[Goose]

Ran across this today.  No idea how credible this person is.   What resonates with me is from this and other sources the crescendo of references to "weariness" from Ukraine, and that to end this conflicts both sides will need to accept bitter pills.  

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articl...52012.html

There is indeed "weariness" in Ukraine. The populace, and more importantly the troops are now deeply doubting that victory is possible. As things stand, they are correct. In that the article is undoubtedly correct. The article is also correct that it is very likely Putin has no motivation to agree to a cease-fire along the proposed lines. He is winning, he knows it and everybody else knows it.

The one thing Putin may actually need is the lifting of sanctions. His economy is in bad shape and getting worse. If anything will stop Russia, this is it. Putin may blink, but I doubt it. What I greatly fear is that Putin will make lifting sanctions a prerequisite to STARTING negotiations. I fear that the west, led by nobody, will give in on that score. If we do, Putin will get what he wanted without actually agreeing to anything. The war will go on with Russia re-invigorated.

The hypothesis that the US can force negotiations by giving Ukraine more aid is a delusion. We simply do not have enough SAM capability to actually protect Ukraine if we gave them everything we have. Ukraine also doesn't have the trained personnel to operate them anyway, at least on short notice. We also don't have the 155mm ammunition to do the job, even if we gave 100% of what we have to Ukraine. What might have worked would be if we gave them all the M270/HIMARS we had and enough cluster munitions to just wipe the Russian infantry off the face of the earth when it was attacking in the open. That saves troops. Unfortunately due to severely misguided policies we have very little of our original cluster munitions left and they are no longer manufactured. Ukraine might be in good shape for a couple of months. After that, nada. The "replacement" metal blocks warheads are nowhere near as effective and we don't have enough of them anyway. Unitary warheads are even more ill suited to dealing with troops in the open. We simply are not resourced or structured to fight a prolonged land war against a "near peer" opponent, and there is no indication we could quickly remedy that. The idea we could transfer enough resources to Ukraine so that they could do so "immediately" is even more far-fetched.

Take a look at https://armyhistory.org/the-gulf-war-and...-artillery. It has a lot to say, particularly about training. Remember, these comments were about a US military that was arguably at or near its "peak". The current one  is much smaller, not nearly as well trained, and does not possess the massive stock of modern weapons it did in 1991. The TL;DR is

Almost forty years ago, there used to be a quotation attributed to GEN George S. Patton plastered on several classroom walls at the Field Artillery School at Fort Sill, OK. The quotation read: “I don’t have to tell you who won the war. You know.  The artillery did.”
Those words do not describe the field artillery of the Gulf War. Far from it. The predominant fires of the war came from the air, particularly the brilliant campaign planned and conducted by the U.S. Air Force and executed by a joint force of bombers, fighters, and guided missiles. If artillery can be said to have played a critical role, it was the air defense artillery, specifically the Patriot missile batteries, who played it.

This was written by a US general of artillery. Even in 1991 we couldn't do what the author of the OP's article suggests. We know it, Ukraine knows it, and Putin knows it. Unfortunately we can't give Ukraine a trained and adequate air force. We have enough aircraft and bombs/ASM of various types to do so. We can make more of these, albeit slower than desirable. Due to the fact we did not properly anticipate the need for Ukraine to have a formidable air force, we did not start training Ukrainian pilots early enough and in adequate quantity to allow us to invoke that strategy.

Ukraine isn't a viable country without much of the territory Russia occupies at present. On top of that, once negotiations result in a "rump" Ukraine, nobody is going to have any interest in defending the resultant state, either Ukrainians themselves of "the west". A destroyed bankrupt country isn't a good candidate to develop a strong defense. The EU and the US didn't do that when Ukraine was "whole" and we had promised to defend them, twice. Why would Putin believe we would now? Why would Ukraine believe it? That is why Zelenskyy is so insistent on being a NATO member. He believes that would force the NATO alliance to honor its promises. IMO that is far from a sure thing. Moot point anyway because there are at least three NATO countries that will vote "no" to Ukraine's membership. This time it isn't a ploy, as it was with Sweden. They really mean it. The US military isn't all that keen on it either.

