https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/01/ukraine-war-russia-stalemate-us-aid-dire-consequences.html
What Happens if We Let #Ukraine Lose?
BY MARY HARRIS
..."The U.S. has always said that U.S. weapons will not be used for that purpose, which was one reason why, for quite a long time, President #Biden was reluctant to ship long-range #missiles to Ukraine. They didn’t want to give them a missile from which they could hit #Russian targets. Well, he let up on that idea, but he still said, “Don’t use this to attack targets in Russia.” Then it became, “Well, if you want to use your own weapons or other countries’ weapons to attack targets in Russia, that’s OK. Just don’t use ours.”
Does that mean really that if, say, they used one of our weapons to attack targets in Russia, that #Putin would start attacking targets inside NATO? I don’t think so. I think a lot of these red lines, which people feared at the beginning of the war, have dissolved or turned very pink anyway. And it could be that Putin is realizing that he can just hang on.
So if I’m hearing you right, what you’re saying is that this new phase of the war is this realization that Russia has a lot more people and maybe a little more coordination and maybe a few more missiles than we thought, which is alarming. But also that Ukraine is stepping up its guerrilla tactics a little bit, tactics inside Russia. And that’s interesting to me because those approaches, they don’t seem symmetrically matched. And I wonder what you think that means about what happens now.
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But what really needs to happen—unless you just want to give up—is that the aid has to be restored, that there has to be a deal between the White House and Congress. Otherwise it could collapse. And here’s the thing: I’m usually not the kind of guy who talks in these sorts of terms. I don’t generally believe in domino theories and things like that. But if it is shown that after all this effort and trouble and time and money, the U.S. just kind of caves because it’s getting too hard, and Putin wins in a meaningful way, this sends a message to China about what they might be able to get away with in Taiwan.
It also sends the same message to our allies in Asia, especially Japan and South Korea, which might say, “Jesus, we can’t really rely on the United States. We’d better build our own nuclear arsenal as a deterrent,” which will then provoke a real nuclear arms race with China. And North Korea might also build more nuclear weapons. In the Middle East, it might tell foes and friends that the U.S. deterrent really isn’t as severe or as certain as some of the leaders of the U.S. say. It’s going to make the world, which is already a fairly anarchic place, much, much more freewheeling and anarchic and not in our favor at all."...
