How Does This End?

I don't know why, because I haven't a butterfly's chance of changing anything, but I've been consumed this past week with trying to understand the different ways the Russian invasion of Ukraine could pan out. Since I am not an original thinker, this has required me to search out and read articles from places I don't usually go.

I would generalize that most articles see three possible outcomes: complete Ukraine victory, complete Putin victory, or negotiation. But I think there's more subtlety than that allows for, so I read on.

In one one of those places I don't usually go, the Financial Times, I found this article by "Henry Foy in Brussels and Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington": Endgame in Ukraine: how could the war play out? Foy and Sevastolpulo say "western capitals are discussing a range of scenarios for how the conflict could progress," and offer five of the possibilities.

They are:

• Russians win 

And probably continue into Moldova

• Russians mostly win, but Zelensky and Ukraine survive

• Russians retreat, Putin removed

• Negotiated settlement

Russia probably gets the east and southeast parts of Ukraine, connecting Crimea to the Motherland

• Broader NATO-Russia war

to all of which I would add:

• Armageddon. Mother Earth gets to start over.

The New York Times reported today that: 

In interviews with senior American and European officials, there is a consensus on one point: Just as the last two weeks revealed that Russia's vaunted military faltered in it's invasion plan, the next two or three may reveal whether Ukraine can survive as a state, and negotiate an end to the war.

Admiral James Stavridis, who retired from service as supreme allied commander for Europe, believes "the most probable endgame, sadly, is a partition of Ukraine."

If you'd like to dig even deeper into this, I recommend spending an hour with this interview with Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, a respected foreign policy "think tank".

Among the things he sees:

• The decoupling of Europe and the U.S. with Russia is permanent.
• A lot of companies that have left Russia will not return while Putin is in power, regardless of a negotiated peace.
• Decisions by European nations to increase defense spending will be permanent.
• Europe will "unwind" its energy dependence on Russia.
• Russia will be a Chinese supplicant, economically, financially, and technologically.
• This has improved the UK/Europe relationship.
• Kyiv will fall in the next couple of weeks.
• The Chinese ambassador to Russia recently held a meeting with top Chinese investors in Russia, and said this is a unique opportunity: the West is leaving Russia. We can buy it for a song.
• A lot of the world is not with NATO on the sanctions.
• The Chinese media are "relentlessly" pro-Putin; Chinese media are embedded with Russian troops in Ukraine.