Physical and human geography still govern what forces can accomplish. Britain could isolate and retake a distant island objective with superior expeditionary capacity, while Ukraine’s space and varied terrain convert distance into warning time and opportunities for attrition. Russian assumptions that Ukraine would not resist echo Argentina’s belief that Britain would not fight, but the continuing land war offers no equally discrete endpoint. Russia must increasingly depend on new production as old stocks decline, while Ukraine depends on both domestic output and politically contingent foreign supply. National identity and the political cost of withdrawal leave both sides with reasons to continue even as the material basis of the war changes.
Chapter · 1:19:50-1:31:24
Geography separated a short expedition from a long attritional war
The Falklands offered a discrete expeditionary objective, while Ukraine’s depth, terrain, identity, and political stakes sustain prolonged attrition.