Ukraine: Replacing America As Leader Of The Free World
By cutting both military aid and intelligence sharing to Ukraine in his pathetic tantrum, Trump has taken the final step in shattering American power. A new global democratic alliance is required.
Quick note to begin - apologies that this week’s post is coming out late and remains a bit rough, but had some family stuff to help take care of over the weekend and on Monday. This post will be a bit shorter than has been my habit lately, but despite events moving fast they’re heading in a fairly predictable direction, so a bit less explanation ought to be alright (probably welcomed). Stefan Korshak and Mick Ryan, among others, have been doing a great job of covering recent military events in detail - the former lives in Kyiv and the latter often visits.
To business: the single most important lesson to take away from the Ukraine War is probably this: never, ever underestimate the Ukrainians. Like a lot of other peoples trapped for too long between warring empires and subjected to attempted genocide, they don’t play by anybody’s rules. Survival is all that matters - both now and a century down the line.
Moscow and D.C. have consistently made the mistake of thinking that Ukrainians can be beaten into submission. Mutually delusional and totally unscientific visions of history drive leaders in both capitols, which is why both the russian and American worlds are both crumbling fast.
Both have actively sabotaged the foundations of their own power through aggressive neglect. Needless wars always have this effect eventually.
Unfortunately the fall of great powers never fails to upend the world system. Which, simply put, is just habitual patterns of interaction between countries. These tend to cluster around a semi-stable equilibrium, for a time, until a mistake or simple entropy shatters something beyond repair.
The thing about living through history is that the pace of felt change is slower than the onset of the warning signs. It takes time for the world system to push through the full pain of the Fall and Winter phases of the Adaptive Cycle.
One of the critical steps in the process is accepting that it cannot be stopped. It’s like an economic recession - the thing will be. All you can hope to do is dampen the effects, ride out the storm, and establish a foundation for prospering in the bounce-back. Spring always comes. Endless rebirth of form through the recycling of matter seems to be the point of this universe, until it too dies and is changed. Ragnarok, Apocalypse, The turning wheel of Dhamma - the ancients had many names for it.
Thanks to Trump’s utterly ridiculous efforts to pull Moscow away from its alliance of necessity with Beijing by trying to sacrifice Ukraine, European leaders are finally shocked enough to admit the truth: the USA has become NATO’s weak link. Article 5 doesn’t necessarily mean a thing to D.C. The alliance is functionally paralyzed and must now rebuild itself fast. Properly backing Ukraine by treating it as an effective member is the essential first step.
It has already begun: a telltale sign is Ukraine’s visible move to withdraw from Kursk after six months of fighting inside Putin’s empire. The operation has more than served its purpose, and now that Trump has played his worst cards - since he can’t stop using that metaphor, I’ll invoke it too, and more correctly - by cutting off military and intelligence aid, the odds of D.C. forcing Ukraine to accept a bad ceasefire have shrunk to just about nothing.
More details on that in the first section of the post, with the usual coverage of geopolitical developments in the third. The second will briefly describe what the alliance must immediately do in Ukraine to preserve itself. In the end, through full embrace of Ukraine even short of formal membership, NATO will quickly become stronger, focused on securing Europe against the Muscovite empire. Eventually the monstrosity will collapse, its European successor states slowly integrating with Europe and those east of the Ural mountains probably have to align with Beijing - but might be encouraged to chart their own path. Or become West Alaska.
Europe, meanwhile, can pull the democratic countries of the Pacific into an effective global alliance capable of doing what the USA never could: court the developing world, what so many call the Global South, to forestall growing Chinese and Muscovite influence there. Nobody will ever trust any international security institutions so long as a USA is in charge.
As the fallout plume from Trump and Vance’s failed Oval Office ambush of Zelensky continues to blanket international affairs, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK, Zaluzhnyi, formerly very keen to preserve his reputation in the US, confirmed in stark terms this week that the Postwar Order is dead and done. By default, his boss Zelensky is now the true leader of the Free World. Zaluzhnyi might have the job himself in a few years, but until the war ends Zelensky is in the hot seat. That his team is playing its hand quite well is indicated by US media predictably trying to blame his adviser Yermak for the White House showdown that Zelensky manifestly won, even if the cost was high.
