It’s not Russia who is “bogged down” in Ukraine, it’s the collective west. The US wanted to pivot to Asia after pulling out of Afghanistan and now they are stuck having to pour in an ungodly amount of resources into the black hole that is Ukraine. To hijack and reverse their usual LOTR metaphors, we can say the Eye of Sauron is fixed on Eastern Europe at the moment and China has mostly free reign in the Pacific, as such they have been busy forging ties and security pacts with a bunch of island nations, they’ve been conducting exercises and they have been given more time to prepare. If the US does try to launch its bid with regards to Taiwan they will be essentially in a two front proxy war. They already had to delay several weapons shipments to Taiwan because it all went to Ukraine.
In addition, it’s the west that is in deep economic trouble at the moment and only getting worse. They don’t seem to have a solution to the inflation problem and the Europeans are approaching a crisis with regards to oil and gas prices, as well as food prices and shortages. This means either the US loses some of its most important allies or it is forced to prop them up with even more support out of an already struggling US economy that has not recovered from the botched Covid response.
The whole Ukraine gambit has backfired totally on Washington, it has not worked at all the way they hoped it would. They thought they could quickly collapse or bring to heel Russia with shock and awe sanctions, or at least involve them in a politically extremely unpopular and costly war that they would not make any progress in (relying on the heavy fortifications in the Donbass holding them off).
Instead the Russian government is more popular and stable than ever, their economy is recovering and developing even more self-reliance, and they have already broken through Ukraine’s defenses while taking minimal casualties compared to the other side’s catastrophic losses. They also managed to disable the ability of Ukraine to mount any sort of coherent offensive action with their initial blitz in the first week or so.
This has turned into both and economic and kinetic war of attrition that the west is losing badly, and China has been given a ton of breathing room.
It’s not Russia who is “bogged down” in Ukraine, it’s the collective west. The US wanted to pivot to Asia after pulling out of Afghanistan and now they are stuck having to pour in an ungodly amount of resources into the black hole that is Ukraine. To hijack and reverse their usual LOTR metaphors, we can say the Eye of Sauron is fixed on Eastern Europe at the moment and China has mostly free reign in the Pacific, as such they have been busy forging ties and security pacts with a bunch of island nations, they’ve been conducting exercises and they have been given more time to prepare. If the US does try to launch its bid with regards to Taiwan they will be essentially in a two front proxy war. They already had to delay several weapons shipments to Taiwan because it all went to Ukraine.
In addition, it’s the west that is in deep economic trouble at the moment and only getting worse. They don’t seem to have a solution to the inflation problem and the Europeans are approaching a crisis with regards to oil and gas prices, as well as food prices and shortages. This means either the US loses some of its most important allies or it is forced to prop them up with even more support out of an already struggling US economy that has not recovered from the botched Covid response.
The whole Ukraine gambit has backfired totally on Washington, it has not worked at all the way they hoped it would. They thought they could quickly collapse or bring to heel Russia with shock and awe sanctions, or at least involve them in a politically extremely unpopular and costly war that they would not make any progress in (relying on the heavy fortifications in the Donbass holding them off).
Instead the Russian government is more popular and stable than ever, their economy is recovering and developing even more self-reliance, and they have already broken through Ukraine’s defenses while taking minimal casualties compared to the other side’s catastrophic losses. They also managed to disable the ability of Ukraine to mount any sort of coherent offensive action with their initial blitz in the first week or so.
This has turned into both and economic and kinetic war of attrition that the west is losing badly, and China has been given a ton of breathing room.
“Hesitantly optimistic” is my final take