The U. S. experience in Ukraine is an echo of a dying idea that has persisted since the Vietnam debacle.
We should have learned a lesson from Vietnam – that no amount of American force can defeat a determined enemy in another part of the world fighting what that enemy considers to be an existential fight – unless we fully engage on a wartime footing with the wholehearted support of the American public. Even after our humiliating defeat and withdrawal from Afghanistan, where we expended American blood and treasure for two decades, and came away with little to show for it except gifting millions of dollars of American arms to the Taliban – we have still failed to learn that lesson completely.
In Ukraine we have adjusted our approach a bit. So far we have restrained ourselves from wasting American lives in yet another overseas intervention, once more against a determined enemy, and once more in a contest for which we have no clear objective, no metric for measuring success, and no clearly stated interest that justifies supporting a brutal war. Instead, we now content ourselves with cooperating in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of young Ukrainian and Russian men, consistently denying to ourselves that our support has resulted in anything other than abject failure. In fact, denial appears to be a key aspect of our strategy – as we pretend not to know that Russia has been consistently advancing ever since the failed Ukrainian counteroffensive of 2023, and we attempt to sell the idea that the two sides are at a stalemate.
Such denial is a clear sign that the justifications for this war are counterfeit. So let’s take a hard look at these justifications. Just exactly what is it about Ukraine that is so critically important for the U. S. to defend? To put it more bluntly, why do we care whether or not Ukraine is owned by Russia? The immediate objection you will usually hear to that statement is “we can’t let Putin do whatever he wants.” Which objection is irrelevant. The U. S. is no longer the world’s arbiter of justice. The correct concern that we should have in Ukraine is whether or not a vital U. S. interest is at stake – a vital interest that is so critical that we must go to war to defend that interest.
What then is that vital U. S. interest which is so very compelling that we have to fund another war? I don’t see any such U. S. interest. Some will say that if we don’t stop Putin in Ukraine, he will roll throughout Europe and revive the former Soviet Union. This flies in the face of logic. There is an interesting paradox that Western leaders are attempting to foist upon us: on the one hand, Putin and his Russian forces are so strong that that we must fear the impending devastation of Europe; while on the other hand, Putin is so weak that he’s only been able to achieve a stalemate, and that only at the cost of debilitating military losses and a faltering economy that is about to go under at any moment. Sorry folks, but you can’t have it both ways. The reality is apparent for anyone who takes the trouble to go online and spend some time tracking the actual progress of the war. The reality is that Russia has been slowly but steadily taking territory in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions of Ukraine. This progress has been made at great cost to Russia, however, it is clear that Russia has been able to maintain consistent logistics support. Moreover, Russia enjoys overhelming air, missile, and artillery support, as well as a decisive advantage in quality and number of troops. In addition, Russia has demonstrated a remarkable ability to adapt to the new aspects of warfare which have come about in Ukraine, such as the use of drones.
It is clear that Putin’s forces in Ukraine are not weak – and there is no reason to believe that he will be dislodged from his current positions by military forces in Europe. But it is also clear that Putin has not demonstrated any inclination to advance further than Ukraine. There is simply no evidence to this effect. He appears to have enough on his hands just to accomplish his objectives within Ukraine.
And what are those objectives? If we had bothered to negotiate with him before supporting this war, we might have avoided the terrible destruction of Ukraine that we have indulged in to date. There is one blatantly obvious aspect of all of this that should make us question what is going on here. If you consider the military response of the European nations who are supposedly the most at risk from an advancing Russia, it is obvious that they do not think a Russian invasion is imminent. There is no major massing of NATO and national European forces on the western borders of Ukraine. There is no emergency ramping up of critical wartime industrial capabilities. The Europeans, like the Americans, have deemed it sufficient to provide arms only to Ukraine while allowing the Ukrainian populace to bear the brunt of the destruction.
If the invasion of Europe is not the objective, then what is? Although Putin has stated multiple reasons, the dominating motive for his actions is simple. Russia does not want hostile forces on its border. This seems like a reasonable position to take. The U. S. certainly would not allow hostile forces on our border – not for a second. It is simply stupid for the U. S. to act as if another powerful country (a country which, in fact, is the world’s foremost nuclear power) has no right to undertake reasonable defensive measures that we ourselves take for granted.
Russia has already achieved a substantial buffer zone with the Ukrainian territory it has already siezed. And there is no way any Western power will defeat the Russians in Ukraine without going to full-on war with them. It remains to be seen whether, when negotiations begin, Putin will be satisfied with what has been achieved so far. It also remains to be seen whether the Western allies are ready to take off the blinders and face in Russia a formidable foe demanding negotiations based on reality, not the wishful thinking we have seen to date in the West.
This goes directly to one of those declarations we frequently hear from President Trump, which is that this Ukraine war would have never happened if he had been President. I think that most who hear this take it wrongly, assuming that President Trump considers himself so ferocious, dangerous, and unpredictable that Putin would not have risked crossing him. I think the truth is completely different: President Trump considers himself supremely capable in the art of making a deal, and in this case the Ukraine war would have been avoided because President Trump would have negotiated a mutually satisfactory agreement with President Putin. This approach stands in stark contrast with that of the Biden administration and neocons of both parties, who arrogantly dismissed Putin and refused even to talk to him. Now here we are barely 5 weeks into the Trump administration, and already serious talks are underway.
It will be interesting indeed to see whether President Trump’s confidence in his negotiating ability is justified. I wouldn’t bet against him.