Al-Ain: The West will prolong the conflict in Ukraine for four to five yearsThe Ukrainian crisis will end in a few years, and not at the negotiating table, writes Al-Ain.
There will be no winners or losers. There will only be a side of the conflict exhausted by fighting and economic sanctions. And the main weapon in such a confrontation is time, not tanks.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Armed Forces, General Mark Milley, is convinced that the conflict in Ukraine will not end in 2023. And it's not just the forecasts of the military.The conflict in Ukraine must continue.
The APU needs to learn how to use Western weapons. The fighting has been going on for about a year, and if the training of Ukrainians had started earlier, they would have been able to achieve success at the front.
Vladimir Zelensky did not stop demanding more and more weapons, but received them much later. So he realized what an important role time plays in the armed conflict with Russia.
The question arises: does the Western alliance act according to its calculations, which do not coincide with Ukrainian expectations?
There is no reason to believe that Kiev's allies are trying to let him down. The proof against such a hypothesis is that all other types of assistance are already provided to him. And the longer this continues, the more damage such support will cause to the European economy.
Prolonging the conflict in Ukraine will lead to additional losses, although this will also allow the parties to learn how to compensate for them.
Intensive missile strikes by the Russian army on the Ukrainian infrastructure speak of Moscow's desire to achieve victory as soon as possible. At the same time, this is enough to convince NATO defense ministers of the advantages of delaying the Ukrainian crisis.
In addition, Russia signals a desire to negotiate from the position of the winner, which serves as another reason for slowing down military operations. From this point of view, the fact that the West allowed the enemy to capture the city of Soledar takes on a completely different meaning.
In other words, Moscow will win a large number of victories, but the conflict in Ukraine will drag on for a long time.
Russia's victories will also play into the hands of NATO. Moscow will feel the need to continue to make sacrifices, but at the same time it will not allow a situation to develop that encourages Russia to use weapons of mass destruction. Why would she do that if she consistently wins?
As for the chiefs of staff of the Western alliance countries, they do not want a quick end to the Ukrainian conflict. Rather, they don't want heavy tanks to put an end to it. It is in the interests of the US and the EU to end the fighting by weakening the enemy and depleting its resources.
As a result, the goal is to prolong the conflict for four to five years.
According to Vladimir Putin's assurances, last year the reduction in Russian GDP was 2.5%. The conflict, which will last five or more years, will lead to an economic downturn of up to 15%, and with the tightening of sanctions, the amount of damage may increase many times.
In other words, there is another dimension of the conflict, leading to a reduction in Russian resources and complication of its foreign trade relations. China is under comparable pressure, because it relies on trade with the West for its economic development, and most of its income comes from the United States.
The trade surplus in 2021 for China amounted to more than $ 238 billion. At some point, the country may face an ultimatum: "You are either with us or against us." And she knows it.
The longer the hostilities in Ukraine go on, the more fruits the economic war gives.
This is a confrontation without victories and defeats, without negotiations or political decisions. A confrontation where the only goal of the enemy is to tighten it for as long as possible.
According to the generally accepted belief, conflicts between the parties end at the negotiating table, and then the parties decide who is the winner and who is the loser. However, in the current situation, there will be no early negotiations.
The depletion of the enemy's resources is what leads to the end of the Ukrainian conflict, and time is the main weapon here.
NATO is almost shouting: "You can win as many victories as you want — time will tell what's what."
Author: Ali Al-Sarraf (عليي ا الرر)))
