https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/02/russia-ukraine-war-one-year-national-identity/673192/?utm_content=edit-promo&utm_source=twitter&utm_term=2023-02-24T10%3A30%3A56&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_medium=social

So, this is a nice feel-good article, but here’s my take: China is moving to make Russia a client state. Russian gas and oil (and maybe resources from the Donbas) will flow to China. Big geopolitical move for China. Ukraine will wind up as yet another frozen conflict. The US will lose interest. (France is talking surrender, of course.) The “non-aligned” world will just sit this out.

I’d love to see Ukraine recover everything (they could long-term-lease Sevastopol to Russia, maybe), but once China starts supplying weapons to Russia, Ukraine will make no more progress unless the West really steps up, and I just don’t see that happening.

This would have gone better if we’d put heavy weapons in the pipeline sooner, but of course we didn’t.

It might even be too late for Taiwan, unless they get serious really fast about becoming a porcupine.

If the West wakes up (and maybe we are; the peace dividend is over), we’ll be entering another cold war, which is sad because war is wasteful, but the alternative is the spread of corrupt, authoritarian governments that abuse humans.

I know it’s popular to say that the US is that now, but: no. (Not yet, anyway.)