It seems like there's no way that Biden can make any negotiation with Russia seem like a win to his base so if he wins it's almost an automatic 4 more years of war. But if Trump wins he could make most of the concessions that Russia wants and still sell it as "the best deal" to his fans. Is a trump win the best hope for shortening war?
Disclaimer: I would never vote for trump, I also won't vote for Biden, I'm also in a state that always goes one way so it doesn't matter at all.
Yes, if the war is still going on. There’s only one way this war will end and that’s negotiation. The Biden administration understands that, they already feel stupid for not listening to Mark Milley about ending the war in late 2022 (that was who it was right? It’s like 3am I can’t remember) so even Biden is ready to come to the negotiating table, he’s just in a pickle because he’s whipped his base into a frenzy and now he needs to back down a bit without looking weak. Trump doesn’t have the same concerns and in fact his base wants him to negotiate an end to the war.
In the past the pentagon has been able to convince trump to go along with their aims, but in this case most in the military are ready to end the war so trump wouldn’t even really be opposing the “deep state.” They’re just trying to figure out how to end it without it being considered a loss. I read one commentator who said the summer Counter-offensive was mostly just an attempt to regain as much territory as possible before pushing for negotiation in winter (when fighting would be more difficult). We’ll see if that plays out and negotiations do in fact begin this winter.
This whole thing actually reminds me of listening to another commentator in 2016, right after trump won, who said well really the one positive is we won’t go to war with Russia, and he made the case that if Hillary had won we’d no doubt be ratcheting up tensions with Russia. Looks like whoever that was was right, since as soon as we get Biden we get pulled into what is pretty much a proxy war with Russia.
Not sure about this, all I've seen on the news is the exact opposite. The Biden hardliners are made of the Nulan and Blinken group and they are the idiots in the room that fully believe the whole NATO superiority shit.
It is true they weren't as vicious at the beginning of the war, the US always had strict limits to what weapons they were willing to give away for example, it is also true the UK/Boris group were the ones most hawkish and pushing to escalate. But it was never clear just how much Boris was acting in self interest versus how much it was direct orders from the US, a bit of both realy.
But anyway maybe in hindsight eventually the Biden hawks will regret the war, but so far they haven't and they're not. At worst they are getting anxious that Zelensky isn't delivering the results he promised and they believed, but they fully bought into this narrative.
So yeah I agree the war is not likely to end this year. But I don’t think the Biden administration is at this point hoping for total defeat of Russia. Both Zelensky and Biden have indicated that the war will end at the negotiating table, and some officials are indicating that “Milley had a point” when he floated the possibility of peace talks winter 2022.
But what Biden says in that op-ed is I think what’s stopping them - “we have moved quickly to send Ukraine a significant amount of weaponry…so it can fight on the battlefield and be in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table.” They don’t want to enter into negotiations looking weak, as they might not be able to force concessions from Russia in that situation. They missed their chance in 2022 when NATO felt emboldened by recent gains to prolong the war further. I think there was a hope that this summers counteroffensive would give Ukraine momentum to enter into negotiations with Russia on its back foot, but that has clearly failed and so the war continues. I don’t see how it will end if Ukraine does not start making some substantial territorial gains, however I don’t think the administration is so united behind the maximalist rhetoric being publicly espoused, and there is a desire to end the war without losing credibility. Any Russian successes will likely prolong the war, while any Ukrainian successes will make the moderates position more palatable.