>>472737>which, by the way, everybody thought Russia would win in like a month a year ago.We have to put this into context.
At first people thought that this war would last no longer than a few weeks, because the assumption was that the Zelensky government was autonomous enough to broker a peace deal with the Russians. Can you really blame people for assuming that Ukraine wouldn't just let it self be sacrificed by the US ?
Also the Russian military did cripple most of Ukraine's original military in a few months, without NATO continuously rebuilding Ukraine's army this would have been a very short war indeed. Emptying out NATO weapons stocks to prolong an inevitable Ukrainian defeat that's not rational behavior either and wasn't predictable. It seemed so unthinkable that so many western governments would do military collaborationism with hardcore Nazis in Ukraine. Perhaps that was a bit naive.
>they baited Russia intoThe Ukrainian fascists were gearing up to do ethnic displacement in east Ukraine. That was more than just bait. Given how many familial and other ties exist between Russia and East Ukraine, that kind of political pressure on it's own was probably enough to cause a war. The fact that Ukraine wouldn't rule out NATO integration that made war a certainty. The Russians think NATO=US-hard-power-projection.
>CrimeaThe Crimean's do have a right to self determination, they held a legitimate referendum that upheld democratic norms. They became their own country and then they immediately joined the Russian federation. I would have preferred that Crimea and the other countries like the Luhansk and Donetsk people's republics had become fully independent countries. That might have been possible if western governments had offered them international recognition and done stuff like opening embassy's in their territories. By rejecting their requests for international recognition they basically pushed these fledgling nations into the embrace of the Russian federation. One of the many strategic and diplomatic failures.
>Invade a sovereign countryThe US covert-warfare invasion of Ukraine in 2014 was indeed a huge mistake creating at first a civil war leading to the escalation into a full proxy war in 2022.
>The US should back out, but that alone isn't going to end the war.Ukraine can't maintain it's war effort without the US. If the US pulls out, Ukraine will be forced into a settlement. The Russians will likely be able to get territorial concessions, a indefinite ban on Ukrainian NATO membership, Ukrainian disarmament (limitation for troop sizes and types of weapons). Then there still is "de-nazification" which is a political concession, but it's not entirely clear what that means in praxis.
This would be a much worse deal than what Ukraine could have gotten from the Istanbul talks, but it would still preserve the Ukrainian state. And The west will likely go for that. Because it also preserves legal continuity which means that most of those "business-deals" that Zelensky made when he sold out Ukraine on Wall-street would likely be honored by the next Ukrainian government. If Ukraine fights the war until military defeat, that would likely break legal continuity and the next government that gets formed in that part of the world may not consider it self bound to deals that the previous government made. But then again i'm assuming rational actors.
>What do you think would happen if South Korea tried to annex North Korea?The DPRK does have nukes (an estimated 60 warheads) with sea and land based launch systems. They also got a much more powerful conventional land army. The RoK only has an advantage in air-power, because the north's air-force is likely not combat-ready, but rumors are that they have relatively modern AA systems from China. A new Korea war would cause the destruction of Seoul, because there are 10k artillery systems pointed at it, which can wipe out a city within 40 minutes. My guess is that the risk of nuclear weapons use is relatively low. The Dprk military would push into the South and the Chinese military would move into the north to play rear-guard. I would say a 70% chance for reunification under a DPRK flag, It has to be said that there is zero appetite for such a war on either side, so this is a moot point. And I have no clue why you brought this up. The story of the 2 Koreas will likely go thusly: China will begin removing US influence from Asia after 2030 and by 2040 RoK will become independent enough to enable a genuine re-unification with the DPRK, which I'm guessing will happen gradually over 20 years and by 2060 there will be a Korean Union, KU. (because "United Korea" would abbreviate to UK and that would be confusing)