What’s stopping Ukraine and its allies from building these? If they’re so cheap and simple. Let’s say you start pounding blocks down in the major cities in southwest Russia and see how they feel after that
Different approach to waging war. The West is focused on disabling military targets, Russians wage total war without distinction between military and civilian targets. Therefore, Western weapons only need to destroy a rocket launcher vehicle, Russians are ok with pulverising the whole village around it. Details like war crimes are not really a thing they loose sleep over. They have gotten away with so many why would they care now?
But that may also be way of waging war. In fact, the US did the same on Bagadad. Why you lamenting that? I don't understand it. Are you complaining that they may not be following the Geneva Convention's rule? How about Gitmo? There are no rules. The only apparent rules are those that are pushed louder by the media propaganda. As the West currently excels in that, you have the impression that those are the rules. But they would change them quickly and feed you some other "rules" if those would not suit them equally well. And most of the "war crimes" they fed you probably never happen. Lies, lies, lies. The only different you can make to your life is whether you are going to believe them or question them. After Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libia, and Syria, you still believe them? Have they brainwashed you so badly?
> What’s stopping Ukraine and its allies from building these?
Ukraine and its allies have much smaller stores of large, outdated dumb bombs to refit, and Ukraine has a much smaller Air Force with which to deploy them, so it makes little sense for Ukraine and its allies to build this particular solution (the West has purpose developed – or already modified – glide bombs, but, again, Ukraine’s smaller air force and not having the exact planes on which those are integrate is a bit of a barrier, though the second part is relatively easily overcome.)
> Let’s say you start pounding blocks down in the major cities in southwest Russia and see how they feel after that
Neither Ukraine nor, even moreso, its allies are interested in pounding city blocks in Southwest Russia indiscriminately. OTOH, military bases, oil infrastructure, etc. are a bit of a different story, but they are finding ways to do that without glide bombs.
> Ukraine and its allies have much smaller stores of large, outdated dumb bombs to refit,
Unlikely, the US still has a lot (hundreds of thousands) of dumb bombs. As you said, they don't have a good delivery platform until the F-16s get there. The US orders 20-30k JDAM kits _per year_.
There is now the GLSDB (Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb) which is supposed to be a cheap, longish-range (~ 150 km) guided bomb built on top of the GBU-39 platform. It was developed by Boeing and Saab.
Ukraine has had it since earlier this year.
Apparently, it is not being as effective as one would've hoped though due to heavy Russian GPS jamming [1]
GLSDB is, as the “Ground Launched” indicates, not the same thing as an aerial glide bomb, but is instead a warhead for GMLRS rockets fired from launchers like the HIMARS.’
EDIT: OTOH, its based on the SDB, which is a (small, 250lb) glide bomb with decent (40km) range whichthe US has currently only integrated the on the F-15E Strike Eagle, which Ukraine doesn’t have. There’s a long list of other potential future carriers envisioned by the US (including the F-16, which Ukraine will soon be operating), and integrating Western weapons with Soviet-design aircraft has been happening a fair amount in Ukraine, so if the problems affecting GLSDB were solved, SDB would be a real possibility for them, as well.
I should have pointed out, the big difference between the rival weapons is political. Ukraine is restricted to using its JDAMs against targets in occupied land. Russia isn't bound that way, which is a problem for cities close to the Russian border, such as Kharkiv and Sumy.
Peace does not require "negotiation" in this war. There is a clear aggressor: Russia. So things are really simple, at least this once. All that is needed is for Russia to stop murdering Ukrainians and retreat from all Ukrainian territory, and we will have peace.
Either Russia is abjectly defeated so they are incapable of fighting, or they are presented with an option which they prefer to continuing the war. The former is extremely difficult (to put it mildly) and the latter is broadly filed under negotiation.
Ukraine is not fighting because "The West" won't let them stop; they're fighting because they know what will happen to them if they do stop. Russian soldiers are brutal occupiers. Russian officials have been deporting lots of children from the territory they've occupied.
That is, I can't see Ukraine trying to negotiate some kind of peace-for-land deal. Apart from anything else, any land Russia occupied as part of such a deal would be used to launch a new attack once they've reconstituted their forces.
So any negotiation would be between "The West" and Russia, over Ukraine's heads. And that is the only kind of negotiation that Putin will countenance; he's been very clear that he thinks Ukraine is not a country, it's people are no more than ill-educated Russians, and its leaders are nazis.
Of course, Russia has negotiated with real nazis before; but it's pretty seditious to mention that in public in Russia nowadays.
