I still think Russia will eventually win - they still have a lot more gear & men to burn through than what the other side can realistically muster, despite all the weapon transfers. But I'm now convinced that it will take years to do so - and there won't be anything decisive about it, given the shape in which Russia will emerge at the end of the war.
The duration doesn't matter, the world would prefer a faster conclusion though, but decisive means there won't be a second fight over the same objectives.
I see that as inevitable at this point. Even if Russia signs a ceasefire right now, keeping what they have already 'annexed' (Donbas, Zaporizhia, Kherson, Crimea), it will simply be seen by the Kremlin as an opportunity to get a breather & lick their wounds...before building their war machine back up for another go at the rest of Ukraine perhaps 5 or 10 years down the line. Moscow has decided that an independent Ukraine cannot be allowed to exist as such a country poses too much of a risk for them on the plains.
Even if the Russians succeed in taking all of Ukraine now, a few years down the line they'll move into Moldova - to close the Bessarabian gap. The territory of Moldova has already been kept in limbo thanks to Transnistria so they cannot join NATO easily. There is no lasting peace to be realistically expected for Eastern Europe on the horizon.
All existing status quos will be challenged, that's inevitable - the question we should ask ourselves is, what do we stand to gain or lose from it? And act accordingly. One thing's for certain - the existing global status quo is certainly not very advantageous for us.
As of WW3, well it's gonna happen at some point. It's merely a question of both Europe & the INDOPAC having a hot war at the same time. Doesn't seem very far-fetched these days.
A ceasefire or peace treaty at this point doesn't help Russia or the world, only Ukraine and NATO.
This war is too big, it's a problem. The Russians won't face the same situation elsewhere, whether it's Moldova, Georgia or other CAR states. It's too early for Russia to directly meddle in NATO states, like the Baltics, so we can be sure they won't cause problems there this decade at the very least.
The rest, yeah. We don't wanna get caught with our pants down when it actually happens. Luckily nothing much this decade, neither Russia nor China will be ready for one.
Again, I see that as inevitable. Regardless of whether Russia wins or looses, it will emerge economically much weaker & isolated than it is was before the war. Russia's domestic market is too small & too poor for it to become a consumer-based economy, in fact their dependence on energy exports will increase even further. With Europe no longer a captive energy buyer (and the coming inevitable loss of Indian market due to Yuan demand which we cannot accept), there is no version of the post-war situation in which Russia can survive without China's help. Of course Beijing knows that and Russia will have to make several painful concessions in order to secure its future.
And Russia would much prefer that concession to be the Central Asian ex-Soviet republics rather than Russia's own far-east oblasts. Central Asia is a 'nice to have' for Russia, and yes strategically important, but if forced to make a choice, the well-being of the European core (West of the Urals) takes absolute priority.
Remember that Russia already went against Indian interests in Afghanistan toward the end, and chose to toe the Chinese/Pakistani line instead. They've already made up their mind as to who is more important for them in the years to come - the PRC.
I would disagree on both points. Russia's population will sooner or later become a Western-equivalent population and that would help them create soft power. Their economy too will be as big as Japan's, they have the population for that. Keep an eye out on their PPP and HDI numbers.
Russia and India are cooperating on Afganistan. As for PRC, Russia and China are long term enemies. So Russian and Indian interests are more aligned than otherwise. We are practically on the same page with CAR, like we are both allied with Armenia, we both don't like Turkey, we both prefer less PRC and Western influence, we both like Iran and so on. And we are not only willing to share power, we even have sufficient space to entwine our economies.
Forget this whole Global South nonsense. 90% of the Global South is already onboard with the BRI in one form or the other. There cannot be any convergence of strategic interests between India & the GS because none of them share the threat perception we have of China. For them, their economic interests (deliverable through BRI, RCEP or other methods) are far more important. The GS simply has no strategic goal beyond that, and even if individual countries do, there can never be a convergence of such goals across the GS. That would be subscribing too much into the failed Nehruvian worldview.
