Despite Ukrainian advances on the battlefield, including a lightning attack in Kharkiv Oblast, retired US officer Daniel Davis believes that Vladimir Putin’s relentless war machine has the upper hand in Ukraine.
“I wrote in our spring that the elements that made up the war were in Russia’s favour [ …]. Nothing in the past month has changed the strategic balance.” Defense and Security Online Magazine 19fortyfive.
Retired Lt. Col. Davies believes that the only way to end the war is through a peace treaty between Ukraine and Russia.
“The only question that remains is how many Ukrainians must die before this brutal truth sinks in with the leaders of the two warring parties,” Davis writes, adding:
– It’s simply not true
Davis’ strong result led to former defender Arne Bord Dalhaug’s reaction.
– I think Davis seems a little more reliable. Simply put, it is not true that there is only one possible outcome to this war. dispute Can It can be resolved by agreement, but you also have to make room for other possible outcomes, Dahlhog, a retired lieutenant colonel, tells Dagbladet.
Between 2016 and 2019, Dalhaug was a civilian observer for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Ukraine. It raises big questions about whether it is even possible to negotiate with Russia.
Putin’s new weapon: – No defense
Russia has systematically violated all the agreements it made with and around Ukraine. Russia’s signature on a paper has no value in itself. He would not rule out that Russia would continue the war within two years. Dallhog said that Putin had waited eight years since he annexed Crimea and started the war in Donbass until he tried to invade all of Ukraine.
Precisely for this reason, Ukraine has ruled out the possibility of signing an agreement with Russia that does not contain security guarantees. Those who can provide such security guarantees are the West, for example, through NATO.
– It is difficult to imagine that the West would be willing to ensure the security of Ukraine in this way, and it would be difficult for Ukraine to sign an agreement with Russia without mechanisms to guarantee its security. That’s the problem, says the retired general.
– The only thing that matters
One of the important assumptions of Davis’ analysis is that the parties continue to fight despite of So that it is possible to reach an agreement.
Dalhaug believes that this is a logical fallacy.
– If Ukraine stops fighting, they will cease to exist soon, says the retired general.
Nor does he believe Russia when they say they are ready to negotiate.
– It means nothing. The only thing that matters, says Dallhog, is the conditions under which these potential talks will begin.
“Burn in Hell, you bastards!”
The retired general believes that Russia practically closed the door to real negotiations when Vladimir Putin annexed four new Ukrainian provinces in September.
It is an absolutely unacceptable starting point for negotiating already established and internationally recognized borders. This is the crux of the problem. The big initial question, says Dalhaug, is whether anyone can help sign an agreement that would give Russia the opportunity to annex territory by military force.
Makes Davis partially right
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, a retired American officer Davis wrote regularly for forty-five. At irregular intervals, he has had cold water for years on those analysts who were more optimistic about Ukraine’s chances of winning.
Dalhaug believes that many of Davis’s considerations were nuances in the public debate about the war in Ukraine.
As Davis points out, neither party currently has the capacity to decisively defeat the other. It is difficult to imagine a heavy loss that will determine the further course of the war, but the scenario that Davis did not touch upon is that the war is going so badly for Russia that something important could happen in the Kremlin, says the retired general. .
– You can’t win
He believes that the probability of a so-called palace coup in Russia is small, but he cannot and will not rule it out. The possibility of a conflict “freezing” is not a scenario that Davis considers, either.
– To me, it seems like a likely outcome that the front lines would freeze somewhere near where they are now without much progress. Dalhaug says that the Western Front during World War I remained in practice for many years.
But he is also open to other scenarios
If Ukraine’s progress shows us anything, it’s that other outcomes are possible. They may not be the most likely, but they are conceivable.
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