>All that is needed is for Russia to stop murdering Ukrainians and retreat from all Ukrainian territory
That would be nice, but what are the chances of that happening in your opinion without the US and Europe's promising that Ukraine will never become a member of NATO and the US and Europe's promising to stop supplying weapons to Ukraine?
Realistically that probably won't happen until there is a regime change in Russia. So, the best option for now is to keep giving Ukraine all of the weapons they ask for in order to maintain a stalemate and inflict as many casualties on Russia as possible. Russia has a large population but it's not unlimited; kill enough and eventually the civilians will march on the Kremlin. This may take years.
Ultimately it's up to the Ukrainians what terms they want to negotiate. But it would seem foolish to give up the option of joining NATO and the EU just to gain a temporary peace. If they're going to survive as an independent country rather than a Russian vassal state then they will need alliances with nuclear powers.
> That would be nice, but what are the chances of that happening in your opinion without the US and Europe’s promising that Ukraine will never become a member of NATO and the US and Europe’s promising to stop supplying weapons to Ukraine?
There is zero chance the war would take more than a slight pause before resuming in full force with a less-capable Ukraine if Ukraine’s allies promised to stop supplying it with weapons. (The Russo-Georgian War, immediately, and with a slight delay because of temporarily Russia-favorable political conditions that emerged in the interim in Ukraine, the Russo-Ukrainian War are both direct results, in fact, of that kind of accommodationist thought winning the day at the 2008 NATO summit with regard to Russia’s demand at the time that Georgia and Ukraine not have Membership Action Plans extended to them. Fool me once…)
There’s a very good chance that Russia will stop if that does not happen, even if it is unlikely that the current leadership would do so.
Chances are small, but I wanted to immediately oppose the "we should start the peace negotiation process" narrative, which often (not necessarily here, but often) implies that Ukraine needs to do something to achieve peace, that Ukraine is somehow responsible for the war and that Ukraine must concede territory.
This narrative is being strongly pushed in various social media by Russian troll farms.
Another option is a "frozen conflict" -- for Ukraine to accept a cease fire with current front lines, but not to recognize Russia's claims of sovereignty. Leaving open the possibility of a final counteroffensive after Putin croaks. Some 43 percent of Ukrainians are open to some form of negotiations, according to a recent poll (independent of Russia's deranged narratives).
That's the standard first-pass response, of course.
It could also serve as an opportunity for Ukraine to do the same in reverse -- ultimately leading to a Russian withdraw (many years later but with many lives spared also).
OTOH, a continuation of the status quo (assuming the political climate in Western countries permits the Ukrainians to do so, which is in itself a highly dodgy proposition) is not at all guaranteed to end in Ukraine's interest, and brings certain obvious tail risks to the rest of the world as well.
Ultimately it's a matter for the Ukrainians to decide. My only point is that it's perfectly possible to discuss different options for achieving the same desired end result (which it seems we agree on) -- without having to label these as being in favor of Russian "peace narratives".
But Russia has no reason to do that. To end the war you need one of two things to happen: send enough weapons (and possibly soldiers) to Ukraine to force the Russians to retreat, which West is clearly not capable of doing, or you need the negotiations. I would not count on Putin suddenly getting conscience-stricken and saying: "what I did was wrong, please forgive me, I'm ending the war now".
Russia isn’t bleeding its economy and military to death in order to win a few patches of land in Eastern Ukraine, and if they are they’re idiots. The only way this war makes sense is if they see these worthless chunks of land as a jumping off point for a larger war of conquest, which is why peace deals aren’t happening.
Yes, it's worthless. Are you a troll or something?
Large parts of the Donbas look like the moon after Russians bombed them. They've sent most of the local men to the slaughterhouse. Industry is gone, mining was obsolete, natural gas resources are less and less valuable as we advance with renewables, etc.
If there is ever a compromise, as a Ukrainian president I'd choose Crimea before Donbas because Crimea is strategically important and protects 80% of the Ukrainian South from invasion.
In an ideal situation, Ukraine should still get it back, because it's Ukrainian territory. But in practical terms, Donbas 2013 was a totally different place to Donbas 2024.
And if those regions are given up today and peace is declared between Ukraine and Russia why would Russia not just apply the same strategy tomorrow to destabilise and then annex a big chunk of Georgia/Estonia/Moldova.
This is a common misconception. It's something that was discussed orally and taken out of its context and is being repeated today [1]. Besides the fact that NATO is a voluntary alliance and not an empire. At one point Russia was even considered for joining NATO.
The Budapest memorandum however was a written agreement, much more meaningful, though sadly not binding.
> USSR was also once told in ~1990 “no NATO expansion to your doorstep”.
