Indeed, the Biden-Harris administration, D.C.-NATO Warhawks and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy insist that “winning” the Russia-Ukraine war by flooding (mostly U.S. taxpayer) money and weapons into Ukraine is the only answer to Russia’s unlawful invasion.
But is it? And if so, what would winning look like?
The Biden-Harris administration’s Ukraine “strategy” this year gave up on the idea of gaining back territory, instead focusing on strengthening Ukrainian forces and the economy against future attacks. Despite the newest U.S. $61 billion aid package, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan believes Russians will continue to advance, and Ukrainian forces should just “hold the line.”
Sullivan even expects another counteroffensive will be necessary in 2025. At the cost, of course, of billions more U.S. taxpayer dollars and thousands more Ukrainian lives.
An estimated over 34,000 Ukrainian civilians and almost 500,000 Ukrainian troops have already become casualities of this war. Last year’s counteroffensive failed and this year, Russia continues making “rapid” advancements in eastern Ukraine, while Ukrainian troops deployed to the Kursk region of Russia (for reasons somewhat ambiguous), leave Ukraine undermanned.
With an eye toward the presidential election, the Biden-Harris administration also wants to “Trump-proof” Ukraine aid by signing a long-term commitment with Zelenskyy, with fixed levels of support over the next ten years. NATO has similar plans to protect Ukraine aid against both a Trump presidency and right-leaning political shifts in European member states.
When will it end? Under a president Kamala Harris, Americans will continue to support war indefinitely.
In 2023, the U.S. State Department announced the U.S. had already given Ukraine the largest U.S. foreign assistance package since the end of WWII and the Marshall Plan. In spite of U.S. economic and border security crises, assistance to Ukraine – military, security, economic, and finanicial – continues to grow significantly.
Supposedly, enormous levels of U.S. support are necessary to push back Russian forces occupying Ukraine’s east and south provinces. “More money, more weapons, are crucial to American interests,” cry the Warhawks, “because Russian forces will continue to roll West!” The cry comes despite the fact that Putin repeatedly communicated that NATO enlargement initiated his invasion, not an intention to expand into Central Europe; despite the fact that invading further west would directly pit Russian forces against thirty-two NATO countries. How absurd.
Diplomacy and security assurances to Russia could have ended this war before it began. Instead, the Biden-Harris administration repeatedly backtracked on previous U.S. policies to increase the number and lethality of weapons sent to Ukraine, even lifting restrictions on U.S. weapons to allow strikes inside Russian borders, risking a U.S.-NATO direct conflict with Russia.
Putin promised a response, warning of "serious consequences.” But Biden-Harris pays no heed; in fact, the administration dangerously justified Ukraine’s invasion of Russia’s Kursk region using U.S.-NATO weapons and killing and injuring Russian civilians.
No matter the cost or risk to the U.S., Ukraine is no closer today to “winning;” it has neither gained back territory nor pushed Russian forces out of Ukraine. But the real cost of the war, the futility of which was predicted but few acknowledged, is hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian casualties, millions of refugees, and devastation of cities and critical infrastructure.
Does the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) line pockets to such a degree that the deadly and mounting costs of indefinite war can be so easily overlooked?
When will it end? Who will end it? The supposed goal to weaken Russia necessitates long-term war and destruction against an enemy that “will fight for as long as it takes.” Hardly anyone says it, but American and Ukrainian citizens bear enormous costs for a futile war only (barely) of secondary interest to U.S. national security -- and which could end with diplomacy and negotiation.
Until Ukraine invaded Kursk in August 2024, Putin often indicated he was open to negotiations based on Ukraine neutrality and NATO non-enlargement –an offer repeatedly rejected by the Biden-Harris administration. Yet Ukraine, rife with corruption, dependent on the West, and led by a near-dictator who outlaws political opposition, suspends elections, closes churches, and nationalizes media, is not ready for NATO membership.
Sadly, Biden-Harris’ insistence on making Ukraine a NATO member, subsequently enabling an ongoing full-scale war, “has made Ukraine a victim of misconceived and unachievable U.S. military aspirations.” The U.S. remains by far the largest donor of military assistance, without which Ukraine arguably could not “hold the line” at all.
Though no U.S. troops have yet fought in Ukraine, the current scenario is reminiscent of D.C. Warhawks’s proclivity for foreign “forever wars” – from Vietnam to Afghanistan – born by generations of American citizens. Today our grandchildren are being committed to staggering debt for a war in Eastern Europe that cannot be won.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has even alluded that if the U.S. does not continue to do more, U.S. troops likely will fight in Ukraine.
Guaranteed, if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the presidency in November, American citizens will indefintely continue to support a “forever war” in Ukraine -- and the increasingly greater risk of a world-wide, possibly nuclear, war.
Let’s pray that wiser leadership prevails.
Shea Bradley-Farrell, Ph.D. is a strategist in national security and foreign policy in Washington, D.C. and president of Counterpoint Institute for Policy, Research and Education. Her latest book is Last Warning to the West. Follow her at counterpointinstititute.org
