A War Where Victory is Not the Aim

There are all kinds of wars fought for all different kinds of reasons.

Some, like the American wars in the Middle-East are fought for the national interests of a foreign country - Israel. Others are fought for internal ideological reasons, like the war in Ukraine. The Galician nationalists, even in the 90s, wanted to provoke a war with Russia to forever split the two countries. Peoples have long memories - take the Swedes for example. Swedes today who were not alive to be offended are still mad over wars that were fought centuries ago and take offense at Russians who were not alive to offend them.

The reasons for the war, any war, over time, become even cloudier and more misunderstood and muddled than during the actual time during which the war was being fought.

For Ukraine, there are several agendas at work on the part of several groups and all lend themselves to the cause of pursuing this war. Victory is a distant second aim of the war itself.

For the Galician nationalists, the war is supposed to get as many Ukrainian families as possible to swear a blood vendetta against the Russians for getting their sons and husbands killed in the fighting.

For organized Chosenry, Zelensky and his cronies are making them rich off embezzled Western aid.

Also, some say that Chabader - a certain sect of shtetlites - are trying to depopulate the Ukraine to eventually resettle there and recreate Khazaria. At this point, not even the most outlandish conspiracy theory would surprise me.

For the West, the Ukraine was supposed to be a battering ram against Russia. If the goal was to actually invade Russia-proper or put nukes on the border, it has failed spectacularly. If the plan was more modest and was aimed at simply getting thousands of Slavs killed in a campaign of attrition, well, then it’s working rather well.

But, as we’ve talked about before, it’s coming at a cost. Huge quantities of weapons are being sent into Ukraine and most of them - more than half at least - are disappearing. Apparently, even some units in the American army are having their equipment sent over, leaving their own units weaponless.

This is a good chance to offload older weaponry and to fill out orders for new equipment, which the military industrial complex would be happy to do - assuming that they can that is. Who knows. It seems like a lot of US weapons are made with materials sourced from abroad. From China, no less. But, assuming that it is possible to make more, that’s a lot more money for the people involved in the security institutions in the West. Taxpayers foot the bill for new equipment while the CIA or whoever skims a profit off reselling the weapons that were donated to the Ukraine on the black market. Win win.

The point here is that there are many conflicting agendas in this war.

Actual victory over Russia makes sense on a higher, strategic level. But on a lower level, where people are looking to advance their own interests and amass private fortunes, victory is a distant second priority. It is little wonder then that the West appears to be acting erratically.

But this disconnect is also apparent in Russia. Yes, on a strategic level, retaking Ukraine is advantageous for Russia as a whole. But, on a factional level, the cost of doing so - sending in the entire army and using the top tier equipment, appears to be a cost that, for one reason or another, the Kremlin isn’t willing to incur. Is it resistance within the actual Presidential Administration? Possibly. There have been so many conflicting messages from within the PA (AП) that one could reasonably conclude that not everyone was even onboard with the initial plan.

But is it possible that Putin himself could have hesitated and still hesitates to escalate the bar?

Well sure. In fact, it’s pretty obvious when one looks at the very terminology being used. Even the official language being used hints at this. People get in trouble in Russia for publicly referring to the war as a war. It is, officially, a policing operation - a “special military operation” to be precise. Why the insistence on policing the internal messaging and making examples of people who say “war”?

I wish I understood this mentality fully myself.

All we know is that the people running this war don’t want the war to be referred to as a war. But why? Is it to downplay the threat? To reassure people that they won’t get conscripted? Or is it embarrassment over losing Ukraine in the first place and now having to fight a modern full-scale war to neutralize the threat?

Assuming that there is a reason for the Kremlin’s reticence to call this war a war, I can only conclude that they think fighting a war in Ukraine is bad - for one reason or another. They insist on not being involved in a war in Ukraine because this reflects poorly on them and their policies somehow. And so, having to escalate the war would mean admitting a failure on one level or another.

As I hinted above, I believe it is embarrassment over having lost the Ukraine and now being forced to fight a brotherly nation. They don’t want to call this a war because peoples remember wars even from centuries past and this leads to permanent rifts between peoples. If they call it a war and treat it like a real war, then the Galician nationalists and the West will have won, you see? They successfully forced a war and a split between the East Slavs that will permanently etched in the peoples’ memory.

But a policing operation to remove an illegitimate terrorist group masquerading as the legitimate government in Kiev? Well, that’s a narrative that will lead to less rancor between Ukraine and Russia in the future.

That’s probably the thinking here, if I had to guess.