It is going badly for the government in Kiev and for the U.S.-led NATO. Many powerful people—notably in Washington, D.C. —do not accept that reality and seem ready to double down. They are undeterred by the fact that no improvement on the ground is likely, regardless of whether the Senate approves the stalled $60 billion Ukraine aid bill. Kiev’s shortage of artillery shells, guns, armor, drones and aircraft is chronic, but its manpower crisis due to massive losses is acute. Last week’s $300 million U.S. military aid package, the first since December 2023, is but a drop in the bucket.

​​​​​​​ Biden’s, Macron’s, and Scholz’s handlers, assorted Polish and German government ministers, NATO officers, and their media accomplices, are smokers in the arsenal. It would be trite to say that they are equally stupid and evil. Dark evil dominates here, both banal and monstrous.

It is still possible, perhaps, to end the war with a serious negotiation package to be presented to Moscow—provided there are no more tricks a la Minsk I and II this time. The package would need to accept, formally and unequivocally, that the Crimea, the Donbas, and the land bridge connecting them are Russian. That is the starting point for the West to help Ukraine embark on a viable path to recovery and “Europe.” Not to NATO, of course.

As George Beebe and Anatol Lieven point out, a neutral Ukraine would need to have verifiable limits on the types and quantities of weapons it may hold:

The authors warn that for the Biden administration to pledge American support to Ukraine for “as long as it takes” to defeat Russia is unwise, dishonest even. Time is not on Ukraine’s side, militarily or economically, and Kiev’s position in any future negotiations may be far worse later than it is at present.

As the first day of spring approaches, Western politicians, soldiers, and media pundits still prefer to risk escalation and nuclear holocaust rather than accept reality. The shadow of 1914, and of its horrid sequel in 1939, is longer than ever. Prayer may help.

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America is straying toward monstrous imprudence,” writes Naval War College strategy professor James Holmes in analyzing the Biden administration’s defense budget request for fiscal year 2025 in an important article in the National Interest. That is because, Holmes explains, “U.S. national purposes and power are on opposite trajectories.” Commitments are outstripping our power to deal with them. The Lippmann Gap has returned.

During World War II, the journalist Walter Lippmann in U.S. Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic wrote that a successful foreign policy “consists in bringing into balance, with a comfortable surplus of power in reserve, the nation’s commitments and the nation’s power.” Statesmen, Lippmann wrote, must preoccupy themselves with bringing the nation’s “ends and means into balance.” That means looking at both sides of the equation. It also means getting the most out of your means to fit the most crucial ends of policy. Holmes believes that the Biden administration is failing on both sides of the equation.

First, the means side of the equation. Holmes writes that the budget submitted by the Biden Pentagon would actually cut defense spending when adjusted for inflation. The proposed budget would cut the purchase of F-35 stealth fighters by 18 percent. Even more worrisome, the budget places six warships on order even though 19 warships will be retired. The Biden budget, Holmes explains, “would reduce the U.S. Navy fleet by thirteen hulls at a time when China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy is growing bigger and badder by the day.” And Holmes points out that this would add to China’s numerical lead in warships, which currently stands at about 80 ships (370 for China and 292 for the U.S.). But, as Holmes notes, those total numbers underplay China’s advantage of geographical proximity to the South China Sea and western Pacific, where PLA shore-based weapons (air and rocket forces) can wreak havoc on the portion of the U.S. fleet committed to that region. Under these circumstances, Holmes concludes, the Biden administration’s proposal to reduce U.S. sea power “courts disaster.”

Holmes also looks at the ends side of the equation. We are currently suffering from deficits as far as the eye can see, yet we are pouring in resources to the Middle East and Ukraine when China and the western Pacific constitutes the greatest threat to American security interests. The Biden administration is not prioritizing the use of limited resources. “Wishful thinking,” Holmes writes, “is strategic malpractice. If a nation has too few resources to achieve goals entertained by the political leadership, it’s best off scaling back the leadership’s goals to something the nation can afford.” Some call this “defeatism.” Lippmann called it prudence.