"Every war game scenario on Europe run by DOD shows that the US and NATO cannot win in a head to head fight with Russia". lol Someone better tell that to Ukrainian army.
Something else to think about: at what point do corrupt Ukrainian officials get nervous, raid the treasury and flee. A non-functioning government might be worse than a corrupt one. Picture a team who's out of the playoffs and just going through the motions.
Consolidating the breakaway provinces effectively meets their goal of enforcing the Minsk agreement but doesn't end the war. The civilian population is still vulnerable to stand-off artillery attacks. The terrain to the west is desirable only so far as it creates a buffer zone from such attacks.
The US combined arms capability probably peaked about 2004-5; and then we lost much of that finely tuned edge in poorly directed efforts further in Iraq and Afghanistan. The dismal performance of the US "strategy thinkers" - as opposed to the troops - during the surrender in Afghanistan is the single biggest reason to think that US + NATO could not defeat Russia in Europe. A fully motivated NATO effort would fairly readily destroy Russian conventional forces, but that may not be the majority of a war fought. Before the nuclear option is used, the ability of both sides to destroy infrastructure and affect civilian populations is a huge uncertainty and that leads to unpredictable political decisions. Unlike our planning in the '70s and '80s, this time the battles would be fought on Russian (and Belarus) soil. I am more fearful of the institutional ineptitude in the Pentagon than I am of Russian conventional forces.
"Every war game scenario on Europe run by DOD shows that the US and NATO cannot win in a head to head fight with Russia". lol Someone better tell that to Ukrainian army.
Something else to think about: at what point do corrupt Ukrainian officials get nervous, raid the treasury and flee. A non-functioning government might be worse than a corrupt one. Picture a team who's out of the playoffs and just going through the motions.
Consolidating the breakaway provinces effectively meets their goal of enforcing the Minsk agreement but doesn't end the war. The civilian population is still vulnerable to stand-off artillery attacks. The terrain to the west is desirable only so far as it creates a buffer zone from such attacks.
The US combined arms capability probably peaked about 2004-5; and then we lost much of that finely tuned edge in poorly directed efforts further in Iraq and Afghanistan. The dismal performance of the US "strategy thinkers" - as opposed to the troops - during the surrender in Afghanistan is the single biggest reason to think that US + NATO could not defeat Russia in Europe. A fully motivated NATO effort would fairly readily destroy Russian conventional forces, but that may not be the majority of a war fought. Before the nuclear option is used, the ability of both sides to destroy infrastructure and affect civilian populations is a huge uncertainty and that leads to unpredictable political decisions. Unlike our planning in the '70s and '80s, this time the battles would be fought on Russian (and Belarus) soil. I am more fearful of the institutional ineptitude in the Pentagon than I am of Russian conventional forces.