The First World War ended when Germany simply gave up. They were not conclusively defeated, but they saw no way out. Prior to that moment the new Communist rulers in Russia withdrew from the war. The people had enough of it. On the surface you might say that this development benefitted Germany, possibly enough so to compensate for the decision of the US to join the French and the British. But the looming threat was that the Germans would be inspired by the Russian example, creating an enemy within the German, Habsburg-led nation. Attrition is a fairly unconventional way to win a war. It relies on one party concluding that the war cannot be won, and is therefore lost. Which requires sensible leaders, or the people coming to their senses and removing their irresponsible leaders.
It is not necessarily a long, drawn out process. The depletion of the 'will' and/or ability to fight may be a foregone conclusion, given the superiority of the adversary, and lacklustre support in the country. The very 2019 NATO-(Rand-Corp)-plan to 'Overextend and Unbalance Russia from Advantageous Ground', by throwing Ukraine under the bus, and arming Al Qaeda in Syria, while releasing murderous sanctions, assumed that the Russian people had no 'will' to see this through, while we don't need to be reminded of the cringe-worthy 'assessment' of the Russian military and industry to support a war with NATO, because we all remember the 'News' from early 2022, with long lists of 'experts' predicting Russia would be out of everything in a matter of weeks. Couple of months, tops.
As stated on these pages, it is my claim-to-fame that I disagreed, and that the Russians 'came prepared'. That they were praying for a quick solution, a speedy peace-deal along the lines of the 'Minsk-Accord', on the back of 'Shock-and-Awe' military manoeuvre warfare, but if that didn't materialise, that they would convert to 'Attritional Warfare', understanding that NATO would support Ukraine to the hilt. Not simply attriting Ukraine, but all of NATO eventually. Though the *concept* of what attrition is is not all that difficult to fathom, to know which conditions are going to bring it about is far from easy. That NATO-plan to 'Overextend and Unbalance Russia' failed, because various assumptions were simply dead-wrong. One of those assumptions was that Russia would be tempted to take all of Ukraine, while I insisted, even before the SMO kicked off, that they wouldn't. Another miscalculation, apparently, was that the NATO-planners convinced themselves that Putin was not as popular as the results of elections revealed. And finally there was this *huge* mistake about Russia's military strength, and ability to produce weapons and ammo, and innovate.
Russia attrited Ukraine and NATO in a 'technical' sense, but Zelensky and NATO are still there, and they vow to stay beyond military defeat, which is spelled 'trouble' for Russia, since they want to leave this war behind them. Full attrition requires the people to revolt, and say 'enough is enough', containing, or incarcerating the hot-heads. Either in Ukraine, or in NATO, because without NATO Ukraine is dead in the water. On the surface it would appear that NATO's extravagant 'Summit', costing hundreds of millions of Euro's, was about confirming commitment to 'Project Ukraine', translated in increased 'defence spending'. But that move had only one purpose, and that was to prevent Trump from walking away. And, perhaps, seducing Russia to enter a new arms-race, thus stretching the country to capacity, and causing an economic collapse after all. By the looks of it, NATO failed on both counts. Save for die-hard NATO-fans, everybody noticed how Rutte and the European leaders sold out to 'Daddy' Trump, enslaving themselves to the 'Orange Man', who thought it was all very funny, joking about going back to Rutte and hitting him over the head. But Trump left the 'Summit' without committing the US to *anything*.
Moreover, 'High-Fiving' about that increased contribution, in *ten* years from now, is ill advised. Many people with an economic background are warning that it would lead the EU-countries to ruin. And ruin is attrition, if the people are going to revolt against their irresponsible leaders. Zelensky meanwhile says he will stay in power till 'after the war', because he, nor NATO, want to risk going to the polls in new elections. Reportedly soldiers are deserting in droves, and there is no lack of video showing the world how thugs roam around towns in Ukraine to snap men from the streets, put them in uniform, and send them to their death. And women and the elderly fighting these thugs with great danger to themselves. To say the country is exhausted is an understatement. But there are fascists/ultra nationalists who will fight until they are dead, and who will stay in the fight even if a peace-deal would be concluded.
Attrition may only bring peace if it is associated with mental exhaustion, and the will to contain those who want to go on. After Israel's brazen attempt to drag Trump into a war with Iran by 'going it alone', everybody, myself included, was talking about Trump. How deep went his betrayal of the Iranians? But after all these stories came out about that failed American mission in support of 'Bibi's War', with Israel begging for a ceasefire because they were getting hit hard, many are now speculating about how deep Trump's betrayal of the Israeli's went? Obviously the choreographed Iranian 'counterattack' on an American base in Qatar exposed some nasty truths about what is real, and what is make-belief within that particular conflict.
Israel came alarmingly close to running out of missiles to defend itself, and it rushed cargo-aircraft to Europe, Germany and Serbia, to pick up a fresh load of 'everything', but hopefully they got the message that a bombing campaign, and killing the military and civilian leadership in Iran, is not going to bring about a meaningful regime change in that country. And that Iran may have more advanced missiles to fire at Israel than Israel and it's partners-in-crime can produce missiles which shoot them down. If they even succeed in doing that, because those advance, agile Iranian missiles, some 'MIRV-ed', were pretty successful at penetrating the 'Iron Dome' and remote defensive shield offered by NATO from bases throughout the Middle East.
It is not unlikely that regime change will hit Israel, and the EU, even NATO, when it dawns on people that the level of incompetence in the top is astounding, and that wishful thinking, and 'unorthodox' diplomacy of calling a man like Trump 'Daddy', licking his boots and kissing his backside, will make people wake up from their entertainment-induced stupor. War is not 'Great Fun', nor is it 'Smart' to design plans to seduce countries into wasteful spending.