for a bunch of corporate leeches? For arms dealers and energy executives? For venture capitalists and the political elite? Basically, why fight for JD fucking Vance, just so he can insult you on global television? It doesn't make any sense.

                                      Coombs Why fight for a bunch of corporate leeches? For arms dealers and energy executives? For venture capitalists and the political elite? Basically, why fight for JD fucking Vance, just so he can insult you on global television? It doesn't make any sense.

                                      Same reason people have fought for independence movements across the globe. Most of those movements worked with an outside power (that had ulterior motives) to gang up against their primary oppressor. All those struggles were pointless. Until they weren't.

                                      FWIW I'm not in favour of this continuing as the outlines of the end game are clear, particularly with the US placing their thumbs on the scale to suit their whims but I do feel like the dialogue here sees Eastern Europe as a bunch of NPCs.

                                          Mirth there are loads of Ukrainians who never wanted this war, Zelensky ironically being one of them initially both when he was first elected and in 2022 shortly after the war started. There are even people living in Eastern and Southern Ukraine who after 2014 would rather be part of Russia than Ukraine.

                                          There are tens of thousands Ukrainian refugees in my city alone, have friends who work in social services and they say while they spoke to many who have an understandably intense hatred for anything Russian there are just as many who despise Poroshenko and Zelensky and blame them for it.

                                              jones yes, I completely believe that. From looking at the polling, the war had public support in 2022 but now hovering around the 50% mark as fatigue sets in and also that the sentiment varies by region with the East having more cultural affinity/influence with Russia.

                                              I don't know if this, as a framework, helps move the dialogue along though given that we're in the middle of a conflict of attrition. There's never been unanimous support for war or independence movements and there's especially never any consensus for what 'victory' looks before the fact. That's driven by results on the battlefield, leadership and a healthy dollop of revisionist history

                                                Mirth but I do feel like the dialogue here sees Eastern Europe as a bunch of NPCs.

                                                That's exactly the problem and why it was all wrong from the start. The calculus treated people like sacrificial animals, and geopolitical interests as primary. Life in all of its specificity is worth more than some general notion of being Ukrainian. Dying for Ukraine, or for Russia, is meaningless. Absolutely meaningless. I am not totally unsympathetic. The borderlands of empire will always be contested. Ukraine literally means borderland, after all. It's a difficult position to navigate.

                                                Independence, however, is a failed concept of decolonization. Probably better to build autonomy at the community level within a sprawling empire that barely notices you than to try to seize and control a fundamentally arbitrary part of the world to which you associate your national identity. It just results in more strife.

                                                This is not least because all national histories are myths that reinvent the past to suit contemporary agendas. That includes Ukrainian national mythologies as well as Russian, Palestinian as well as Israeli, etc. Just garbled stories used for their contemporary political utility that are not worth fighting over.

                                                As I see it, too many are willing to roar like lions just so others can die like dogs.

                                                    he comes out with this just as trump said in another fox interview they are unlikely to touch the defense budget. DOGE is exactly what I predicted it would be from the day it was announced - a PR campaign to manufacture enough consent to siphon off as much of the public purse as possible. feels like the dog that caught the car if they actually follow through with the medicare/social security stuff

                                                    and this is just jussie smollet levels of bullshitting
                                                    'the ukraine area'. lol

                                                      Coombs Interesting. I suspect you've thought about this more deeply that I have but I find this hard to reconcile. Sure, community autonomy can offer some degree of self-governance but practically speaking it offers no means of safeguarding a distinct culture against the sheer force of a larger empire.

                                                      Empires - in any era - tend to impose dominant cultural norms which gradually erode minority groups. Independence allows a group to control its own cultural institutions and the chance to preserve their traditions, and values. Without this, these elements are at risk of being absorbed by the dominant culture. Just because all national histories contain myth doesn't make them invalid in my opinion. Creating a myth is a fundamental part of group identity from the first tribe onwards.

                                                      While national states themselves can then go ahead and create their own brand of oppression, it's still a better framework due to the implicit assumption of accountability - certainly more than the alternatives.

                                                          Gurgen Most of your post is factually incorrect

                                                          Bad faith. You've called me an impractical fantasist prey to Russian propaganda for advocating a peace negotiation. You said as much to me back in 2023. You've jacketed anyone who suggested as much as pro-Putin. Be serious.

                                                          Our forum posts achieve nothing. But as far as it goes, your posts have accompanied hundreds of thousands of deaths of both Ukrainians and Russians, a lot of them conscripts, that haven't brightened Ukraine's future.

                                                          Not much else to say here. I hope there is a break in the carnage sooner rather than later.

                                                            Mirth I'm not in favour of this continuing as the outlines of the end game are clear, particularly with the US placing their thumbs on the scale to suit their whims but I do feel like the dialogue here sees Eastern Europe as a bunch of NPCs.

                                                            Maybe this wasn't aimed at me, but I don't reckon I treat people in Eastern Europe (not the term I'd use here) much different from Australians or Brits . I've never visited Ukraine, but I've visited six of the nine former Warsaw Pact nations. I've seen more Russia and Poland than the other countries, and I've taught myself a fair bit of Polish and Russian in the past.

