Russian President Vladimir Putin promised Friday to "immediately" order a ceasefire in Ukraine and start negotiations if Kyiv began withdrawing troops from the four regions annexed by Moscow in 2022 and renounced plans to join NATO. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected what he called an ultimatum by Putin to surrender more territory.
Taking everything you say at face value, the options for Ukraine are:
Take a deal that maybe you can’t trust, but it at least gives you time to breathe.
Keep fighting, and with the war going how it is eventually lose more than what you’ve already lost.
Attempt to draw other states into the conflict so that you have a shot at what might be considered a victory, likely years more down the road under the best of circumstances.
There is no justification for 2, and 3 is highly unlikely – if other states haven’t entered the war already, they’re not going to do so now.
Yeah point 1 is why I support a peace deal along current lines, maybe with a dmz with UN peacekeepers or something idk. Ukraine is the one getting invaded, they need time to breathe far more than Russia does.
Even if you think Russia can’t be trusted and will invade again a few years of peace is better than ceaseless war
Why would they lose more than they’ve already lost? Their expectation is that western aid will continue, allowing them an advantage over Russia in the long term. Russia thinks Western aid will dry up (maybe due to trump being elected) so their anticipated outcome is better in the long run. When the question of enduring western aid is answered, there will be less of a difference in expectations, meaning continued conflict isn’t advantages since it’d cost more than both sides gains expectations.
Everybody knows what game theory is, however the discussion is about military capability and strategy which is best left to people who have experience in these things. Also, game theory makes plenty of assumptions which make it of questionable use in the real world. For example, game theory assumes that all actors are rational, and it’s pretty clear that the west has not been making rational decisions throughout this war.
It includes both perceived military capacity and geopolitical strategy. Game theory helps with the latter.
Here’s more info on theories of Russian victory from a military analyst specializing in Russian military and a defense economist. That should help with the capacity side of the argument.
Here’s a helpful tip for you. Go back and look at the predictions people made over the past two years, then see how many of those predictions were in line with what actually happened. Then stop listening to people who were consistently wrong about absolutely everything. Perun is a perfect example of somebody who was exposed as a complete and utter fraud. On the other hand, Biran Berletic made consistently accurate predictions about the direction of the war, so if you want to understand what’s happening then I can highly recommend watching his analysis https://www.youtube.com/@TheNewAtlas/videos
Taking everything you say at face value, the options for Ukraine are:
There is no justification for 2, and 3 is highly unlikely – if other states haven’t entered the war already, they’re not going to do so now.
Yeah point 1 is why I support a peace deal along current lines, maybe with a dmz with UN peacekeepers or something idk. Ukraine is the one getting invaded, they need time to breathe far more than Russia does.
Even if you think Russia can’t be trusted and will invade again a few years of peace is better than ceaseless war
Why would they lose more than they’ve already lost? Their expectation is that western aid will continue, allowing them an advantage over Russia in the long term. Russia thinks Western aid will dry up (maybe due to trump being elected) so their anticipated outcome is better in the long run. When the question of enduring western aid is answered, there will be less of a difference in expectations, meaning continued conflict isn’t advantages since it’d cost more than both sides gains expectations.
I highly recommend looking into the game theory behind the war. https://youtube.com/@gametheory101
I highly recommend reading what people with actual military experience have to say instead of random propagandists on youtube https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/attritional-art-war-lessons-russian-war-ukraine
I agree subject matter experts are important. That’s why I linked to a professor on international relations and war who wrote a book on the subject.
It’s like linking to an economist discussing the subject of quantum physics.
Hmmm? Do you know what game theory is? It explicitly deals with incentive structures and is how academics decode nations motives and goals.
Everybody knows what game theory is, however the discussion is about military capability and strategy which is best left to people who have experience in these things. Also, game theory makes plenty of assumptions which make it of questionable use in the real world. For example, game theory assumes that all actors are rational, and it’s pretty clear that the west has not been making rational decisions throughout this war.
It includes both perceived military capacity and geopolitical strategy. Game theory helps with the latter.
Here’s more info on theories of Russian victory from a military analyst specializing in Russian military and a defense economist. That should help with the capacity side of the argument.
https://youtu.be/7rBlVnc_DEw
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/7rBlVnc_DEw
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Here’s a helpful tip for you. Go back and look at the predictions people made over the past two years, then see how many of those predictions were in line with what actually happened. Then stop listening to people who were consistently wrong about absolutely everything. Perun is a perfect example of somebody who was exposed as a complete and utter fraud. On the other hand, Biran Berletic made consistently accurate predictions about the direction of the war, so if you want to understand what’s happening then I can highly recommend watching his analysis https://www.youtube.com/@TheNewAtlas/videos
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/@gametheory101
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.