How and Does the War in Ukraine End The Need for a Grand Strategy

The war has already become very costly for the oligarchs and these costs will only increase with time. When a sufficient number of Putin’s coalition privately turn against the war, this will pressure Putin to end the war or risk his position of power. However, where this line is and if there are any viable alternatives that would better serve the interests of this coalition is questionable.

In the meantime, the costs of the war would continue to weigh heavily on Russia, possibly weakening Mr Putin's internal support. A ceasefire would give the Ukrainians a reprieve without backing Mr Putin into a corner, preventing a possible escalation in which he resorts to extreme measures such as attacks on Western energy infrastructure or the use of nuclear weapons. Any progress towards talks would likely start with a ceasefire or a similar type of temporary arrangement that would enable both sides to suspend fighting, the analysts suggest.

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Neither outcome is likely in the coming weeks and months, meaning people around the world are left to watch the horrors of war unfold, and wait. Throughout the war, Western governments have continued to supply aid and weapons to Ukraine and, if that continues, Kyiv's forces could translate that into more battlefield success. There is no doubt that the success of such efforts is highly problematic given Putin’s conspiracy theories about the West and desire to restore a greater Russia. At the same time, Putin has shown he can be pragmatic in the past, and Russia is already under serious political and economic pressure because of the war.

• The worry is that even this is overly optimistic, although it is the strategy that western leader appears to be selling to their publics.









• The Russian side hasn't escalated as much as it can, analysts say, and another offensive aligns with Mr Putin's strategy to double down when backed into a corner.









• Polls in Ukraine show that the public overwhelmingly rejects concessions to Russia.









• It has its own internal failures, as its recent anticorruption drives have shown.

If the West remains united with Ukraine, it could make the costs of the war so insurmountable for Russia that it breaks the level of commitment of its political elite. A similar situation emerged after the fighting in Ukraine in 2014, with the unresolved conflict featuring a form of continued Russian occupation for many years. If there was no clear successor, Mr Putin's departure could spur on a brutal power struggle among pro-war, right-wing nationalists, authoritarian conservatives and a murky anti-war movement. "The elites and potential successors are watching [Putin's] every military move, but they can already see that he has no place in their post-war vision of the future," Russian journalist Andrey Pertsev wrote in his analysis for the Carnegie Endowment.

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Having to rely on Donald Trump both winning the November US election (the next major landmark event) and then doing what he wants is not wholly comfortable. According to Politico , encouraged by the Biden administration, this is the shift in posture currently underway, bolstering air defences, strengthening positions in eastern Ukraine, and making it harder for Russian forces to attack from Belarus. The suggestion is that this is to prepare for eventual negotiations, although the main need is simply for Ukraine to show that it can play a long game. Ukraine has been unable to put itself in a position to force a decision on Russia.

• One ex senior minister suggested to me that there was a generational divide between those who had lived with the threat of the Cold War era, and those who had not.









• War theory imported from economics the concept of “bargaining,” and wars were thought to begin when the bargaining process—over a piece of territory, usually—broke down.









• The United States and Germany have said they will supply infantry fighting vehicles.









• Although he added that discussions around Crimea would likely have to be settled separately, possibly going to an international tribunal for discussion and a process of continuing negotiation.

For a year several NATO countries wanted to provide US-made Abrams tanks but Washington would not approve. Any country that buys Abrams tanks must get approval from the US before passing them on. "The guns are talking now, but the path of dialogue must always remain open," said UN Secretary General António Guterres. President Macron of France has spoken to President Putin on the phone.

Putin is ousted and the Russian state collapses

But without political support, the mindset of a country that does not feel like it is about to go to war is unlikely to change. Germany's Defence Minister, Boris Pistorius, recently told a German newspaper "we have to take into account that Vladimir Putin might even attack a Nato country one day". While he said such an attack is unlikely now, "our experts expect a period of five to eight years in which this could be possible". The UK's defence secretary has also warned that we need to be prepared for a war.

• WASHINGTON and ROME — Germany’s promise early this year to send tanks to Ukraine marked the country’s latest concession and provided a cap to the gradual escalation in the kind of equipment allies were supplying.









• It is also clear that even compromised real peace will be better for all sides than a bad war.









• Joe Gould was the senior Pentagon reporter for Defense News, covering the intersection of national security policy, politics and the defense industry.









• This is partly because of the uncertainties surrounding the level of US and European support, a matter to which I will return in my conclusion.

"If the Russian spring offensive was successful … they could possibly take all of the area west and [to] the east of the Dnieper River, and then make a puppet state out of what's left of Ukraine," Professor Clarke added. "[Putin] can't stop, he can't go back," the Centre for Strategic and International Studies' senior advisor and retired Marine colonel Mark Cancian said. Ukrainian officials believe an emboldened Russia is preparing for another offensive as early as today, having begun the preliminary phase earlier this month. While Americans back providing aid for Ukraine, a recent Pew Research Poll found nearly a quarter believe the country is providing too much support to Ukraine.

“It would have to get pretty bad for the Russians to get there,” he said, adding that there’s no way of knowing how many reserves the government stashed away after years of fat checks from energy sales. Moscow has proved resourceful when it comes to building autonomy into critical goods, Lichfield explained. For example, the tactic of repurposing dishwasher electronics for weapons, mocked in the West as a sign of desperation, probably means “somebody thought about that from the beginning,” he said.

• For democracies, long-term consensus in support for war has always been more complicated than for autocrats with no accountability.









• Putin’s grim determination to keep building up more forces and expand attacks on civil targets make any true form of Ukrainian victory a very uncertain proposition.









• Defeats in Ukraine have sparked a torrent of hardline pro-war criticism.









• It is clear to the most dispassionate observer of the war that Ukraine is having to fight very hard, and take casualties in troops and equipment, including the armour supplied by Nato.









• Russia's defence budget has tripled since 2021 and will consume 30% of government spending next year.

The public is bearing the costs of war in the form of inflation, economic decline and battlefield deaths. It was largely apparent that Russia’s army was and is far superior to Ukraine’s in terms of stockpiles of weapons and number of personnel. However, what was not apparent to Russia until the fighting began is that the Ukrainian people are far more willing to fight than they anticipated.

• While the invasion of Ukraine was started and waged by Mr Putin, Alexei Navalny says the real war party is the entire elite and the system of power itself, which is an "endlessly self-reproducing Russian authoritarianism of the imperial kind".









• Now, a collection of Western tank-type vehicles is slated to arrive on the front lines this spring, with training already underway in donor countries.









• So let us step back for a moment and consider how the conflict in Ukraine might play out.









• Ukraine’s Commander in Chief General Valery Zaluzhnyi has stressed the importance of inflicting heavy casualties on Russia, “until the enemy gives up fighting against our country,” while acknowledging that its hard to know in the Russian case when this point would be reached.









• Others are being better equipped and better trained for a spring 2023 offensive.









• Since the counteroffensive was launched in June, only a handful of villages have been recaptured.

And long, exhaustive fighting carries its own risks, according to Benjamin Jensen, a war gaming expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. https://www.openlearning.com/u/michaelsenbishop-s2dhzs/blog/UnderstandingMarcaNews s because the longer conflicts last, the more they exhaust finite resources and, hence, the parties are more willing to gamble. And they said winning will depend on a Congress with the resolve to ensure continued support to Ukraine. But even then, the very concept of victory may be inaccurate, they warned. More broadly, the war had exhibited many traits that were familiar to theorists of war.