Right. When did the US last win a war? Even with unlimited weapons, nobody wins any more. Sure you can destroy governments like Saddam and Gaddafi, but you don't win the hearts and minds, and eventually you lose.
Deport the unfavorable people to Siberia. Then import the willing population into Ukraine.
Given the Russian "tactics" and "strategy" for its war in Ukraine, it is clearly a threat of cultural genocide. Russia aims to destroy the Ukrainian people and their history, and disperse them into Siberia where they won't be able to become a threat.
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USA tries to "win hearts and minds" because we've convinced ourselves that we're the "good guys", and want to win under certain conditions. Without hearts and minds, we lose and we're willing to accept that.
When Russia fights, they're not aiming for that at all. Its just destruction. Even against "brother Slavs", its better for Ukraine to be destroyed than for it to play nice with NATO (or so they want to believe).
Under these circumstances, the only solution is to arm the Ukrainians and give them a fighting chance. Otherwise, the Ukrainians will be completely, and utterly, annihilated as a people.
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Russia has the will and the right strategy here in broad strokes.
They fortunately, don't seem to have the right tactics or approach. So it looks like the Russians will fail. But even as they fail, they will cause hundreds-of-billions, maybe trillions of dollars worth of damages, and likely cause the largest famine event the world has ever seen.
Better weapons and a better defense could have prevented the Ukrainians from losing their coastland. Better weapons could have allowed Ukraine to continue their grain exports. Better weapons and defenses could have protected Ukrainian's grain silos, which are being blown up and pillaged.
Well, financially (and logistically) the Russians are fighting a losing war of morale and economics. Every day the Ukrainians effectively resist the Russians is a victory for Ukraine and the West.
The West will HAPPILY fund the Ukrainians to proxy destroy the Russian military, and proxy bankrupt them.
We'll see how long Putin lives with cancer. The speed of deployment and assumed schedule for victory would point to very fast cancer.
Transporting wins in the short term. Extermination wins too. The europeans exterminated the natives on many lands and took over. They have many lands for centuries now.
Not many Ohlone on hacker news.
The US tried exterminating the Taliban, but failed.
