My all-time favourite fortune cookie read: “Never be dissuaded from the truth by what you would like to believe.”
Pretty much everyone who has spent an extended period of time on this planet has found themselves in a bad situation which is only going to get worse in the future. Perhaps it was a failing marriage, a business idea that didn’t work out, an investment gone sour, or a beloved old vehicle that began to break down with astonishing regularity. At such times, cutting your losses is a close as you’re going to get to a win. As Kenny Rogers sang: “You gotta know when to fold ‘em.”
Three things can get in the way of doing what needs to be done:
There’s often a cherished idea or ideal we have to let go of. (‘Till death do us part’, for example.)
We tell ourselves that what’s happening is wrong, unjust, unfair, that it shouldn’t be happening (‘I was a good partner, I don’t deserve this.”)
Finally the more we have invested in a project - the greater the ‘sunk costs’ - the harder it is to let it go. (”I gave up my career to put that ungrateful wretch through medical school.”)
Countries can also find themselves in no-win situations, with similar impediments to facing reality.
Consider Ukraine’s dilemma.
Roughly 1,700 Ukrainian soldiers are now getting slaughtered on an average day. That’s about 50,000 deaths a month, in a war where Ukraine has roughly 300,000 front-line troops. Forced conscription is replacing only a fraction of those losses with reluctant, under-trained conscripts.
Russian losses, while painful, are an order of magnitude lower - smaller than the number of fully-trained Russian volunteers entering service each week. With each passing month, the number of Ukrainian soldiers declines, while the number of Russian soldiers rises.
With each passing month, Ukraine’s electrical grid lurches closer to complete collapse. Its economy is not far behind. Russian production of war materials continues to ramp up, while the supply of NATO armaments available to send to Ukraine gets skimpier and skimpier.
Clearly the war is not going to end well for Ukraine. The longer the war goes on, the more Ukrainians will die, the more territory Ukraine will eventually lose, the more of Ukraine’s economy and infrastructure will be ruined.
Ukraine’s best option is to take whatever they can get in a negotiated settlement, as quickly as possible. Such a settlement will likely involve a forced demilitarization, and a further loss of territory. But the longer Ukraine waits, the more territory it will eventually lose, and the greater the personnel and material losses that will occur in the meantime.
I am sure it will be a very bitter pill for Ukrainians to swallow, but the alternatives are worse.
The West is quite happy to let Ukraine ruin itself completely, so long as the ongoing war costs Russia blood and treasure. When NATO makes self-serving statements like “Russia’s aggression cannot be rewarded” it should be pointed out that NATO is clearly not willing to do what it would take to insure a better outcome for Ukraine.
I agree with former Ukrainian Presidential Adviser Oleksii Arestovych that Ukraine would be better served by throwing its lot in with Russia than by continuing to be the West’s patsy, however difficult that step would be for Ukrainian pride.
Israel’s situation is no better.
Today US Intelligence sources revealed that, in six months of fighting, only 30 to 35 percentof Hamas fighters have been killed, and most or all of these losses have been replaced with new recruits. Israel is no closer to eliminating Hamas now than they were when the war started.
Six months of war has created huge damage to the Israeli economy. Every day dozens of Israeli soldiers get killed or crippled in the ongoing battles, losses that must impact everyone in a country as small as Israel. Six months on, 60,000 Israelis still cannot return to their homes in the North.
Every day, more nations come out in support of Palestinian Statehood. Bibi Netenyahu is likely to be formally charged with war crimes in the near future. Longstanding relationships with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and Egypt threaten to spiral relentlessly downwards. Something like 58% of Democratic voters in the US believe that a genocide is happening in Gaza, which doesn’t bode well for continued American support.
Bad as the current situation is, if the conflict spreads to Lebanon, it will get much, much worse. Hezbollah’s army is probably four times the size of that of Hamas, and their supply of rockets, drones and missiles is massively larger. If Israel and Hezbollah move beyond skirmishing to outright war, the number of Israeli casualties - both military and civilian - will skyrocket. It’s well within the realm of possibility that parts of Israel could see levels of physical destruction reminiscent of what has happened in Gaza.
If the conflict then further expands to include Iran, Turkey, Egypt, and/or Syria, the casualties on all sides could be truly horrific. The longer the conflict in Gaza goes on, the greater the losses Israel will incur, and the greater the likelihood the war will spiral out of control.
A permanent ceasefire accompanied by the release of the remaining hostages, followed by the establishment of a Palestinian State in Gaza and the West Bank, though an infuriating outcome for most Israelis, will almost certainly provide a less painful final result for Israel than would continuing the conflict ad infinitum. (It would also reduce the not-insignificant risk of the war escalating to a truly catastrophic endpoint.)
Again, I hear voices saying: “We cannot reward the terrorism of Hamas.” But an outcome that instead punishes all Israelis on an ongoing basis is okay?
Yes, Israel’s quest to completely destroy Hamas has seen hundreds of its soldiers killed or crippled, engendered massive economic losses, and gravely damaged Israel’s reputation in the world. Admitting now that this goal is unattainable will not undo any of those very large losses. But it will at least keep those losses from getting steadily and relentlessly larger in the future.
It would greatly serve the interest of all Israelis to recognize there is no ‘winning’ possible in the current situation. Cutting future losses is the best available outcome. That would at least open the door to a return to something like normal life for Israelis and Palestinians both.
PS: While it may be obvious to those observing Ukraine and Israel from a comfortable distance that the longer either conflict persists, the worse the likely outcome that will result, I suspect it is ever-so-much harder for those living in either country to accept said reality.
You’ll notice the Kenny Rogers song originally came from a movie titled The Gambler. It is an unfortunate reality that, when faced with a bet with 3 percent chance of a good outcome, and a 97 percent chance of a bad outcome, a great many people will continue to roll the dice - particularly when they’ve already lost a great deal at the table.
Eventually it will become too expensive and too painful for either country to continue living in denial. We’re just not there yet.