Ukraine-Russia--Siloes Everywhere

  A quote from an assessment of the conflict: 

One challenge here is that NATO standardisation is not very standardised, with different countries’ howitzers not only having completely different maintenance requirements but also using different charges, fuses and sometimes shells.

The old story 

Mission Creep in Ukraine

I blogged before about the difficulty of finding a way to a ceasefire in Ukraine.  Since then I think I see signs of mission creep.  

Ukraine seems to be doing much better in resisting Russia than we anticipated.  Ukraine is the underdog being bullied. We're seeing unusual unanimity in Europe about the war.  All these factors can feed into a certain euphoria/animal enthusiasm about the war.  

But I still don't see an obvious middle ground.  Ukraine and its supporters obviously want to repel Russia troops and oust them from their 2022 conquests; ideally they'd like to reverse the Russian gains of 2014. Ukraine also wants compensation for the damage Russia has been inflicting on civilians, housing, infrastructure as well as justice for the war crimes they allege.  Finally they want to remove Russia's ability to invade in the future. 

IMHO the chance Putin would agree to that agenda is nil. So for Ukraine to achieve its war aims they need a palace revolution in Russia.  Unlikely.  Think of Germany at the end of WWI and the "stab in the back". 

Korea, Ukraine and the UN

 I remember when North Korea invaded South Korea.  Harry S Truman was often a lucky man. In 1950 the world, most of it, at least the white and western portions, believed in the United Nations.  And the Soviet Union sometimes boycotted sessions of the Security Council. The invasion happened during a boycott, so the Security Council was able to agree on the use of force to oppose it.  

(For those many people who don't know the structure of the UN, almost all "nations" are included in the General Assembly (which in 1950 also included Ukraine plus another Soviet republic as well as the USSR) but the Security Council was supposed to be the fast-acting executive body with five permanent members (the WWII allies of USA, UK, France, (Nationalist) China, and USSR plus a rotation of other members. Each of the permanent members could veto action, which during the course of 72 years has eroded the UN's ability to act.)

So the Korean War was not the US and South Korea against North Korea and eventually Red China--it was the UN against the Reds. Wikipedia says 21 countries contributed troops, though the US provided the bulk of those coming from outside Korea.

So 72 years later we have a country invading another country, one of the permanent members of the Security Council, and neither Russia nor China is boycotting, so it's impossible for the Security Council to act. If it were possible, then NATO would have had cover to provide planes and troops to war. But as it is the UN becomes even more irrelevant.

I shed a tear for the dreams of the people after WWII who thought they'd fixed the problems of the League of Nations and the UN would lead the way to a better world. 

When Does the Mud Dry?

 That seems to me to be a big question in Ukraine. Apparently the spring thaw there creates a lot of mud, meaning that Russian vehicles stick to the roads, which makes them targets for Ukrainian anti-tank weapons fired by drones or by ambushing troops.

But the mud won't last forever, meaning Russian tanks can maneuver and won't be sitting ducks anymore.  

Resolving Ukraine

 There's discussion of establishing some sort of international guarantee of neutrality for Ukraine, suggested by the Austrian precedent.  Seems to me there are questions in getting to a resolution:

• how do we assess the balance of forces and the future--who does it favor and how sure are we of our assessment? Do all the parties have the same understanding, and do the publics in the US and EU agree with their leaders' assessment? 
• how does Putin get at least a figleaf for domestic consumption, or does he get more.  The neutrality deal and possible recognition of the two breakaway regions might do it, if Ukraine agrees.
• what happens to the Russian forces now in Ukraine--do they withdraw to Russia?
• what happens to EU/US sanctions?  How do the EU, US, and Ukraine come to a coordinate agreement on time table, etc.
• what about the damages from the war--does Russia pay any reparations?
• what confidence do the parties have in Russia's signature on any agreement? If we don't have confidence do we need to build up Ukraine's military?

It's a complex diplomatic and political situation.

Ukrainian Agriculture

 I'm intrigued by a sentence in a recent Times article about agriculture in the Ukraine. We've become conscious of how important the country is as an exporter of grain.  This was a quote from a Ukrainian farmer, but what was intriguing wasn't the quote, but the description of the farmer--he was Dutch and part of a 1,000+ organization (don't remember but it might have been a co-op or a corporation) running a big farm in the Ukraine.  I wonder how and why he got to Ukraine, and how unique he is.  (I'm aware some Dutch farmers have emigrated to the US for dairy operations.)

Also intriguing are the pictures of the Russian convoy and vehicles which are stalled, or stuck in what looks to be very rich, stone free soil.  

The Future and Ukraine

Dan Drezner had a piece in the Post on the use of sanctions. As I understand him, he's afraid that we're imposing sanctions on Russia over the invasion of Ukraine more out of emotion than a plan, whether to contain them or to coerce them, and how and when the sanctions might be lifted. I commented there:

 Do we essentially call for unconditional surrender (of all of Putin's goals) or are we willing to offer a fig leaf? More importantly, can we and Zelensky remain united--there's no guarantee that he will see things the same way we do. Are we willing to fight on until the last Ukrainian fighter is killed? Is he?

Part of the problem I didn't make clear in my comment is we've got multiple decision makers-- Zelensky on the one hand and the "West" as represented by Biden on the other.  (And that's oversimplifying--while NATO and the EU and the rest of Europe seem united now, that's not necessarily the case in the futre.)  

I think we can predict that our high regard for Zelensky today will fade as we and he come to realize we have different priorities and aims.