07-19-2023, 10:48 AM
Stalemate still seems like the most likely outcome.
As everyone here seems to acknowledge, if Ukraine does break through, it will be Spring 2024 (or later). The West simply didn’t deliver enough equipment soon enough to make a lightening counterattack possible this year.
As to whether the West was right or wrong to slow play, I guess we’ll never know. The West could have ended up losing key diplomatic support from NATO members and/or the public if it went “too fast.” Or maybe dipping their feet first somehow dissuaded Russia from engaging in tactics that otherwise would have harmed more civilians. Impossible to know.
One thing that does seem clear, however, is that Ukraine wasn’t just *this* close to succeeding in a big counterattack. Delivering one more type of weapon a little earlier wasn’t going to cut it. Ukraine needed a lot of F-16s, a lot of armored vehicles, DPICMs, ATACMS, etc, and it needed *all* of that a long time ago if it was going to take a large amount of territory this year.
People in Ukraine are going to suffer more as a result of this delay. More kids in occupied territories will be kidnapped and never returned. The Russians will commit more atrocities. But there is some hope that all the military planning will come together for the West next Spring.
As everyone here seems to acknowledge, if Ukraine does break through, it will be Spring 2024 (or later). The West simply didn’t deliver enough equipment soon enough to make a lightening counterattack possible this year.
As to whether the West was right or wrong to slow play, I guess we’ll never know. The West could have ended up losing key diplomatic support from NATO members and/or the public if it went “too fast.” Or maybe dipping their feet first somehow dissuaded Russia from engaging in tactics that otherwise would have harmed more civilians. Impossible to know.
One thing that does seem clear, however, is that Ukraine wasn’t just *this* close to succeeding in a big counterattack. Delivering one more type of weapon a little earlier wasn’t going to cut it. Ukraine needed a lot of F-16s, a lot of armored vehicles, DPICMs, ATACMS, etc, and it needed *all* of that a long time ago if it was going to take a large amount of territory this year.
People in Ukraine are going to suffer more as a result of this delay. More kids in occupied territories will be kidnapped and never returned. The Russians will commit more atrocities. But there is some hope that all the military planning will come together for the West next Spring.
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