Reply To: Russian Tensions
Moon of Alabama does quote sources comparing the situation to WWI:
The problem is that Ukraine is losing the war. Not, as far as we can tell, because its soldiers are fighting poorly or its people have lost heart, but because the war has settled into a World War I-style battle of attrition, complete with carefully dug trenches and relatively stable fronts.
Such wars tend to be won — as indeed World War I was — by the side with the demographic and industrial resources to hold out longest. Russia has more than three times Ukraine’s population, an intact economy and superior military technology. At the same time, Russia has its own problems; until recently, a shortage of soldiers and the vulnerability of its arms depots to missile strikes have slowed its westward progress. Both sides have incentives to come to the negotiating table.
I can’t see any occasion I’ve described it as stalemate (I did describe it a ‘zugzwang’), however, even inching over into Bakhmut after a five month fight is hardly the sound of a resounding victory in the offing: attrition wearies both sides. Unlike WWI Germany, Ukraine cannot be cut off.
The better example, to my way of thinking, is the Iran/Iraq war, which lasted 8 horrific years.