Quote:
Originally Posted by donquixote99
The above assessment badly mixes up the means and ends of strategy, in a way especially highlighted by the too-wry comment "The US military might reasonably wish Russia to continue deploying military forces for Ukraine to destroy...." Simply put, destroying Russian forces is not a strategic objective. The root strategic objective is to defeat Russia, an event that ultimately happens in the minds of people in the Kremlin. The strategic objective is to get them to stop making war on the Ukraine, and even to abandon aggressive war as a tool of national policy. Destroying Russian forces is a MEANS to accomplish this. The hope should not be that we get to destroy ever more forces. It should be that Russia stop deploying forces in combat that results in death and destruction on both sides.
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A distinction without a difference IMO. The only way "to get them to stop making war on the Ukraine, and even to abandon aggressive war as a tool of national policy" is to make Putin realize that his decimated forces and their second-rate equipment simply cannot achieve his desired strategic objectives.