The Ukraine War Is As Good As Lost. Thanks, But No Thanks, Uncle Sam

After the massive Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel last weekend, one likely collateral damage will be Ukraine.

Long before the attack, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s President, was already fighting a losing battle for more military aid and munitions to continue his effort to get Russia out of his country.

With Uncle Sam’s strategic priorities now shifting to West Asia, Ukraine will obviously lose out. 

The stakes for the US are much higher in West Asia than eastern Europe and its unending war. There is already talk of the US raising its military help to Israel.

This means the US is about to lose focus on another war elsewhere, after spending billions of dollars trying to weaken Russia and its war effort in Ukraine.

The US and its European allies have collectively offered humanitarian and military aid to the tune of nearly $350 billion, which is almost twice the highest GDP ever recorded by Ukraine before the war.

But fatigue over Ukraine’s war is setting in not only in Europe, which now worries about recession and its own depleting ammunition stocks, but also America. There are also serious concerns over whether the billions of dollars being lent or donated to Ukraine are being siphoned off by corrupt Ukrainian officials.

In the US, military aid to Ukraine is no longer a matter for bipartisan support, and many Republicans seem keen to pull the plug on further aid.

The US Speaker, Kevin McCarthy, was ousted in a rare breaking of ranks by Republicans, partly due to disagreements over further aid to Ukraine. One US Republican candidate for the presidency, Vivek Ramaswamy, has repeatedly gone on record to say he will end aid to Ukraine in order to end the war and pry Russia away from the Chinese grasp.

The smart money is now on Ukraine not winning the war, especially after its failed counter-offensive against Russia a few weeks ago. (Read here, here, here, here, here, here.)

Even the most ardent supporters of Europe and US’s Ukraine policies now believe that the war cannot be won anytime soon. They are now talking of 2025 as the new date for Ukrainian winning the war. Huh?

Clearly, and this is something any fool can see merely by discarding Uncle Sam’s rose-tinted lenses. Ukraine does not have the heft to win this war and throwing good money after bad is not only bad policy, but will needlessly prolong the world’s miseries. The best Ukraine can now hope for are the following:

One, a truce with Russia, where some permanent loss of territory in the Donbas region will have to be conceded.

Two, a commitment to rebuild Ukraine’s destroyed economy and infrastructure, possibly by using some of Russia’s confiscated dollar assets. More than $300 billion of Russian assets have been frozen by the US and European countries, but even this pales into insignificance when confronted with the possibility of a reconstruction bill topping $1 trillion.

The one question US’s strategic think-tanks and policy-makers should be asking themselves is this: was this cost worth the effort to degrade the Russian economy and emasculate its military?

For all you know, while Russia will take time to recoup its war losses, maybe over the next decade, the US may end up failing even in its primary objective of using Ukrainians as cannon fodder to target Russia.

This is an important question, for few people doubt that the war could have been avoided if only the US had stopped short of expanding NATO well before Russia’s borders in return for Russian guarantees on leaving Ukraine alone.

The US will have only egg on its face at the end of the Ukraine war. A war probably intended to recoup some of America’s lost face after the Afghan withdrawal will end up ensuring the opposite. America will be seen as the worst possible ally to have.

As Henry Kissinger said long ago: “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.” Ask the Ukrainians.