Yeah seems that way. Either the war ends up in a stalemate after another year or two or if Ukraine ever wins its years away. The idea being that a long war, regardless of the outcome, is better for the West because the longer it goes on for, the weaker Russia will be at the end of it and the West will have more time where they don't have to worry about Russia.
Russia has already lost enough tanks and vehicles that at pre war production levels it will take at least 20 years to replace them and no doubt the US likes that.
The US also gets to push its strategic goals this way. Europe doesn't have the will or volume of weapons needed for Ukraine to beat Russia, so the U.S. is required to chip in and that makes them the playmaker and they get to assert their will which appears to be to make Russia weaker as well as cut European trade with Russia
I think it crazy personally how little we, as in the UK and Europe, are prepared militarily and the industry to back it up. We've seen distinctly when it comes to a country like Russia the best deterrence is strength - like any bully they like to exploit, and are only encouraged by, weakness. A higher level of preparedness is the best possibility for peace in our time and a bulwark against having to resort to our nuclear deterrent(s) - which while the chances of their use is low the more you rely on them alone it does increase the chance of having to use them.
People like to count Russia out after all the losses but while they still have people minded like Putin at the helm they will only grow into this war in the longer run with increasingly more to lose from backing down than pressing on until they are utterly spent. While they might increasingly struggle with production of advanced weaponry they will be able to retool and mobilise around the production of most of their legacy hardware, to at least export configuration, on increasingly larger scale.
While Russia has taken significant losses in many areas they still have substantial capability left - their larger self-propelled artillery platforms for instance they've only lost around 5-10% of their active stock (which is around 20-30% losses of what they've committed to Ukraine) and still have at least as much again as their active stock which can be put back into service from reserves in a short period of time.
Last edited: