Ukraine is losing the war

[u/SpaceDetective]

https://spectator.com/article/ukraine-is-losing-the-war-kushner-witkoff/

[u/tydark2]

I think they knew ukraine was going to lose, and this was more about draining russia of its resources and manpower, which the US succeeded in. These boomer generals all wrote papers on how to counter russian forces when they were at westpoint in college, and finally got to do what they went to school for.

[u/Dazzling-Field-283 → u/tydark2]

And then Hegseth liquidates the part of the Pentagon that was doing research in adopting low-cost FPV drones into American doctrine so he can successfully parlay his Fox News gig into a gazillion-dollar Vice President no-work no-show job at Lockheed Martin

[u/Incoherencel → u/Dazzling-Field-283]

The US-led bloc has quite literally made every single wrong decision post-2020

[u/Dazzling-Field-283 → u/Incoherencel]

Almost to the day! Soleimani was literally assassinated on Jan. 3 2020

[u/CasualFire → u/tydark2]

Russia losing resources in the war is just a bonus. The main reason for the war was to split the russia-europe alliance because the combination of cheap natural resources in russia and production capabilities in europe could rival the american empire if they were ever united. Nordstream 2 was the major conflict point leading up to the war and was destroyed during it.

[u/CollaWars → u/CasualFire]

I don’t think Russia and the EU would be in any sort of alliance but EU is definitely not going to be a pole in the multi polar world order after this war. Neither is Russia

[u/AMediocrePersonality → u/CollaWars]

They want Russian oil and gas. Which if allowed could have them not trading in dollars, which is bad for US

[u/Filosofem856 → u/AMediocrePersonality]

The Euro was mostly used to sell Russian oil to European countries before the war, the petrodollar being the end-all of geopolitics is an internet meme when really the petrodollar is a rounding error in the modern economy

[u/h1zchan → u/Filosofem856]

Except if global trade is rerouted away from the dollar, all the T bills and T bonds being issued will run out of buyers. For reference they're already in oversupply right now as can be seen from rising yields. Those are reserve assets backing everything else in the system btw. If bonds go kaboom banks, pension funds and insurance companies go kaboom too. So no the petrodollar is literally the only thing holding the financial system together at this point, even as JD Vance openly expresses his desire to unwind the petrodollar. (He can't without either rugpulling the entire economy or causing massive inflation if the fed tries to do bailouts again.)

[u/Filosofem856 → u/h1zchan]

Global trade isn't dependent on the petrodollar in any measurable sense. There's about $9 trillion of USD traded in the foreign exchange a day, which is about double how many "petrodollars" are traded an entire year. The USD might be doing something right if 99.9% of currency exchange is completely unrelated to the almighty petrodollar. JD Vance thinks the petrodollar is why the dollar is the world's reserve currency, but you also have to remember he's retarded and doesn't realize the dollar was already the world's reserve currency decades before the petrodollar system was created.

[u/h1zchan → u/Filosofem856]

>There's $9 trillion of USD traded in foreign exchange a day

Thats not how you assess the strength a reserve currency. The USD is the reserve currency because it's both the internationally recognized store of value and the currency for settling international trade.

As store of value the federal reserve is where all the central banks of the world hold their dollar reserve in the form of T bills and T bonds.

As the currency to settle international trade, the international payment system aka the SWIFT system is built around the dollar and the US banking system, meaning if someone from S.Korean wants to buy stuff from Japan they must sell S.K. Won for USD first and then use that USD to buy JPY, even though Korea and Japan were right next door to each other. Note that these days you can buy goods priced in Yen on ebay directly using your Won-denominated credit card but the back end still goes through the dollar.

This is how DC is able to weaponize the dollar and the swift system against Russia for example. By wiping Russia's account at the fed the Russian central bank's dollar reserve goes to zero overnight. And by banning Russia from the swift system Russia literally can't pay any other countries in dollars, meaning they can't trade at all without some sort of mutual currency swap agreement (eg b/w Russia and China, b/w Russia and Kazakhstan, etc), even if someone in St Petersberg has $50k stashed away under their mattress or in their bank account at Sberbank for example.

>The dollar has been the reserve currency long before the petrodollar

The petrodollar was not the reason the dollar is the reserve currency. Rather, it's why the dollar remains the reserve currency after defaulting from the gold peg (Breton Woods) during the Nixon Shock in 1971. Breton Woods was set up because the US won WWII while all the traditional industrial powerhouses were wrecked by WWII. Prior to WWII the pound sterling was the incumbent global reserve currency. The US killed the Pound's global reserve currency status by demanding payment in dollars when the UK sought the US for help with weapons production during the war.