Working through the consequences of America’s effective secession from the world built with the sweat and blood of my grandparents’ generation will take years. But there’s no getting around the need at this point. The USA is no more likely to survive the decade in its current form than Putin or his dismal regime. Its federal government is the country’s own weakest link, and a growing danger to the integrity of the Constitution.
In the near term, replacing every function that American military forces around the world have performed for decades is a national security requirement for everybody. Nothing D.C. says can be trusted; in a crisis every claimed ally from South Korea to Finland is vulnerable to being sold out if the cost of defending them looks too high from D.C. And that’s a calculation that Beijing and Moscow can always influence by rattling their nuclear sabers.
Given how incompetent American leadership has proven over the past thirty years, it’s end won’t be such a bad thing. The USA’s supposed superpower status has long been more about national ego than material reality. Pride cometh before many a nasty fall. As the consequences of Trump’s trade wars bite, plenty of US states will question the value of ongoing union.
One of the key lessons derived from applying Adaptive Cycle theory to change in most systems is that the sooner you make a decisive move once certain thresholds have been crossed the better. Getting ahead of any exponential curve is essential if you want to maintain any semblance of control over the situation.
Only if Moscow is defeated in Ukraine within the twelve to eighteen months will it likely prove possible to avoid China making a big move in the Pacific before the end of Trump’s term. Odds are that he’ll sell out Taiwan or walk the USA into a military disaster, something Beijing now knows. How the Ukraine War ends will strongly determine the character of the emerging world order. If even a partial global replacement for the USA emerges, Beijing will have two distinct challenges to manage. America’s domestic collapse will not have a decisive impact.
Victory for Ukraine is a win for democracy, liberty, and any hope of avoiding a really nasty common future by mid-century. The Postwar Order is done. The impacts aren’t confined to Europe. The logic and alleged history that Putin uses to justify his empire can easily be extended to claim to vast swaths of the Pacific, including parts of the USA and Canada. His delusions about history could easily affect the lives of Pacific Americans in some perhaps not-so-distant future where D.C. abandons its obligations to a portion of the American people just as it is presently doing to the Europeans.
Trump, Vance, and their kind care nothing for America or Americans. In cutting off military and intelligence support for Ukraine, they have revealed themselves in full at last, shedding all ambiguity. They loathe the Constitution’s protections for people other than their class and despise anything resembling true liberty. They way they’re treating Ukraine reflects how they’ll treat the rest of us in our turn. Zelensky trapped them into showing their true colors, a win that incidentally renders holding out in Kursk unnecessary - hence Ukraine beginning a probably overdue retreat.
Fortunately, Trump and Vance haven’t the faintest clue about how power really works, and are on a well-worn path to self-immolation. History does indeed repeat, Hitler playing tragedy to Napoleon while Putin and Trump compete to put on the grandest possible farce in their own bid for alleged greatness. Their mutual fall will probably look more like Saddam Hussein insisting that he wanted to negotiate as US troops hauled him out of his spider hole than Hitler’s suicide in a bunker.
When they’re gone, the world will look back and wonder at the raw stupidity that enabled their rise in the first place. First, sadly, a whole lot more people will probably die. As usual, not the ones who deserve to. For now.
2025: Week 10 On The Fronts
This past week Putin did his best to prove why there’s not likely to be a ceasefire, much less sustainable peace, until his military power is broken. At the same time the Trump-Vance administration cut intelligence support to Ukraine in addition to paralyzing military supplies, Putin’s forces launched some of their biggest missile and drone attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in months.
Definitely what the side that sincerely seeks an end to hostilities does. Thanks for clarifying your open disdain for Trump’s idiotic attempts to play peacemaker with a hyena, Putin.
Whether intentionally or by accident, Trump’s America is now functionally on Moscow’s side. With no further leverage over Ukraine except the promise - for whatever that’s worth - of restoring aid, all Trump can do is pretend that Zelensky apologized to him but keep demanding concessions Ukraine can’t legally offer, like giving up territory.
On the ground, Moscow’s renewed strategic strike campaign stands in contrast to a dramatic deterioration in the orc ability to sustain operations everywhere but Kursk. And at sea, Moscow’s efforts to attack Ukrainian naval drones are being hampered by the next generation carrying weapons instead of an explosive charge.
