George Friedman
Wars – which I will define broadly as matters of military conflict sustained partly by the nature of the soldiers fighting and partly by a participating nation’s ability to economically support the effort – end in one of three ways: victory, compromise or mutual exhaustion.
In the Ukraine war, the military reality is that neither the invader, Russia, nor the defender, Ukraine, has achieved its stated goals. Russia’s goal was to conquer Ukraine. That it has succeeded only in taking a small portion of the east has led to absurd claims that the east was all Russia wanted. If that were true, then Russia could have (and probably would have) claimed victory after a year of fighting and ended the war. The truth, of course, is that Russia tried and failed to conquer the whole country.
Ukraine’s goal is to keep all of its territory. The problem is that the Ukrainian military isn’t strong enough to compel the Russians out of Ukraine. This implicitly means the European nations that support Ukraine likewise lack the power or the will to expel Russia.
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