"Perhaps not the best source to turn to for a serious, impartial military analysis."
Fair point. But it is from Emmanuel Todd. Who the f. is Emmanuel Todd?
"Todd attracted attention in 1976 when, at age 25, he predicted the fall of the Soviet Union, based on indicators such as increasing infant mortality rates: La chute finale: Essais sur la décomposition de la sphère Soviétique (The Final Fall: An Essay on the Decomposition of the Soviet Sphere)."
It doesn't matter who he is, or what he said when he was 25.
His perspective this time around is plainly warped, and his analysis is just as plainly flawed, given the current reality of what's happening on the ground in Ukraine. You can tell that all by yourself, without having to take some supposed visionary's word for it.
That's what happens when people get lucky early in their careers. Sadly, it tends to go to their head.
What’s currently going on in Ukraine is they are slowly losing a war of attrition that eventually their allies will lose interest in funding.
We don’t have to like that outcome to see that it’s inevitable and has been from the very start.
One entirely possible outcome I haven’t seen discussed much is Poland turning on the Ukrainian rump state once Russia finishes annexing the ethnic Russian east.
The current situation can only be regarded as a stalemate. In the service to which Russia is devoting 10 percent of its GDP, while Western countries are spending 1 percent.
We don’t have to like that outcome to see that it’s inevitable and has been from the very start.
It's not at all inevitable. Russia has lost many of its optional wars of aggression and foreign intervention, in the past.
Putin will also be dead or starting to lose his marbles in a few years, and Russia's overall prospects for stability (even if there were no war at all) do not look particularly good after that.
Fair point. But it is from Emmanuel Todd. Who the f. is Emmanuel Todd?
"Todd attracted attention in 1976 when, at age 25, he predicted the fall of the Soviet Union, based on indicators such as increasing infant mortality rates: La chute finale: Essais sur la décomposition de la sphère Soviétique (The Final Fall: An Essay on the Decomposition of the Soviet Sphere)."