On the outcome – René Pfister, Ann-Dorit Boy and Matthias Gebauer in Der Spiegel:

‘When Russian President Vladimir Putin marched into Ukraine on February 24, 2022, he clearly believed that he would be able to conquer Kyiv within just a few days and install a puppet government. It was an illusion that vanished in the smoke from anti-tank rockets shipped to Ukraine by its Western allies. The Russian army, as quickly became clear, isn’t powerful enough to subjugate a people that is prepared to fight for its own freedom. And as the list of Ukrainian military successes has grown longer, their war aims have also shifted. No longer is survival the only goal. Now, they want to win.’

(…)

‘The upshot is that Ukraine, a country for which nobody in Europe felt a particular responsibility over the past several years, has now become a key crucible of global politics. The outcome of the war will have a significant influence on future developments. "If we turn a blind eye to the war in Ukraine, it will set an example for others," says a senior official in the U.S. State Department.
If Putin is able to swallow up Ukraine, why would he shy away from doing the same to other republics that were once part of the Soviet Union – such as Moldova or the Baltic states? In Washington, meanwhile, the war in Ukraine is seen as one element in a larger conflict. If Putin were victorious in Ukraine, might not Beijing see that as an invitation to conquer Taiwan?’

(…)

‘Scenario 1: Ukraine Wins the War What would even count as a victory for Ukraine? Could a victory involve some losses of territory but survival as an independent country armed by the West to the point that Russia would no longer attack it?’

(…)

‘Whereas President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was prepared last spring to negotiate with Putin over the Donbass and the Crimea, he now excludes the possibility of talks with the Russian leader. At the same time, 85 percent of Ukrainians reject making any territorial concessions to a regime that has committed massacres against the civilian population. "The atrocities of Bucha triggered a strongly anti-Russian sentiment in the country," says Volodymyr Fesenko, a Kyiv-based political scientist. "These feelings play an important role when it comes to how the Ukrainians and Zelenskyy now define the concept of victory."’

(…)

‘The two armies now find themselves locked in a static battle across the entire front, one that is reminiscent of World War I. Most of the more than 2,000 Ukrainian villages and cities that are still under Moscow’s control will likely be far more difficult to liberate than those that have thus far been reconquered. Putin’s troops have been digging in for several months, the Kremlin has ratcheted up its war-time economy and Putin mobilized more than 300,000 soldiers last fall, of which only half have actually been sent into battle thus far.
"The Russian proposition is, to me, straightforward,” says American military expert Michael Kofman. It hinges on grinding down the strong Ukrainian military with wave upon wave of Russian fighters even if they are poorly trained and equipped. For Ukraine to withstand the Russian onslaught, Kyiv badly needs more weapons and munitions. The Ukrainian general staff said in December that they needed 300 tanks in order to launch a counteroffensive. But they won’t be arriving any time soon. The German military, the Bundeswehr, is intending to ship 14 Leopard 2 battle tanks and 40 Marder infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine by the end of March – and the necessary training of Ukrainian soldiers is currently underway near Munster in the German state of Lower Saxony.’

(…)

‘"We are trying to meet the (Ukrainian) needs on the battlefield,” says the U.S. State Department official. But Washington, the official continues, is not at war with Russia. The Biden administration is seeking to help Ukraine without escalating the conflict with the Kremlin. It is essentially the same strategy being pursued by Germany and France, both of which have shown even more hesitancy than the Americans and have supplied far less weaponry.
The perceived foot-dragging by some members of the Western coalition has triggered frustration in Central European countries like Poland, the Czech Republic and the Baltic countries as well as in Ukraine. Increasingly, that same frustration has been building among Biden’s supporters in Washington. Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, suggested in a late January piece for Foreign Affairsthat NATO use the first anniversary of the Russian invasion for a "Big Bang” and announce an extensive package of support, including long-range missiles, armed drones, tanks and warplanes. He also argued that all members of the Russian state apparatus be added to the sanctions list. If we continue with piecemeal military and economic support for Ukraine, we will ensure that the war never ends, McFaul argued. Ben Hodges, the former commanding general of the U.S. forces in Europe, recently made similar comments. In a piece for the Economist, he presented a plan for how Ukraine could reconquer Crimea.’

(…)

‘But Putin can play for time. The Russian leader is betting on the West running out of steam, says William Wechsler, who was a top official in the Pentagon under Barack Obama and now works for the Atlantic Council, a think tank in Washington, D.C. Putin, he says, has the advantage that he can extend the war and wear down his adversaries. "That is a very Russian way of war,” Wechsler says. "That’s how they beat Napoleon, that’s how they beat Hitler, by outlasting their opponents.” Putin’s military may not be particularly motivated, but he rules over a population of 143 million people, including 25 million men of military age. Ukraine’s population, by contrast, is just short of 40 million. According to a survey conducted by the independent polling agency Levada Center in Moscow, almost three-quarters of Russians support the "special operation” in Ukraine, as Putin insists it be called. Almost all serious opposition politicians are either dead, in exile or, as is the case with Alexei Navalny, locked away in a penal colony.’

(…)

‘If Biden were to lose to a nationalist Republican like Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis, American policy on Ukraine would change dramatically. And Europe, which is still militarily dependent on Washington, would almost certainly lack the strength and the willpower to continue supporting Kyiv on its own.’

(…)

‘The Minsk agreements of 2015 – mediated by the West – proved unable to calm the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, with the deal never being fully accepted. And nobody in Ukraine is interested in another Minsk agreement, says Ukrainian political scientist Fesenko, as it carries the risk of a never-ending war. Yet exactly that scenario could be the most attractive from Putin’s perspective.’

(…)

‘In many ways, Putin is less predictable than the Soviet leaders who ruled the USSR in the second half of the 20th century. Men like Leonid Brezhnev waged proxy wars in Asia and Africa and armed the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons. But in Europe, the Soviet Union was a status-quo power. Putin’s Russia, by contrast, is interested in redrawing the borders of the old continent.
Putin is 70 years old. Rumors have repeatedly made the rounds that he is suffering from cancer. But would Putinism disappear if the Russian leader were suddenly absent from the stage? Russian political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann, who works as a fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin, believes that even without Putin, "there would quite probably be an autocratic, resource-based government in Russia", since this was a likely outcome of a weak disinstutitionalised democracy of the 90s'. The war against Ukraine, however, may be Putin’s private obsession and only tolerated by the Russian elite out of opportunism. While the Ukrainian craze will probably end with the current generation of Security council elders, according to Schulmann, kleptocracy and personalisation of power may be harder to get rid of.’

Read the complete article here.

The elections in ’24 in the US might change the outcome of the war.

Without the US Europe won’t be willing (or able) to support Ukraine.

For now, the war in Ukraine proves that the American century has not come to an end yet.
Despite everything.
Europe is completely dependent on the US, Zeitenwende or no Zeitenwende.

This might change soon, who knows what’s happening with China. But for the moment, this is the case.

Also note, comparisons with World War I are very popular right, and understandable so. Despite all the predictions, old-fashioned warfare is still there, trench warfare is still there.

Some will say that we are once again sleepwalking with our eyes wide open into a much wider conflict.

Whatever the outcome of the war is, it should be in our own interest to make sure that Russia won’t become a failed state. Not more than it is now.
Whatever we can say about World War I we know that World War I was the midwife of World War II.