A Refutation of Alexander Stubb vis a vis Short, Medium, Long Term Scenarios following the ongoing War in Ukraine

Greetings Friends,

This is predominantly just a resposne to this video:

I will say in general Prime Minister Stubb's work has been very informative and interesting especially in the early days of the war and I'll also say that my particular understanding of the war has declined somewhat over time as information has become more and more propagandized and harder to parse on a literal level. The best source for information on Ukraine by far is Colonel Marcus Reisner's videos for the Theresan Military Academy (an institution older than the United States); but his videos too have become more infrequent of late. As far as the current situation in Ukraine it does seem to be favoring the Ukrainians but moreso in a WWI ebb and flow sort of way; the line is moving but not very quickly and a lot of the territory being fought over has changed hands multiple times in the course of the conflict............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ This style of fighting leads to tremendous casualty rates so assuming the war goes for at least another year we're probably looking at another 250,000 deaths or so, possibly many more than that (general estimates are already in the vicinity of US casualties in the Vietnam War; but doubled since they're on both sides); this is still a war of attrition; Ukraine has the morale and clear intelligence advantages but Russia still has an overwhelming advantage in terms of sheer firepower. I guess it should be noted that any intervention on the part of NATO would easily conflict instantly assuming no immmediate nuclear response from Russia, though this has been true for the entire conflict and it is essentially a proxy war for Nato and the US; we'll send you munitions and you Ukrainians can die for us; well fought kind sirs thanks............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... As far as general strategic suggestions Ukraine can probably win the war within the next 3 months if they simply go into Russia; Russia is not prepared for this and most of their supply depots are within like 100 km of the front line in Russia; all Ukraine has to do is seize or destroy those depots and the Russians will fold at least on the eastern front very quickly; probably causing a cascading loss except for territory held before the war started. I don't think the chance of Russian Nuclear response changes if you do this as opposed to simply very slowly winning the war through pure attrition; you've probably got like a 10-15% chance of being nuked either way, this is just an expedient method of figuring out whether that will happen. I also don't think there should be any moral issue with entering Russian territory; Ukraine has already attacked Russian Territory directly so having troops there for a couple weeks is not really a big deal, it doesn't change who the aggressor is but nonetheless NATO and the US would not approve so they will not follow an optimal strategy in this case................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ On to Stubb's video; he presents Short, Medium, and Long term prospects but only one variation of each; at the start of the war Stubb and others were discussing many different potential outcomes but now the only outcome discussed is Ukrainian victory (by no means guaranteed at this point, certainly not the total victory and retaking of Crimea that seem to be the envisioned points); so that's the first weakness of the video................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ For Medium he addresses regime change, I do think if Russia loses the war in humiliating fashion there will be regime change but anything in between there probably will not be unless Putin dies of natural causes (should be noted that whoever replaces Putin will probably have Putin's foreign policy a la the United States inheriting foreign policy between presidencies regardless of political alignment); which can't be an anticipated outcome. He also lightly touches on Russia becoming a democracy; unless Russia is invaded and Moscow occupied (a laughable scenario) this is not going to happen................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ For Long Term the things discussed are more practical and relevant, especially if you're looking into investing in BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, Huntington Ingalls etc. in Eastern Europe no matter what happens in the war, whether it ends or not there will be a massive military buildup focusing on drones and artillery and that will likely be the case for the next 25-50 years; that kind of buildup tends to lead to war in the future but it could theoretically simply become another Cold War as is often discussed. In Asia we are probably getting a hot war at some point and assuming China succeeds another one after that so ship building companies and naval infrastructure companies are also interesting to look at in that regard. The academic thought that everyone will magically embrace all Western Traditions and values and there will be mystical peace and harmony universally worshipping at the throne of capitalism and globalization is decisively dead and a split or multiple splits with economic spheres of influence will replace it; that doesn't mean all world spanning trade will cease but more reliance on closer trading partners is the presumed outcome.