The ONLY other power that shares that threat perception of China, and is actually willing to put strategic interests ahead of any potential economic ones toward the addressing of said threat - is the US.
That's temporary. While the latter part is true, about India and US with converging interests regarding China from a military PoV, the GS requires a counterweight to China, which the West has failed to become. India is the only one capable of filling that spot. As for BRI, yeah, there's a BRI led by China today, but there will be one led by India tomorrow. In fact, the West, Japan and India are working together to counter China's BRI in Africa.
The UAE, France, Germany, UK and Italy are in talks with India to launch joint projects in Africa owing to Indias goodwill created by funding demand driven projects.
economictimes.indiatimes.com
The Africans hate the West, and tolerate the Chinese, but are more appreciative of India. The fact that the Taliban prefer India over Pakistan says a lot. The same thing in Africa. So the West wants to combine India's soft power in Africa with their significantly cheaper money to counter China.
India simply has no capital flows that can realistically influence SEA decision-making away from China, and won't have for the next 20 years at least. Only China & the oil-rich GCC can mobilize that level of capital surplus to throw at anything & everything.
That's why we have teamed up with the QUAD to tackle SEA & Pacific Island issues. Because even the US on it's own cannot conjure up that kind of no-questions-asked capital. That's why they're into building coalitions wherever they can.
We have the money for it, or at least we will get it soon with growth. The next decade, we can become a major energy supplier to SEA as well, it's a massive hydrogen market for India.
Japan is the biggest player in SEA today.
Tokyo's position as the top investor allows it to not only counter Beijing's growing clout in the region but also promote key economic and foreign policy objectives.
www.japantimes.co.jp
So a combined India, Japan push into SEA will be able to compete with China.
Good for us. We're getting a nice piece of the pie as well - thanks to Russia's refusal to accept payments in currencies other than Yuan for anything, oil or weapons (not to mention their domestic industry being fully occupied in supplying their own war effort).
Not that unlikely for us to see Vietnam mothballing their Bastions & replacing with BrahMos. HAL seems set to grab the contracts for maintenance of SEA's entire Flanker inventory as well (Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia).
The strategic military market is going to the US and Europe, we are just getting leftovers, like missiles and artillery, some old maintenance contracts. We need to be able to sell jets and ships to SEA, and it's a lot easier to do that when SEA wants to replace Russian gear instead of Western.
I think the relationship has more or less run it's course. Russia's ability to supply us is now diminished to the point that we have to start looking elsewhere for critical inputs. Their problems are two-fold (supply chains cannot accommodate exports + even if they can, they want payment only in Yuan).
So yeah, Russia is our main supplier - and that supplier is already gone.
As of pissing them off, at some point we have to send Moscow the message that it also pisses us off when they keep supplying China with weapons + work against us in areas key to our interests (like Afg) and not expect a blowback.
Russia is our only supplier of exotic tech. While interest in some technologies has waned to the point of zero, we are entirely dependent on them for certain technologies that the West is not yet willing to provide. Brahmos 1/2 and Nerpa are prime examples. We have access to the military signals of GLONASS. They are intimately involved in many naval projects, be it carriers, destroyers and the big tamale, SSBNs.
Our dependency on Russia is here to stay for 10 more years even with extensive Western assistance. And another 20 years to maintain what we procure in the first 10 years.
And we are a player in CAR because of Russia. Have you already forgotten about the US playing good terrorist, bad terrorist with Pakistan, while applying Pakistani rules and definitions to the game? The US has harmed Indian interests in Afghanistan much more than the Russians have.
In the past there were legitimate reasons to tolerate the Russians' grandiose view of themselves (which seems to forget that they are but a shell of their former Soviet status and are about 1/3rd the size of India's economy) and the ego that brings - such as their UNSC veto. But with it being almost certain that soon Russia is going to become the PRC's lieutenant in most global matters, I don't see the wisdom in waiting for the egg to hatch.