No, they weren’t, as even Gorbachev admitted, and even if they had been given private assurance not memorialized in a treaty or even a formal executive agreement, there would be no reasonable expectation of a binding commitment that survived the administrations on each side then in power, much less an actual collapse of the Soviet Union.
It’s not like the Soviet Union didn’t understand the mechanics of how binding international commitments are formed.
World War 3 hasn't broken out despite Ukraine possesing JDAMs.
Ukraine needs a powerful bargaining position before entering negotiations, and though it's regrettable this is the case, a powerful bargaining position derives from power on the battlefield. The best route to peace is therefore to give Ukraine as deadly a sting as possible.
> Let's say we just start the peace negotiation process in earnest this time.
Also, there can be no peace between the sheep and the wolf. Russia believes Ukraine does not and cannot exists. How can that ever lead to long lasting peace and long term territorial integrity for Ukraine?
There was serious discussion in Washington of nuking China after China's entry into the Korean war. (Specifically, nuking concentrations of rice fields, causing starvation until the Beijing relents, at which time Washington would provide food aid.)
When in the 1960s tensions between Moscow and Peking rose, Moscow asked Washington if Washington would be okay with Moscow's nuking China. (Washington replied with a firm no.)
Although Russia is probably not going to resort to nukes, the risk is high enough that I wish my country (the US) had started drastically increasing American preparedness for nuclear war when it started sending military aid to Ukraine.
Given the catastrophe risk involved in their use, there is much to be alarmed at simply to consider the possibilities of accident use - miscommunication, false alarms, broken technology, etc.
It takes more than one thing going wrong at the same time, for an accident to happen, but that happens - that's why we have car accidents - only here we're talking about a potentially civilization/climate ending accident.
Better not to be in that situation in the first place.
The only viable peaceful solution is Russian withdrawal, and Putin has made it clear this is off the menu.
Anything else rewards and encourages the use of invasion, profoundly encourages China to invade Taiwan, and North Korean and Iran.
It will also anyway only be a temporary peace; Putin will try again in some years time. Anyone want to trust him when he promises not to - again?
The West has been forced to spend vast amounts of money, in many ways, and millions of people have been forced to flee Ukraine and resettle in the West, and about 500,000 people have been maimed or killed.
To not win after such costs is to lose.
It also means all nations which have a threatening neighbour need their own nuclear weapons. That's in the end will lead to their use.
There is also a more personal reason.
The world has a lot of shit in it, and people generally are increasingly depressed in their normal, day to day lives, because of it. We are not happy.
Stopping Putin would bright a vast ray of hope and a vision of a decent future in our lives.
I don't think Putin can reasonably enter any kind of peace negotiations now: he's clearly losing Crimea, and the rest of the territory the troops under his command was able to invade does not at all resonate with the Russian people. Also there is the question of reparations: the Russians have already done more damage than the 350B$ of foreign currency their central bank has (had?) oversea...
Intentionally targeting civilian areas with those bombs is a war crime. Ukraine avoids committing war crimes, Russia has committed many of them. There will be charges against Russia. There is even some evidence that Russia commits genocide: forced kidnapping of children, forced reeducation, some ethnic cleansing with deportations (though not very systematic), mass killings of civilians, and public speeches by government officials who deny Ukraine a right to exist and therefore can serve as proof of intent.
The most recent major vote - dems 210 to 0 in favour. Republicans 112 to 101 against
> US House approves critical $61bn Ukraine aid package
https://www.bbc.co.uk › world-us-canada-68861011
20 Apr 2024 — While all 210 Democrats voted in favour of the $61bn aid package, more Republicans were against the legislation than in favour of it, 112 to 101 ...
It's a bit hard to pigeonhole political beliefs but Russia's policies seem kind of fascist and they seem to be supported mostly by far right and xenophobic types in the west.
The entire congress itself has been holding back budget actions, including aid to Ukraine this year. The lend lease act has started May 2022, when it was too late to punch back hard. It ended in Q3 2023 without bringing tanks, pcs on time in 2022.
There are no "lefties" in Congress. Here in the UK, there is definitely a community of vocal old-skool commies that I would refer to as "tankies". George Galloway is probably the most notable tankie politician (recently elected to Parliament).
Galloway is famous for his grovelling address to Saddam Hussein: "I salute your [...] indefatigability."
There is a loud faction rhetorically on the “Left” that does too, though they don’t have any allies in office; their main role is trying to pull the left electorate away from Biden and the Democrats to third parties in the election, so that Trump and the GOP will win.
I don't see them as right wing really, they act the exact opposite of what they should do. There are no rapid actions performed, every bit is very slow and delayed.