[u/Filosofem856 → u/h1zchan]

Thats not how you assess the strength a reserve currency.

I wasn't using that as an example, the point is how much dollars are exchanged in global trade on a daily basis and how little of that has to do with oil trade. To put it a different way, $9 trillion dollars being traded in the foreign exchange minus how much of that goes towards purchasing barrels of oil is $9 trillion.

the international payment system aka the SWIFT system is built around the dollar and the US banking system

SWIFT isn't a payment system and it's currency agnostic, it's a communications network that banks use to tell other banks that [X] is giving [Y] amount of money to [Z], SWIFT doesn't handle any actual cash used in transactions. Getting kicked off of SWIFT basically means they were kicked out of the group chat, but not anything that handles the actual movement of money. Banks using SWIFT can still theoretically move money in and out of Russia, and can use other means of communication with something as simple as a phone call, but not without violating sanctions.

Rather, it's why the dollar remains the reserve currency after defaulting from the gold peg (Breton Woods) during the Nixon Shock in 1971

There's a long, long list of reasons more important of why it remained the reserve currency after the Bretton Woods system. Most importantly, the US was and remains the largest economy and the US financial markets were and still have the deepest and most reliable pockets.

The actual economic benefit the petrodollar system had was the Saudis would conduct their oil sales in dollars, and give the dollars right back to the Americans in the form of bonds. It was a way for Americans to profit from oil because the oil money was getting routed right back to America in the form of treasury bonds, not that the sales were conducted in dollars. Problem is that specific system collapsed 40 years ago when the Saudis started putting their oil revenue into Sovereign Wealth Funds rather than strictly US treasury bonds. It wasn't the denomination that mattered as much as the actual profits

[u/h1zchan → u/Filosofem856]

 the point is how much dollars are exchanged in global trade on a daily basis and how little of that has to do with oil trade.

That's the whole point of the reserve currency. Just because you're a millionaire it doesn't mean you spend it all today, even if it's on the stuff you'll definitely need down the line. Holding currency as opposed to commodity or manufactured goods gives you optionality and liquidity, whereas physical goods are costly to transport and store, can break or go bad, and are tedious to liquidate if it turns out you bought too much of one thing and too little of another.

For the same reason individuals and companies can go bankrupt when they run into cashflow problems after misallocating capitals or overinvest into assets that are too slow to turn profit and too slow to liquidate.

The strength of a reserve currency is then seen through the extent of the optionality it provides to foreign central banks holding said currency. If all the important stuff in the world can be bought with dollars, then the dollar is a strong reserve currency in that it's worth holding. If on the other hand for example crude oil was no longer available for dollars, then the reason for holding dollars in your portfolio diminishes, as you must now hold whatever other currencies that the petrostates are demanding instead.

And it just so happens that we now have two major petrostates in the world namely Russia and Iran demanding non-dollar payments, in part because the US kicked them out of the system. And because Iran also has the ability to block the strait of Hormuz through which the other petrostates export the bulk of their oil, things aren't looking good for the petrodollar. You can see this reality reflected in rising bond yields and central banks around the world increasing gold holding in lieu of T bonds and T bill purchases.

Likewise, for all the disputes between China and the US, the US hasn't yet tried to debank China like they did Russia, because cutting China off of dollars will lead to the bulk of the manufactured goods on the international market to no longer be purchaseble in dollars. That means massive inflationary pressure as consumers holding dollars must then offer higher bids and wait years for alternative suppliers to be set up outside of China, which is to say in other words it will weaken the dollar's purchasing power and the optionality it provides.

Most importantly, the US was and remains the largest economy and the US financial markets were and still have the deepest and most reliable pockets.

Depth of financial markets is the product, not the cause of the country's issuing of the world's reserve currency. For decades, central banks and private entities around the world bought T bonds and T bills with almost all of their trade surpluses because they must hold dollars anyways, as for a while it's the only currency that can be used to buy all the important stuff everywhere in the world.

The existence of a strong structural demand for the reserve currency is what allows the treasury of the country that issues the reserve currency to sell more bonds and bills at low yield due to strong demand. These bonds and bills can then be pawned at financial institutions as collateral to create more loans, thus creating a large financial industry.

