I find quite a bit to agree with here from neocon war monger Josh Rogin even if we arrive at different conclusions.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/02/23/biden-ukraine-russia-war-attrition/Rogin reports that Ukrainians want to finish this war quickly, not have a long protracted conflict. The Ukrainians are starting to get worried about talk in the west about “being willing to support as long as necessary” because they rightly realize that the longer their cities are occupied and the conflict destroys more of their infrastructure and more refugees leave, the weaker they will be in the future.
The complaint about the lack of total commitment to provide Ukraine with everything they are asking for instantly (even though most of the items like tanks/fighter jets wouldn’t be useful for as much as a year because of training anyway) is true enough, but I think misses the forest for the trees. It is probably true that if the United States escalated several steps or “took the gloves off” that the war could potentially be ended quickly. Maybe that would require the US putting some “advisors” near the front lines or whatever would finally make the decisive difference but the US incentives don’t really add up for why they would do that. The risks about nuclear war are obvious, and have been discussed. But so is the risk of a Ukraine that is reliant on the US to militarize its border and become a fortress state.
A defiant and triumphant Ukraine would absolutely expect to be attacked again by Russia, and would once again rely heavily on the continued support of the U.S./NATO. The U.S. and Ukraine should be at this point considering what the future looks like based upon the various outcomes. The US would be much more comfortable with a simmering proxy war that bogs down Russia in Ukraine for years to come than Ukrainians would be as they watch their society crumble. So I do see the common interests between the US and Ukraine diverging pretty radically over the next few months as neither side seems all that interested in negotiating, but both have very different visions for how they want the conflict to proceed and their timelines for achieving that outcome.