India needs the Russian UNSC vote. In case we lose access to that, the West can make India a pariah state overnight whenever they want to.
Because of the Russian vote, India has access to 4 UNSC votes. Without it, it could drop to zero or 1, depending on the circumstances.
Even if the world wakes up to a genocide in India tomorrow, we are practically guaranteed 1 vote.
On the other hand, we need help in booting up our local Private sector arms industry especially with items like ammo, artillery shells, shoulder-launched munitions & small drones - a nice way to spin up these industries is to let them take contracts from the West's Ukraine fund to produce munitions for export.
It goes against our principle of neutrality though. The Indian military alone is enough for such a task. We also don't want our companies in the future to be branded as war-profiteers either, when they are still crawling on the ground. India will also have plenty of snowflakes in the future.
Not to mention, Pakistan has already supplied munitions to Ukraine - that didn't stop the Russians from selling them oil, or stop Lavrov from declaring "Roosi-Pakistan dosti zindabad". I think we underestimate just how desperate the Russians are right now. A customer the size of India? That's a totally different ball game compared to likes of Pakistan or Turkey (both of whom supplied to Ukraine), the Russians would be fools to ignore that. But of course they will try to convince you otherwise...this is where diplomatic hard ball comes into play.
Pakistan has sold this idea to the Russians that they were forced to do so by the West for an IMF deal. And it's true. They desired to stay neutral.
No matter how close Russia gets to Pakistan, they are not gonna sell them exotic weapons. And with the sanctions in place, Pak is not able to buy anything real in the first place.
And you can bet we've already begun playing. The Modi-Zelensky bilateral, NSA Doval's talks with the Ukrainian leadership...all this started mere weeks after the Russians refused to accept Rupee payments. We are certainly attempting to send a message - remains to be seen how far we'll take it.
GoI agrees on Russia's stance on the rupee. It's not a problem right now.
India is expected to act as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine due to Western pressure, nothing else. Ukraine and the West want to stop fighting, even if for a little while, and they want to come out looking good, and the Russians want none of that, so the West wants to bring India in to talk to the Russians. The West is still in the "convince India" step and India is not biting.
Look, there's literally no advantage to India ruining its relations with Russia. We have a significant UNSC and military tech dependency which is not going away anytime soon. Our economies are complementary, they supply, we consume. And finally, a lot of our political objectives and viewpoints are aligned. We have similar objectives in the CAR, ME, Africa and SEA. And we both view US and China as long term rivals/enemies, and we make it a point that our relations with our respective 'friends' does not harm our own relations. So, India works with the US with China in mind and Russia does the same with China with the US in mind. And any attempts by the US/China to separate India and Russia are resisted.
So why would we sell weapons to Ukraine and ruin it all? There is literally no advantage for us, and any perceived returns from the West will come to India due to the China bogey in the first place.
There's another thing people haven't understood. While India's dependency on Russia is seen as a disadvantage by outsiders, it doesn't affect India at all. We are absolutely fine with it. Our relationship is so stable, even our energy requirements are now at significantly greater dependency levels than our military dependency. We are absolutely and perfectly fine with Russia as a supplier. Even if we commit genocide, nothing will change between us.
So, as a neutral state, our move now should be to leverage our good relations with both to maximise our own benefits. Do you really think the US will supply us with SSN tech if we don't have an alternate supplier? Regardless of what other people say, the US and Russia are still the global leaders in exotic military tech and we are the only country today that can gain access to tech from either or both sides. We are way behind in materials, space and naval tech, and it's time to get them all.
A Russian victory would mean a further tightening of screws by the West and the greater will both increase their reliance on India. It's very rare for an upcoming power to be fought over by two established powers, so we gotta leverage that. Which means, supplying weapons to Ukraine will hurt us more than if we fired the same weapons on ourselves.
markets.businessinsider.com
And honestly, we have to bear his propaganda infested posts every day is also quite frankly NATO's fault
