Tuesday 19 March 2024

No end in sight for wars in Gaza and Ukraine

The war in Ukraine was supposed to have taken a few weeks, according to President Putin's plans/hopes, and the war in Gaza should have all been over in four or five months, according to the expectations in Tel Aviv. Yet here we are with two wars disrupting the whole world, and there is absolutely no end in sight for either of them. In fact, it would be safe to predict that this time next year, both wars will still be raging and the combined casualty toll will have reached astronomical levels. The only way for either of the wars to end is for there to be compromise and I don't see that happening for a long time, if ever. Israel is not going to stop fighting Hamas in Gaza until Binyamin Netanyahu's desire for total annihilation has been met, and neither Russia nor Ukraine are going to give an inch. Indeed, Putin, given another six years as president, is now talking about creating a buffer zone between Russia and Ukraine to try and stop long-range attacks from Ukrainian missiles and drones against the Belgorod region. That will mean more fighting. Putin is clearly intent on carrying on with the war in Ukraine until the Kyiv government begs for mercy and that's not going to happen. This is a major headache not just for Kyiv but for the western alliance because even though President Biden said the US would back Ukraine "for as long as it takes" I doubt he thought the war would go on for years. There is no realistic scenario any more in which Ukraine can claim victory over Putin because the Russian leader will never give up. With the US unable to continue sending Congress-approved military aid because of the political impasse in the Senate, Putin has every reason to pursue the war for "as long as it takes". If the war in Gaza continues for another year or more, there will be almost nothing left of the territory. Both wars are relentless and it would seem there is very little the US can do to bring either of them to a close. So it's a grim future of war, war and more war.

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