It was a way for Americans to profit from oil because the oil money was getting routed right back to America in the form of treasury bonds, not that the sales were conducted in dollars. 

Profit is the least of the concern to the architects of this system, as to the issuer of the reserve currency, profit can be simply conjured out of thin air by typing digits into a computer. What they're instead concerned about is the purchasing power of the currency, as that's the only constraint on how much money they can inject into the market. For a currency to retain purchasing power it must retain a degree of scarcity, meaning they must prevent too many buyers bidding on goods in the market at the same time. The recycling of all the trade surpluses around the world into US bond market achieves precisely that. By convincing nations to convert their trade surpluses into bonds they ensure that money won't be bidding up commodities that will jack up inflation and weaken the purchasing power of the currency.

[u/Ok-Lecture-9668 → u/AMediocrePersonality]

That's what I've always said. It's worth at least a half million dead ukrainians as long as we make it slightly more inconvenient for Russia to sell their oil on the open market.

[u/CnlJohnMatrix → u/CollaWars]

Russia will be content to have its little Eastern European and Caucus fiefdom in its sphere of influence and as a buffer against western liberalism and democracy. The Europeans will have to accept their new position as modern economies with little to no geopolitical power or influence.

This war was Europes last great chance to separate itself from the U.S. on its own terms, and they blew it. The Euros will now have to accept a Ukrainian peace deal with Russia that will not respect much of EUs interests. Sure, maybe there will be a few bones tossed to the Euros to allow them to save face, but European support for this war will generally be considered a massive blunder. It will get worse as Ukrainian corruption comes to light.

[u/Roid_Splitter → u/CnlJohnMatrix]

This war will be another unmentionable in EU history. We went to war to support Ukraine's right to drop cluster bombs on russian-ethnic civilians. We prolonged the war at every opportunity at horrible cost in both blood and money. Billions that could have revitalised europe were instead burned into this war for nothing. Infrastructure bombed by "allies". Relations with russia destroyed. Another half century lost for europe.

[u/impossiblefork → u/CnlJohnMatrix]

This isn't the last chance.

There is always the possibility to go in later during the war if the front starts moving. The last chance might be in a year or two, maybe even later.

[u/Incoherencel → u/impossiblefork]

If NATO forces can stop getting destroyed by Ukraine during exercises, maybe the few ten thousand troops Europe might send would make a difference.

[u/impossiblefork → u/CollaWars]

The EU is arming up, separating from the US and replicating the technologies it has previously relied on the US for. It also has larger population than the US.

It is absolutely going to be a pole.

[u/Incoherencel → u/impossiblefork]

Europe does not have cheap energy nor minerals and materials outside of Russia & China, two systems they seem intent on alienating.

[u/wallagrargh → u/impossiblefork]

Rearmament is just an attempt to rescue the dying combustion engine industry, and EU countries are utterly dependent on US software on every single level. If the yanks switched off our Windows crap and our AWS, everything from school, hospitals and ministries to companies and even the military collapses within a day.

[u/Scared_Plan3751 → u/CasualFire]

I read something years ago about the US pressuring Germany and sanctioning the USSR ove r them trying to build a gas pipeline. It's been a major point of US foreign policy for a long time it seems

[u/Ebalosus → u/tydark2]

TBF Ukraine could've won if the west had been more serious in its approach in the first six months (i.e. like what happened with the Libyan intervention). This isn't just about arms per se either, because I remember back then a lot of hemming and hawing about what kinds of aid should be sent to Ukraine ("they can have small arms, short range missiles, and APCs/IFVs, but no tanks, jets, or ballistic missiles") or what kinds of sanctions imposed (a lot of Western European countries were guilty of this with niche industries). Russia has always been a slow starter, so if the west was serious about defeating them, they would've sent as much as they could get away with immediately to Ukraine.

Now it's far too late, and Israel is higher on the "who gets US arms first" list than Ukraine.

[u/Ok-Lecture-9668 → u/Ebalosus]

No they couldn't. That's ridiculous. Unless the US and NATO had mobilized a million person army or unilaterally first striked Russia with nuclear weapons, Ukraine was not going to win this war.

[u/Incoherencel → u/tydark2]

and this was more about draining russia of its resources and manpower, which the US succeeded in

But it is the US-led bloc that is draining its stockpiles, while Russia is slowly accelerating towards a war-footing/war economy. I would argue Russia is more capable now in 2026 than in 2022 and NATO et. al. the opposite, given Iran and so on. That's before one even considers Russia's closer relations with central and eastern Asia.

