Also via MSN this piece from the Wall Street Journal provides four different answers to the question that forms the title to this post. The answers provided are:
- When Putin leaves power
- When Ukraine says it ends
- When Ukraine has recovered all of its pre-2014 territory
- The war in Ukraine will never be over
Read the whole thing.
#1 is flatly wrong. Putin is not the greatest hawk in Russia or the most determined to restore former glory. Those most likely to succeed him are more hawkish and determined than he is.
#2 misstates the relative strength of Ukraine vs. Russia. It assumes that we have the will and ability to continue to supply Ukraine as long as Ukraine cares to fight and that given that Ukrainehas the ability to continue fighting indefinitely. That’s wrong, too.
#3 assumes that is Ukraine’s only objective.
I think that #4 is possible but it’s also possible that, assuming NATO does not enter the war directly, Ukraine will eventually lose the ability to continue fighting.
So those are all personal opinions of seemingly random people – clearly it’s not a complete list of possible outcomes.
Yes. Just personal opinions of selected college (grad?) students.
When countries, especially the U.S., stop giving Ukraine endless supplies of armaments.
(4) After a nuclear exchange. War is still escalating, at least one side likely considers it existential, and several close calls have already occurred.
Both sides consider it existential.
It will end in exhaustion and tears.
Appears to me that American strategists thought they could repeat 1989 and deplete Russia to the point of collapse .
Now we’ve foolishly stumbled into the role of the arrogant Germans of 1943 and we need a way out.
Maybe now America will vote for a peace and prosperity administration.