Northern Theater
After more than six months of intense fighting, Ukraine is definitely beginning to withdraw from Kursk. Though at first last week it seemed that a surprise ruscist breakthrough was threatening Ukraine’s hold on Sudzha, in fact Ukraine appears to have pre-emptively initiated a planned withdrawal in phases. The orcs were only taking advantage - and walking into another trap.
This kind of operation typically begins with pulling back immediately before the enemy launches a new offensive. Ukraine’s recent offensive punches on the eastern flank of Free Kursk now appear intended to disorient and distract the orc generals, impacting their planning and pushing back the start date of their big attack. That gave the retreat some breathing space.
Expecting a tough fight, the enemy surged forces towards Sudzha from the north and east after threatening the flanks of the Ukrainian forces operating in Kursk with a week of attacks towards Ukraine’s key supply node in Sumy district. Ukrainian forces appear to have mostly pulled out in advance, unleashing drones and artillery on the orcs as they rushed forward to seize mostly empty positions.
That being said, ruscist forces finally seem to have managed to coordinate something resembling a competent offensive effort in Kursk. Reports suggest that orc drone operators were pulled from fronts across Ukraine to accomplish pretty much what I’ve been arguing for months is necessary to sustain an advance in the Network Age: a supply interdiction zone where drones savage logistics, limiting the forces the enemy can deploy to an area.
Supplied by a single route encompassing one major road and an ancillary route or two, Ukraine’s forward supply hub in Sudzha has been getting harder and harder to keep sustained. It is largely for this reason that I suggested back in December that Ukraine’s front in Kursk would soon be compressed much like it has been over the past week.
I questioned then whether it was time to withdraw; the role Kursk played in the ongoing sparring over peace talks along with the danger orc forces posed to Sumy made a continuation worthwhile, despite the cost. Putin could never agree to a ceasefire with Ukrainian troops in Kursk, meaning that neither Biden nor Trump could hope to impose one on Zelensky in some backroom deal and call it peace for domestic political gain.
That Trump-Vance assault on Zelensky in the White House, and the tantrum they’ve thrown in the aftermath of being humiliated by Zelensky’s counterattack, have utterly demolished their ability to make any deal with Putin more credible than the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact inked between the USSR and Nazi Germany before Hitler invaded Poland. Now that Ukraine has pushed European leaders into taking the actions that have long been necessary to free Europe from American domestic dysfunction, it’s not to Ukraine’s political benefit to hold foreign territory, something that does in fact harm its claim to be acting purely in self-defense, even if the move is completely justified. Lack of US support in targeting enemy troops, supplies, and officers across the international border also would have impacted Ukrainian operational capabilities, altering the effective balance of power.
Ukraine’s drone fight is also now sophisticated enough, and Moscow’s armored vehicle inventory is so drained, that there is no longer any threat of a deep breach of the front anywhere. So Sumy can be adequately defended without holding positions in Kursk, undermining a key operational benefit of fighting on the other side of the border. Mitigation of the glide bomb threat using electronic warfare also makes holding defenses in Sumy easier.
The orcs must also contend with the possibility that Ukraine may launch a surprise incursion anywhere along the border, even if that might look politically damaging. So they’ll be slow to move too many soldiers back to occupied Ukraine. This should allow Ukraine to move a group of experienced brigades from Kursk to fronts where counteroffensive operations are now escalating as orc reserves run thin after months of losing more people than they can replace.
Ukrainian forces are leaving Kursk in triumph, having achieved a historic victory that shattered Moscow’s bluffs about using nuclear fire to defend the homeland. Forced to rely on North Korean aid to protect its own borders, Putin’s dismal empire has been publicly humiliated. The burst of celebratory propaganda and inevitable false allegations of Ukrainian atrocities in Sudzha will be cold comfort to those who actually understand what a disaster this campaign was for Moscow.
