1. Until the autumn of 2022:
Exhaustion of indigenous Ukrainian military capacity by the operations of the limited initial Russian force.
2. Mobilization in Sep 2022:
Russia accepted the new strategic logic of a longer war of industrial attrition—a war in which Russia would enjoy numerous advantages, including a much larger pool of manpower, vastly superior industrial capacity, indigenous production of standoff weaponry, armored vehicles, and shells, an industrial plant beyond the reach of systematic Ukrainian attacks, and strategic autonomy.
- While these are systemic and long-term advantages, Ukraine enjoyed a brief window of initiative in the short term. This window was squandered with the botched summer assault on Russia's defenses in the south, and the second phase of the war ended alongside the AFU's drive on the Azov shore.
3. Now: The Reckoning
Russian combat power has been steadily rising due to investments made over the previous year. There is an exhaustion of Ukrainian initiative on the ground and an increasing self-cannibalization of AFU assets. There is also a strategic exhaustion evident within NATO.
The United States (and its European satellites) have four options, none of which are good:
• Commit to an economic mobilization to substantially ramp up material deliveries to Ukraine.
• Continue the existing trickle of support to Ukraine, leading to its slow and progressive defeat.
• End support for Ukraine and watch it suffer a more rapid and totalizing defeat.
• Attempt to freeze the conflict with negotiations.
This is a classic formula for strategic paralysis, and the most likely outcome is that the United States will default to its current course of action, supporting Ukraine at a trickle level commensurate with the financial and industrial limits in place, keeping the AFU in the field but ultimately overmatched in myriad dimensions by rising Russian capabilities.
https://www.sott.net/article/486191-Russo-Ukrainian-War-The-Reckoning