                                                            I think of guys like the Russian soldiers I drank with in Chita 15–20 years ago when I hear of another 100,000 dead. Pure evil in the form of talkative frat boys who like to get very drunk and call each other gay while arm-wrestling, singing and hugging, then try to fix your hangover with a cup of sugary tea.

                                                            Yeah I'm an Australian, I didn't grow up in the Soviet Bloc so it's true, I can't share the deeper feelings of people who did, but I do recognise and know them, and have had plenty more personal stories firsthand.

                                                              Mirth Empires - in any era - tend to impose dominant cultural norms which gradually erode minority groups.

                                                              I'm not sure this is true. I'm no great fan of imperialism, but historical, precolonial empires have often been extremely diverse, multilingual, multiethnic, even multifaith. It seems to me that loose affiliations are, on the whole, much better for community autonomy and cultural preservation than strong national identities built on false histories. Colonial empires combined the worst aspects of imperialism with such national identities associated with the colonial homeland, i.e., white, Christian, etc. These identitarian structures are just about guaranteed to produce fascism, genocide, and systemic violence and discrimination. From my perspective, it seems even those nation-states founded on ostensibly noble principles of independence, self determination, and cultural preservation will fall into this trap.

                                                              I'm obviously biased, because various independence movements saw my family displaced multiple times over multiple generations due to the strong ethnonationalist tendencies that they inevitably manifest.

                                                                Gazza M DOGE is exactly what I predicted it would be from the day it was announced - a PR campaign to manufacture enough consent to siphon off as much of the public purse as possible

                                                                Definitely a backdoor for his many companies. He has had Starlink people call the FAA directly about modernising their satellite systems for tracking planes. I imagine he will have his other tech companies offer support on analytics and data management across the government. Which could be helpful of course, but it’s corruption in the open.

                                                                  Mirth maybe they know something the rest of us don't

                                                                    Sounds like a waste of time for politicians

                                                                    In fairness, reasons to hope in the US are limited right now. Pretty ironic that vote when you think of it

                                                                    I'm sure a lot of people are going to suffer, and die as a direct result of his policies, and I feel sorrow for them/us as a country. But I'm glad that at least the victims will cut across both political parties so even his voters are going to feel the pain their vote has brought them.

                                                                    International Day of Hope, sounds like the type of nonsense that would come out of the UN....

                                                                    Moving in the right direction at least.

                                                                      JazzG I'm not sure that is totally accurate given he said he's in favour of it but it has to deal with the root cause of the war which was massively undefined. Also didn't trump say Russia was ready for peace why haven't they immediately accepted.

                                                                        Like I said moving in the right direction, still miles away from any kind of agreement.

                                                                        "tHe wOKe lEfT iS bLOCkiNG fReE sPeEcH oN cAMpUs"

                                                                          Burnwinter you know what’s interesting is this isn’t a new idea. I used to hear my conservative friends complain that liberal arts co@@eges blocked their speech. This was twenty years ago.
                                                                          The feeling was that they weren’t freely able to talk about Christianity, being anti-LGBTQI, gun ownership, small government etc. traditional conservative stuff, not even the current insanity.

                                                                              Claudius The feeling was that they weren’t freely able to talk about Christianity, being anti-LGBTQI, gun ownership, small government etc. traditional conservative stuff, not even the current insanity.

                                                                              I remember having robust conversations with pro-life kids (and I'm sure there are some OMITT members who are pro-life, I'm just using it as an example) at university back in the 00s.

                                                                              Reality in Australia was back then, and is now, that there are ample "safe spaces" for conservatives on campus, but they don't much like it when you get stuck into them. They'll still shut you down if you mention Marx in your MBA seminar.

                                                                              This however is the blatant suppression of free speech in support of blatant war crimes and genocide. I'm not sure how much clearer it could be.

                                                                                jones I don't know why you bring the Deveselu shield into the cold war argument or even the RIM-161. The RIM was operational like 2-3 years after U.S. withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Trearty. Also like I said, Deveselu hosts only three launchers, which is laughable in the context of nuclear war. Even if modified, it wouldn't be able to stop a Russian nuclear barrage. And like I said It is almost impossible to use SM-3 missiles for offensive strikes — they lack explosive warheads. Even Russia knows Deveselu can't stop their ICBMs, but they use it as an excuse to justify the shit they do.

                                                                                "Syria for 14 years, Burkina Faso or Mali" you're just throwing out anything at this point.

                                                                                Yeah, I'm just casually throwing a few of the conflicts they've fueled, while you conveniently ignore the other 20 wars they've triggered in Eastern Europe, none caused by NATO.

                                                                                And don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of the West or the U.S., but this whataboutism people use to defend Russia is getting ridiculous.

                                                                                Yes, some NATO countries and the U.S. have done their fair share of shit, but put together, it's still nothing compared to what Russia has done and continues to do.
                                                                                They are, and always will be, an imperialist country, Fuck em all is what I'm saying.

                                                                                If you really believe countries are independent and sovereign and can do what they want I don't think there's much common ground to find, we'll have to agree to disagree mate.

                                                                                But if they aren't, then why are the 2 of us even talking about European colonialism in Africa?
                                                                                If the strong do what they want, and the weak suffer what they must, then we should all just lay down and take it, right?
                                                                                No response, no resistance — just accept imperialism and shut the fuck up.

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