It may be that Ukraine chooses to put up a hard fight in the streets of Sudzha, but I doubt it. A bit of enemy territory may be retained, but the risk of holding more doesn’t look worth the reward. For some time now a number of the elite brigades assigned to Kursk have been less active, suggesting that elements were resting as other troops took their place. Part of 33rd Mechanized Brigade, long fighting on what used to be the Kurakhove and Vuhledar front, is according to some reports covering the withdrawal in Kursk.
The situation is evolving as it must. Over the weekend, my sense of the logic in holding Kursk definitely shifted, despite long supporting Ukraine’s operation here. Moscow’s creeping offensive on the flanks was getting too close to posing a terminal risk. It is now pretty obvious that Ukraine’s Armed Forces were ready to make this move the moment the timing was right. In two or three months upwards of ten experienced brigades should form the heart of two strike corps that will smash an orc front somewhere in occupied Ukraine.
It is entirely possible that Ukrainian forces in Kursk will shift to the Kharkiv Front to fully repel Moscow’s incursion there. They might even wind up across the border near Belgorod.
Can’t actively expect anything like this right away, of course. But the possibility remains. And that’s bad enough for Moscow.
Eastern Theater
Across nearly every other front, Moscow’s situation is either static or even deteriorating. Ukraine’s newfound ability to jam glide bomb guidance signals is probably partly responsible for a noted stabilization on most fronts of late, as are changes in the command structure. Even Donbas-South is looking substantially better for Ukraine lately.
Starting at the northern end of this stretch of the contact line - Ukraine has begun counterattacks against ruscist troops trying to cross the Oskil north of Kupiansk. In fact, they have also counterattacked west of the river, threatening the further side of the bridgehead Moscow’s troops have slowly been working to expand.
These efforts have continued, but despite a lack of visible reinforcements Ukrainian troops are containing the problem. When logistics require people - or, as is now sometimes the case on the orc side, some poor enslaved donkeys - literally packing gear on long hikes, developing a major offensive is incredibly difficult. Having to cross a water barrier doesn’t help.
South from Kupiansk, the enemy is still trying to creep towards the Oskil in the Borova and Lyman areas. Assaults towards Siversk, on the other side of the Siverski Donets river, also appear to be intensifying, though not enough to create a crisis. The Ukrainian brigades on the Siversk Front are quietly doing an astounding job, so small wonder 10th Mountain Assault is slated to head up one of the new corps.
You’ve got to get all the way down to the Kostyantynivka front before any sustained enemy progress was noted this past week. Here, the orcs are apparently making a move to finish expelling Ukrainian troops from Chasiv Yar, but so far haven’t been able to get the job done thanks in part to some pre-emptive Ukrainian tactical level counterattacks.
In Toretsk, aggressive Ukrainian counteroffensive operations have continued, liberating Leonidvika to the southwest and securing a foothold in the Zabalka neighborhood, placing the orcs stationed in the downtown ruins in a nasty vice. This is going to be door-to-door fighting if Ukraine is serious about pushing the enemy out. At the very least, Moscow’s plans for a push towards Kostyantynivka aren’t going well.
And if that front isn’t looking good right now, the situation in Pokrovsk is getting almost dire. Exactly as expected, Ukrainian forces are attempting to cut off and destroy the orc bridgehead over the Solona river that threatened to cut Pokrovsk off from the west. Moscow’s troops are too far from their major supply bases and brutally exposed to drone attacks from three sides. Putin can keep feeding sausage into the grinder, but unless Moscow has uncharacteristically good insight into how its troops are faring, the positions will crack under pressure.
It’s a bit funny to see Ukraine taking advantage of having pulled so many experienced ruscist formations up to Kursk pay off in Pokrovsk after so many American experts insisted last year that Ukrainian troops were only retreating in Donbas because of the push into Kursk. Hate to tell them, but Ukraine has now managed to exploit a vulnerability at a highly favorable cost-exchange ratio in one place while creating another somewhere totally different. This is energy management.
I can’t forecast a more general counteroffensive in Pokrovsk right now, particularly not with the spring mud threatening wheeled logistics. But exhaust the orcs here for a couple months with slow, steady pressure, and a general collapse in early summer could easily follow.
The Donbas-South front has also been looking better this week than it has for a long while, with close to zero orc progress of note and some local level Ukrainian counterattacks on the western end of the sector, towards Huliaipole. An area I’m keeping a close eye on for reasons I’ll detail a lot more this spring.