[Goose]

Ran across this today.  No idea how credible this person is.   What resonates with me is from this and other sources the crescendo of references to "weariness" from Ukraine, and that to end this conflicts both sides will need to accept bitter pills.  

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articl...52012.html

There is indeed "weariness" in Ukraine. The populace, and more importantly the troops are now deeply doubting that victory is possible. As things stand, they are correct. In that the article is undoubtedly correct. The article is also correct that it is very likely Putin has no motivation to agree to a cease-fire along the proposed lines. He is winning, he knows it and everybody else knows it.

The one thing Putin may actually need is the lifting of sanctions. His economy is in bad shape and getting worse. If anything will stop Russia, this is it. Putin may blink, but I doubt it. What I greatly fear is that Putin will make lifting sanctions a prerequisite to STARTING negotiations. I fear that the west, led by nobody, will give in on that score. If we do, Putin will get what he wanted without actually agreeing to anything. The war will go on with Russia re-invigorated.

The hypothesis that the US can force negotiations by giving Ukraine more aid is a delusion. We simply do not have enough SAM capability to actually protect Ukraine if we gave them everything we have. Ukraine also doesn't have the trained personnel to operate them anyway, at least on short notice. We also don't have the 155mm ammunition to do the job, even if we gave 100% of what we have to Ukraine. What might have worked would be if we gave them all the M270/HIMARS we had and enough cluster munitions to just wipe the Russian infantry off the face of the earth when it was attacking in the open. That saves troops. Unfortunately due to severely misguided policies we have very little of our original cluster munitions left and they are no longer manufactured. Ukraine might be in good shape for a couple of months. After that, nada. The "replacement" metal blocks warheads are nowhere near as effective and we don't have enough of them anyway. Unitary warheads are even more ill suited to dealing with troops in the open. We simply are not resourced or structured to fight a prolonged land war against a "near peer" opponent, and there is no indication we could quickly remedy that. The idea we could transfer enough resources to Ukraine so that they could do so "immediately" is even more far-fetched.

Take a look at https://armyhistory.org/the-gulf-war-and...-artillery. It has a lot to say, particularly about training. Remember, these comments were about a US military that was arguably at or near its "peak". The current one  is much smaller, not nearly as well trained, and does not possess the massive stock of modern weapons it did in 1991. The TL;DR is

Almost forty years ago, there used to be a quotation attributed to GEN George S. Patton plastered on several classroom walls at the Field Artillery School at Fort Sill, OK. The quotation read: “I don’t have to tell you who won the war. You know.  The artillery did.”
Those words do not describe the field artillery of the Gulf War. Far from it. The predominant fires of the war came from the air, particularly the brilliant campaign planned and conducted by the U.S. Air Force and executed by a joint force of bombers, fighters, and guided missiles. If artillery can be said to have played a critical role, it was the air defense artillery, specifically the Patriot missile batteries, who played it.

This was written by a US general of artillery. Even in 1991 we couldn't do what the author of the OP's article suggests. We know it, Ukraine knows it, and Putin knows it. Unfortunately we can't give Ukraine a trained and adequate air force. We have enough aircraft and bombs/ASM of various types to do so. We can make more of these, albeit slower than desirable. Due to the fact we did not properly anticipate the need for Ukraine to have a formidable air force, we did not start training Ukrainian pilots early enough and in adequate quantity to allow us to invoke that strategy.

Ukraine isn't a viable country without much of the territory Russia occupies at present. On top of that, once negotiations result in a "rump" Ukraine, nobody is going to have any interest in defending the resultant state, either Ukrainians themselves of "the west". A destroyed bankrupt country isn't a good candidate to develop a strong defense. The EU and the US didn't do that when Ukraine was "whole" and we had promised to defend them, twice. Why would Putin believe we would now? Why would Ukraine believe it? That is why Zelenskyy is so insistent on being a NATO member. He believes that would force the NATO alliance to honor its promises. IMO that is far from a sure thing. Moot point anyway because there are at least three NATO countries that will vote "no" to Ukraine's membership. This time it isn't a ploy, as it was with Sweden. They really mean it. The US military isn't all that keen on it either.