Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Russians: the sooner we lose all our equipment, the quicker the war ends and we can go home (or heaven)

It's two things.

Replacing Russian energy, particularly gas, is not 'easy' and it is not something that can be done at the drop of a hat. And it is not cost-free. Changes like this normally occur over decades, not weeks and months. I was illustrating that the people claiming it to be 'easy' don't even know the basic facts that would prove or disprove their opinion. As none of them could supply these facts.

The second, and more important one, is 'what to do with Russia after the war?'. Or what I would call winning the peace. A lot of the more hyperbolic posters would espouse the opinion of isolating them and effectively turning them into a giant North Korea.

This is a terrible idea, awful beyond words, and would guarantee another conflict within relatively short order. If you don't believe me, just look at the lessons of recent history. Defeated Germany had enormous, punitive reparations inflicted upon it post-WW1. Did this serve the world well? No, it had the opposite effect as a resentful, angry populace turned to a fanatic for answers.

Just like Germany, Russia is too big and too strategic to just wall off and hope they come to their senses in time. So, in our own selfish interest, we should have a long-term plan for engaging with them and encouraging them into the fold.

Because the alternative is more war.

Something we haven't really engaged with yet but I hope strategic thinkers in Western capitals are doing so.

For the WW2 Germany and the nazis had allies all over the world, with most of them also sharing their ideology. This is not the case now with Russia. Also, they are much more incompetent than the germans back then. They need to be economically crushed back to the situation in the 90s where they were selling the weapons on the black market and what they didn't sell was rotting away.

Hard to compete with a sophisticated geopolitical thinker like yourself but I'll try.

Nowhere have I said anything about 'placating Russia'. Russia should be defeated on the field of battle as much as possible and all aid should be given to Ukraine to do this. Russia should be weakened economically through sanctions. Russia should be isoltated diplomatically. Russia should bear huge costs for launching this illegal war. Putin should be jailed, or ideally just die.

I hope that's clear enough and the false argument you are trying to impute no longer exists in your mind.

The question I am trying to ask is what happens after that. Having won the war, how do we, the West (in which Ukraine is now most definitely a part), win the peace?

And, long-term, which may be decades, that involves engaging with Russia and making their interests aligned with our interests. Punishment is precisely the wrong way to achieve that objective. As seen with Germany post WW1.

Such regions would have to adopt democracy because they want democracy. Recent history has shown us that democracy that is parachuted in can be a bit shaky, but in a broken up Russia, I think political systems being foisted on the population would be pretty inevitable, as it would be the centre of a new race to exert influence by the powers of the world.

I'm shearing sheep at the weekend but I can help you collapse Russia and bring Democracy to it next Monday and Tuesday.

How, exactly, would Russia be 'broken up'? And by who?

Obviously nobody could be crazy enough to suggest achieving this by invasion and force of arms. So how?

Yep. Unless it's actually invaded and Putin is dethroned, which might result in a nuclear confrontation, the only way any big change is can happen is if it's internally generated.

At the moment all effective opposition is locked up. All media channels and papers are dominated by the gov. All large resources are owned by Kremlin lackeys. It would take a genuine ground swell of public outrage, a proper citizen led revolution for anything to change. Something akin to Maidan. And at the moment that's unlikely.

The thing that's slightly more likely, but still very unlikely, would be that putin is deposed and is replaced by someone just like him. No change in the authoritarian nature of the state, Oligarchs still there. Press still controlled.