Southern Theater
The intensity of the fighting along the Azov and Dnipro fronts has been ticking up slowly, with ruscist assault teams attempting to creep forward where they can. There are suggestions that Moscow might even try to hold positions across the Dnipro, but good luck with that, orcs.
Crimea came back in the news again, mainly because Ukraine has started using naval drone carriers to launch attacks on orc air defense vehicles. Some aerial drones have been sighted over Crimea, but the big hits have come deep inside Mordor of late.
Zaporizhzhia continues to be a closely watched sector, with orc efforts to take a position or two noted and repelled every day. But despite rumors, no major striking force has been employed by either side. Neither appears to have the necessary forces available - though Ukraine may get them first.
Air, Sea, & Strike
Putin has naturally chosen now to unleash a new wave of missile strikes on targets in Ukraine, apparently going after gas infrastructure. Probably a message to Europe, as well as attempted revenge for Ukraine chipping away at ruscist fossil fuel production.
There are a couple reasons that Zelensky has been talking about a partial ceasefire covering the air, sea, and strike fronts of late. First is the need to look open to peace talks, despite the improbability of their success. With Trump already trying to lure Ukraine into signing a minerals deal, his feckless negotiation style is bound to be exploited by Putin’s team. Nobody will trust any deal inked with someone like him.
But the more Ukraine can encourage Trump to get mad at Putin, the better. This is politically wise for Trump anyway, so it ought to be like holding a carrot in front of a distracted donkey - eventually survival instincts should take over. It may be that he’s presently satisfying his rabid base with superficial “wins” in preparation for a sudden and convenient abandonment of many positions, perhaps under the pretense of responding to an emergency like a recession or terror attack that will inevitably get blamed on Iran. It’s either that, or push his apparent theory of unlimited Executive power so far he cracks the federation apart.
Anyway, another reason that Zelensky is promoting a ceasefire on these fronts is that Ukraine has won at sea, stalemated the enemy in the sky, and in a few months will dominate the strategic strike domain with cheap but plentiful drones and small missiles. In all three domains, time is on Ukraine’s side now. And, of course, another reason to propose a partial ceasefire is that there’s almost no way to police one on the ground even if Putin were sincere in desiring peace - or removed entirely.
Putin is unlikely to accept anyway, so not much harm in the gambit. Meanwhile Ukraine just last night unleashed perhaps its biggest drone strike on Moscow, smashing a refinery. Unfortunately, several civilians were killed by either errant drones thrown off course by jamming or Muscovite air defense systems. At least Ukraine doesn’t try to kill civilians, whereas Moscow routinely launches “double-tap” missile attacks designed to catch first responders as they arrive. Just like terrorists used to do with bombs in Iraq. Both also love to bomb hotels and cafes.
Ukrainian hits on oil infrastructure have knocked at least ten percent of ruscist output offline, with the impact only rising. If Moscow moves air defenses to protect oil sites, airbases and ammo bunkers will become easier to take out. At this stage, turning old World War Two planes from museums collections into drones might even be an idea if they can be equipped with an AI system capable of identifying locomotives on the move and delivering a large bomb.
Small aircraft have already been repurposed in this way, carrying payloads sufficient to handle air-to-air missiles, if a means of targeting them using external support could be devised. And never underestimate the power of networks in getting signals through noise.
Also on the aviation front, Ukraine’s new Mirage 2000 fighters gifted by France are confirmed to be in action, acting in the air defense role along American-designed Vipers. Now that American aid to allies is vulnerable to partisan wankery (sorry for the cultural appropriation, British readers, but your TV is usually better than ours and in the US that sounds more silly than naughty as insults go so I like it), having a supply of equipment sourced from a different supplier is ideal. France’s choice to maintain a strong domestic arms industry and separate nuclear deterrent now look very, very wise.
The war at sea remains unchanged, though the threat that armed naval drones now pose to helicopters means that Ukraine’s advantage in the Black Sea is growing larger again. Helos have proven the best counter to drones because they can fly low and slow and use machine guns against explosive-laden targets from a safe distance. Now the door is open to Ukraine employing drone flotillas with multiple types of weapons against targets along the enemy coastline. A drone able to launch a homing torpedo would be fatal to orc hopes of ever sailing in open waters again.
