Questions Without Answers About Ukraine

Victor Davis Hanson Mar 23, 2023

Ukrainians, and many Europeans and Americans, are defining an envisioned Ukrainian victory as the complete expulsion of all Russians from its 2013 borders. Or, as a Ukrainian national security chief put it, the war ends with Ukrainian tanks in Red Square. But mysteries remain about such ambitious agendas.  What would that goal entail?............ Russia's cruel strategy is to grind down Ukraine and turn its eastern regions into a Verdun-like deathscape.  So is a brave Ukraine really winning the war when it loses about 0.6 soldiers for every Russian it kills? Russia plans to leverage its extra 100 million people, its 10-times larger economy, and its 30-times larger territory to pulverize Ukraine and tire its Western patrons - whatever the costs to Russia..........

Given its shell-shocked inner cities and toxic downtowns, America is beginning to resemble mid-19th-century England that sent forces all over its global empire while novelist Charles Dickens chronicled the misery and poverty at the imperial core in London.  Is the Ukrainian war also creating the most dangerous anti-American alliance since World War II?

China is buying cheap Russian oil, while stealthily supplying its weapons. India, normally a rock-solid democratic ally, keeps buying both banned Russian oil and armaments. Most of the major countries in South America have not joined the sanctions.  Clients like nuclear North Korea and soon to be nuclear Iran are empowered by overt help from Russia.  NATO member Turkey and once-allied Saudi Arabia appear now friendlier to Iran, friendlier to China, and friendlier to Russia, than they are to America.........Why were those now calling for a veritable blank check for Ukraine formerly quiet when the U.S. fled in humiliation from Afghanistan?...........To Read More...