{"id":1352521,"date":"2022-03-01T12:09:01","date_gmt":"2022-03-01T17:09:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1352521"},"modified":"2022-03-01T12:22:43","modified_gmt":"2022-03-01T17:22:43","slug":"without-a-negotiated-settlement-history-shows-russia-ukraine-war-will-be-a-long-brutal-slog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/without-a-negotiated-settlement-history-shows-russia-ukraine-war-will-be-a-long-brutal-slog\/","title":{"rendered":"Without A Negotiated Settlement, History Shows Russia-Ukraine War Will Be A Long, Brutal Slog"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwithout-a-negotiated-settlement-history-shows-russia-ukraine-war-will-be-a-long-brutal-slog%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1352521&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/putin.jpeg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Although Russia and Ukraine have captured the world\u2019s attention, it\u2019s hard to get an accurate picture of what exactly is going on. But despite the info ops, elitist jibber-jabber, and declarations that Russia has lost, we can know one thing for sure: This war is nowhere close to being over.<\/p>\n<p>That hasn\u2019t stopped the self-appointed \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/02\/28\/ukraine-proves-our-ruling-class-only-cares-about-misinformation-when-its-politically-convenient\/\">experts<\/a>\u201d in foreign policy and media from making sweeping declarations about the outcome, namely that Russia is losing or has already lost, just a few days in.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRussia has proved unable to secure air superiority over the tiny Ukrainian air force \u2014 despite having the second-largest air force in the world, Pentagon officials say. Its troops have yet to take control of any significant city or meaningful chunk of territory, a senior U.S. defense official said Sunday,\u201d The Washington Post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/2022\/02\/27\/ukraine-russia-invasion-tactics\/\">announced<\/a> on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Headlines in both <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2022\/feb\/28\/vladimir-putin-war-russia-ukraine\">The Guardian<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/article\/165484\/russia-already-lost-ukraine-war\">The New Republic<\/a> reinforce the \u201cRussia is losing\u201d message. \u201cWith each passing day, it is becoming clearer that Putin\u2019s gamble is failing. The Ukrainian people are resisting with all their heart, winning the admiration of the entire world \u2014 and winning the war,\u201d wrote Yuval Noah Harari in the former.<\/p>\n<p>That self-assured narrative pervades <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RepSwalwell\/status\/1498284629471772672\">Capitol Hill<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/votevets\/status\/1498270076746801158\">Twittersphere<\/a> as well, with even some foreign policy realists saying Putin has \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/news\/retired-general-makes-stunning-declaration-on-fox-news-putin-has-lost-this-war\/\">lost this war<\/a>.\u201d In essence, it goes that because Russia is substantially bigger and badder than Ukraine, a failure to dominate Kyiv in 72 hours shows that Putin\u2019s regime is floundering.<\/p>\n<p>If recent history gets a word, however, we should know better. Consider the fall of Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, a country that today has a population roughly that of Ukraine. <\/p>\n<p>During that conflict some 20 years ago, Iraq was a mess and Baghdad was going up against the United States and Britain, two of the most powerful militaries in the world. We had air superiority, employed weeks of bombardment, and it still took 21 days to take the capital city and another 21 to wrap up our major combat operations. <\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Russia\u2019s military strength doesn\u2019t match that of the United States, and Ukraine has a much more legitimate army than Iraq did, complete with top-of-the-line military equipment supplied by the U.S. In other words, Kyiv has a lot more going for it than Baghdad; it should be much harder for Putin to take Ukraine than it was for the U.S. to take Iraq. Yet we\u2019re still more than two weeks out from day 21 of Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which won\u2019t be until March 16.<\/p>\n<p>Recent history provides an array of other examples too. In Operation Desert Storm during the Gulf War, it took 43 days (Jan. 17 to Feb. 28, 1991) to liberate Kuwait. The invasion of Poland, marking the beginning of World War II, took 35 days (Sept. 1 to Oct. 6, 1939), and the Battle of France the following summer lasted 46 days.<\/p>\n<p>As Research Program Director of Russia Studies at CNA Michael Kofman <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KofmanMichael\/status\/1498381975022940167?s=20&#038;t=MJxVBxJw3BoS16vUfUbW1A\">wrote<\/a> on Twitter: \u201c[T]his is barely a few days into the war. Ukraine has done remarkably well, but no analysts (except maybe in Moscow) expected Russia to defeat the largest country in Europe within 4 days, especially given UKR military capability.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bottom line, he continued, \u201cThe bulk of the Russian military has yet to enter the fight,\u201d and \u201cSadly, I expect the worst is yet ahead, and this war could get a lot more ugly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s no disrespect to the remarkably brave men and women holding their ground in Ukraine to point out that conclusions about the Russo-Ukrainian war outcome are premature at best \u2014 Russia appears to be upping the ante around Kyiv on Tuesday \u2014 and historically ignorant at worst. Unless the two countries can negotiate a settlement, history shows the path forward through war will be brutal and long. It certainly won\u2019t be wrapped up in less than a week, nor can it be summed up in a tweet or soundbite based on who might appear to be \u201closing\u201d at a given moment.<\/p>\n<p>War is messy and complex, and going on network television to say \u201cbig guy isn\u2019t immediately dominating small guy\u201d doesn\u2019t a foreign policy expert make. Russia and its aggressive bully tactics very well might fail, but it\u2019s impossible to know this early. <\/p>\n<p>For the last two years, everyone has been a virology expert, and in the past five days, everyone became a foreign policy expert. In our fast-paced mediascape, it can be hard to know what\u2019s true and even harder to pump the brakes. But take a lesson from conflicts past: Five days in, this war is nowhere close to over.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">\n  Kylee Zempel is an assistant editor at The Federalist. She previously worked as the copy editor for the Washington Examiner magazine and as an editor and producer at National Geographic. She holds a B.S. in Communication Arts\/Speech and an A.S. in Criminal Justice and writes on topics including feminism and gender issues, religious liberty, and criminal justice. Follow her on Twitter <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kyleezempel\">@kyleezempel<\/a>.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Although Russia and Ukraine have captured the world\u2019s attention, it\u2019s hard to get an accurate picture of what exactly is going on. But despite the info ops, elitist jibber-jabber, and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1352521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1352521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1352521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1352521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1352521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}