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>the only thing I care about is people not dying

If you think Ukrainians are just going to roll over and submit if everyone abandons them and Ukraine must capitulate, you are an idiot.

These are people who's ancestors had their ethnicity half erased. Even this war is part of that erasure. Russia literally kidnaps children to ship them off who knows where.

The Ukrainian people will resist. It will be Afghanistan all over again.

Plenty will continue to die.

A lack of ATACMS will not change that. The ONLY outcome that stops people dying is Russia going the fuck home. Ukrainians have been dying to push out Russian invaders for 10 years now, not 2.

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dagenleg 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

The war is not going well and I could see how cutting the western support could force the Ukrainian loss. We have seen that when the front started crumbling during the period when the ammunition supply from the US was interrupted for half a year.

The west can definitely force Ukraine to sign a humiliating treaty, ceding land and freezing the conflict, there's plenty of leverage for that. If that happens, the days of Ukraine as an independent state are numbered - a new invasion will happen as soon as russians rebuild their forces, and this time it will be done right. People will continue to die even if the country gets erased from the map, just maybe not in the trenches, but in the torture chambers and prisons instead.

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Dalewyn 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Common Ukrainians are increasingly suffering war exhaustion[1], if current trends continue then next year could reach a point that Zelensky might lose popular support all together.

This is alongside war-support exhaustion from America. One of Trump's campaign promises was to end the war immediately ("in 24 hours", I personally think that specific timeframe is untenable), and he won the popular vote which cements that promise as a popular American mandate.

Wars are oftentimes inevitable, but I am strictly of the mind that if wars must be waged that they be decisive and swift so that human suffering can be kept to the absolute minimum. The war as it stands is neither decisive nor swift, and we (the west) absolutely share responsibility in the blood being shed.

And on the note of blood shed, another commenter asked "Whose lives?"[2] when I rebuked him for calling human lives "cheap". I believe we can all agree that all men are created equal with an unalienable right to life.

If we are seriously going to say certain lives are less valuable than others, then I think Putin has absolutely won his warmongering bet on every front possible. If we are happy to see Ukrainians die in place of our own countrymen so we (the west) can point at Russia and laugh, man maybe we deserve to lose the Pax Americana era.

[1]: https://news.gallup.com/poll/653495/half-ukrainians-quick-ne...

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42197023

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aguaviva 5 days ago | parent [-]

Which cements that promise as a popular American mandate

Do you think the folks who voted for him have a reasonable understanding of what is likely to happen on the ground (and its significance outside the US) after that "mandate" is carried out?

Or do you think they pretty much -- just don't care?

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Dalewyn 5 days ago | parent [-]

Note: I'm also going to reply to your other comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42200520) here to save both of us time.

First off, this is a war that America (and indeed the west) isn't a direct party to. The cold hard fact is that this is "someone else's war", and we (America) just got done with the War on Terror which went on for over 20 years. We are war exhausted to begin with.

Secondly, the fact that our response has been lukewarm and insignificant for so long (almost 3 years!) makes the notion of refuting warmongering a laughing stock at this point. We missed the boat in about as glorious a fashion as we possibly could.

Thirdly and finally given the preceding, no: I think most Americans genuinely don't care anymore beyond that the war ends now, that people stop dying now. Keep in mind that the people who voted for Trump (that includes me) also effectively voted against warhawks like Cheney, Bolton, and so on. The American people want peace, tenuous and unfair as it may be.

As for whether Trump forcing the war to a closure would be for or against the notion of peace: Have no doubt about it, we will be losers coming to the negotiating table in shame and that's regardless whether it's Trump or Harris or even Biden for that matter. Putin won his bet, we had our bluff called and we would be there to try and make the best of the bed we made. But if the war ends, the war ends.

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aguaviva 5 days ago | parent [-]

I appreciate the detailed and thoughtful follow-up.

However, your final response ("As for whether ...") does seem to be largely avoiding the question it addresses. If we may try again:

"But if the war does end with parameters in the range of such that can likely expect under a Trump-Vance deal -- including of course major territorial concessions, along with likely some kind of statement acknowledging Putin's grievances, and another guaranteeing that he and his people will never be prosecuted; and very likely also, requiring that Russia pay at most a paltry share of the $1T in financial damages which Ukraine is squarely owed -- will the cause of peace be furthered, or will it hindered?"

Considering not just the current conflict, but possibilities of future aggression, and the likely impact on the international system of such a precedence being set.

(Tweaking the goalposts here, but only slightly)

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Dalewyn 5 days ago | parent [-]

My apologies, I should have been more deliberate:

The cause of peace will be hindered, but this won't entirely be Trump's (or Harris's in another timeline) fault because Biden already missed the boat on this at least two years ago. You can't board a boat that already left port.

The consequences of warmongering are meaningless economical and political sanctions, and a halfassed proxy war from the sanctioning side; this is set in stone now and there's no going back. Peace is actually valued quite low despite narratives to the contrary, as it turned out.

	▲	aguaviva 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		I'm more "glass half-full" than you are on Ukraine's chances of avoiding a worst-case outcome (assuming support continues, even at roughly current funding levels). And as far as the interests of the US are concerned: guaranteeing that Russia's regime understands that it simply won't be allowed to pursue further adventures of this sort. But at least I can see where you're coming from.