West on Ukraine: Out of sticks, and have no carrots.

 COMPROMISE OR GO TO WAR

TIME TO SUCK IT UP AND MOVE ON

We now have a 28 point peace plan, one that the West wants to negotiate and Russia will express interest, while devastating what remains of Ukraine's army. The reality is that NATO expansion has failed and any attempts to declare victory in defeat is just going to add to the costs. While many are looking for ways to declare victory, it will be a hard sell.  

While Russia has suffered greatly from this conflict, its suffering does have an expiration, when this conflict ends. One can expect the suffering in Eurozone will not expire but continue to decline into unpredictable internal problems. The entire west is suffering from unsustainable debt and deficits far into the future. Then in the Eurozone there is the inability to fuel their economies in a competitive way. Their green policies have devastated their economies and their savior, cheap Russian energy, may never come back. Then there is their massive immigrant problem that will be compounded by those same problems.

As for Russia, it has been able to forge new economic and even military alliances due to the wests obvious attempt to punish everyone who has either sided with Russia or even attempted to remain neutral. The political and economic damage will last for decades. Russia's position in the rest of the world has been enhanced and the BRICS economic union will thrive far into the future.

While the West has used up most of its sticks, except for outright war, which would be even a worse disaster, its attempts of offering carrots are now, too little, too late. Russia, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, hoped to become an equal economic partner in the global economic system. It was at first subtly rejected and then transparently rejected and offered the choice of submission or destruction. 

At this point, Russia understands that there will not be any cooperation, just a temporary peace until another opportunity for destruction is available. Offers of increased trade with the United States and a seat in the G7 are all without much attraction. There is now a better and more reliable economic union on the horizon and it will not be discarded for some fake offers of entry as a partner in the existing economic order as a inferior partner.

While the global south and most of Asia now have high hopes of a new economic order, it hopes to co-exist with the present system, much as one would with an ex-spouse, tolerance and accommodation when possible, an end to hostility, but mostly just a hope to keep it all at arms length.