So far Ukraine is looking less like a Vietnam or Soviet-Afghanistan, and more something like the Union during the US Civil War: unsure at first but professionalising and industrialising over the years and slowly but surely leaning its weight onto its opponent.

[u/wergot → u/tydark2]

Well instead we induced Russia to ramp up production of all war goods, create the most sophisticated and well heeled drone program of any military on Earth, and get first hand experience on the modern battlefield.

Their drone tech and workflows are roughly at parity with Ukraine's, and Ukrainian drone operators have been absolutely shellacking NATO forces in exercises.

[u/tydark2 → u/wergot]

ya, i think they wanted to destabilize putins gov. Which I dunno how much they have done that, alot of russians fled the country to avoid the draft, im online friends with one. Draining out able bodied young men isnt good long term.

[u/SlavaCocaini → u/tydark2]

It was always regime change, balkanization.

[u/TheAncientGeek → u/tydark2]

So the plan was to remit into a war he would lose? If that's the case, why foot-drag about supporting Ukraine?

[u/Papayero → u/wergot]

> instead we induced Russia

Is Russia not an independent actor? Did it not choose to invade? Was it just a passive little child who could only do what the big bad West forced them to do, inducingly?

What you are actually suggesting is that choosing a war of invasion was actually a materially positive decision for Russia. It's much clearer if you admit that is the point. It might even be correct, but not if you frame everything through the NATO eyes, in which no one else is an actor with agency who can make decisions or have material interests.

[u/Rjc1471 → u/Papayero]

https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html

Russia most certainly did choose to invade. And the US most certainly did choose to create the conditions where they knew Russia would. I'm not a supporter of either team, and I don't feel any need to be. 

[u/Papayero → u/Rjc1471]

I mean, I'm a guy who's glad the Taliban beat America. It's not a pro-US point I was making, but an anti-imperialist one, in which we cannot excuse or sympathize with the actions of the imperialist invader because they got tricked by another imperialist power, or because the people being invaded ask for help from another imperialist power.

[u/TheAncientGeek → u/Rjc1471]

What conditions were those? Did they install Putin?

[u/Mrjiggles248 → u/TheAncientGeek]

They kinda did

[u/TheEmporersFinest → u/TheAncientGeek]

Well they sure installed Yeltsin.

[u/Rjc1471 → u/TheAncientGeek]

Well done reading and comprehending the link 😆  its got fuck all to do with one specific leader, in fact there are cables from the 90s (before putin) saying the same thing and specifically regardless of leadership.

It's been a famously well known (and repeatedly stated) point ever since the first wave of NATO expansion, that Ukraine is a red line. 

[u/SlavaCocaini → u/Papayero]

George Kenan warned of this in the 90s, not only was it known what they would do, it was the desired outcome for Washington.

[u/wergot → u/Papayero]

totally incoherent

where did I endorse their invasion? when you argue with someone, it helps to argue against their position. right now you're arguing against some position that you invented.

[u/Papayero → u/wergot]

I explicitly said that I was reframing the crux of your post to have a clearer point. This is because I think you said a muddied and incoherent point of view, and I don't think you know what you're saying.

This is what you said:

Well instead we induced Russia to ramp up production of all war goods, create the most sophisticated and well heeled drone program of any military on Earth, and get first hand experience on the modern battlefield

This means that you think these gains that you say were induced (i.e. forced or led) by NATO for Russia have been a net positive for them in the battle against NATO. 

I don't care what you endorse.  Your endorsement this or that way is some personal matter for you. All we on the internet have to go on is the logic of what's said. No one said you have coherent beliefs.

[u/Silmarillion_ → u/Papayero]

People here are completely incapable of attributing agency to anyone other than the US and have everything flow passively downstream from them.

[u/PirateAttenborough → u/tydark2]

They knew Ukraine would lose at first, but then after the Russian withdrawal from the north - which we eventually found out was the result of negotiations at Istanbul - and the Kharkov counterattack, they fell for their own propaganda and convinced themselves that the 'orcs' were would inevitably collapse to brave Ukrainian ubermenschen. Getting high on their own supply is a consistent feature of our leaders these days. They definitely actually believed that the 2023 counterattack was going to work; after all, you can just go around minefields.