Why Russia's War in Ukraine Could Run for Years - WSJ - 0 views
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Russia’s war on Ukraine is in danger of becoming a protracted struggle that lasts several more years. The reason isn’t just that the front-line combat is a slow-moving slog, but also that none of the main actors have political goals that are both clear and attainable.
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Ukraine’s central war aim—restoring its territorial integrity—is the clearest, but appears a distant prospect given the limits of Western support. The U.S. and key European allies such as Germany want to prevent Russia from winning, but fear the costs and risks of helping Ukraine to full victory.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin’s declared aims are the most elastic, ranging from ambitious imperial schemes to more limited land grabs, and shifting with Russia’s military fortunes. His long-term objective of bringing Ukraine back under Moscow’s sway looks unrealistic now, but Ukrainians believe he would treat smaller gains as mere steppingstones, rendering treacherous any peace based on concessions.
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President Biden has said the goal of U.S. aid is to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position for eventual peace negotiations, without saying under what conditions it should negotiate.
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But throughout the war, strengthening Ukraine with decisive firepower has clashed with another, overriding Western priority: to avoid uncontrolled escalation that leads to a direct war with Russia or to Putin using nuclear weapons.
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A drawback of the U.S.’s incremental approach to military aid: Without a battlefield breakthrough, Kyiv doesn’t want to negotiate peace—and Moscow doesn’t have to.
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“You end up in a strange middle ground where you’re not necessarily able to accomplish that second goal of putting Ukraine in a position of strength that makes negotiations possible.”
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The thinking stems from an eagerness to contain a conflict whose shock waves have been felt across the global economy, uncertainty about how long Western voters will support the current levels of aid for Kyiv and disbelief that Ukraine can fully expel Russian forces.
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arl von Clausewitz famously wrote that “war is a mere continuation of policy by other means,” stressing that military force is an instrument for attaining a political goal. Some unsuccessful wars have resulted less from lost battles than from the lack of an achievable political aim, so that campaigns came to be seen as draining and fruitless. Modern examples arguably include the Soviet and U.S. failures in Afghanistan and America’s defeat in Vietnam.
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Some observers believe the state of war against Ukraine and its Western backers is becoming an end in itself, the raison d’être of a regime that can no longer offer economic growth and stability.
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Russia hasn’t given up its maximal goal, pursued in many neighboring countries for years, Polyakova said: to reassert its old sphere of influence and stop countries such as Ukraine from moving further West—whether that means domination or turning them into failed states. The Kremlin’s lesser declared aims are tactical maneuvering