Incidentally, a wire-guided drone sporting some anti-aircraft weaponry could be launched from a submarine to dramatically reduce the risk submarines face from their biggest enemy: aircraft. All in all, drones plus submarines appear to represent a potent combination that even small powers can employ to limit advantages long reserved to big naval powers like the US.
Forget that AUKUS pact and promises of US nuclear subs, Australia - go with a whole lot more modern diesel-electrics - Japanese or German - that can act as drone hubs. Quieter, cheaper, and easier to sustain, so numbers can compensate for limited range, they can also be manufactured locally and enter service much sooner than an American nuclear boat. Also, losing one hurts a bit less because there are fewer people on board. Automation may reduce crews even further. And if they operate in shallow waters like smaller subs usually do, escape and rescue is a lot more likely. Oh, and there’s no exposure to American blackmail. Sorry about those F-35s, everybody who bought them…
Leadership & Personnel
At the moment, Ukraine is in the process of identifying effective leaders of the wartime generation and promoting them to important positions in the new corps structure. In a matter of months I expect this process to have a major impact on Ukraine’s effectiveness and efficiency - though there are bound to be growing pains.
Leading a fire team or a corps differs mainly in the scale of the management problem at hand. A new set of skills must be developed to cope with all the necessary abstraction. Any sufficiently thoughtful and adaptable person is capable, and most leaders who have been fighting for the past three years and haven’t developed a terrible reputation is probably able to get the job done.
As I mentioned above, one component of Moscow’s stalled offensives in Ukraine is likely improved command and control of late. Sadly, as necessary as forcing America’s hand was for Ukraine, in the short term a great deal of offensive potential will be sacrificed until allies can fill the gaps.
The Science of Replacing America: First Steps
Right now, the biggest leadership issue in Ukraine lies with NATO. A way forward is required that doesn’t depend on D.C.
Yet problem number one with this proposition is simple coordination. It represents a truly massive collective action problem, which is a social science term that refers to a deep-seated systemic issue that tends to sustain itself. Nobody wants to be the sucker who pays more than their share of a restaurant bill or bar tab, for example. The natural choice is to be conservative about your own contribution when the time comes for the divvy-up, which leads to everyone giving a little less than they need to. Arguments often ensue, unless someone like me who dislikes arguments quietly covers the difference.
In security matters, the natural human tendency to hold back resources can easily prove fatal, because war is a constant contest of and for them. The will of a group to seize through violence what they cannot secure in some other way is the only fundamental limit to how much violence is observed over time. Success on even a small scale breeds further attempts, destabilizing the situation even more. That is why allowing Putin to gain anything from his war on Ukraine is a serious mistake that leads not to peace, but more and worse war. The science on this point is well established and quite frankly ancient.
To stop a self-reinforcing cycle of violence from getting out of control demands robust security institutions that are capable of restraining unnecessary actions but also taking control of a situation when required. That's what NATO was built to be after the Second World War: an institution designed to essentially force certain kinds of action on a relatively equitable basis. It’s the best alternative to discord that can lead to members being eaten up one by one.
It has failed in its current form, and now faces a new challenge: Victory in Ukraine. There's no other viable option for Europeans now, because the mentality that grips the Muscovite empire is wholly malignant. And the mad turn by D.C. under the Trump-Vance administration means that the USA is out of the fight for the foreseeable future.
And Europe is only Moscow's near-term objective. Everyone is threatened by a rampaging ruscist regime willing to sacrifice hundreds of bodies for a square kilometer of territory. That’s what makes the Ukraine War truly global, already World War Three.
The good news is that once a major component of a system goes faulty and is replaced, function can rapidly improves. Contrary to a whole lot of media and academic analysis, NATO has been listless and confused for nearly thirty years, wasting resources in adventures well beyond Europe. Dragged into American-led fights across the Middle East and North Africa, European countries have long suffered as much as they gained in a geopolitical sense from their close affiliation with the USA.
Ukraine, unlike the USA, has proven itself a reliable and innovative partner. At this point, 30 million or so Ukrainians are worth more than 330 million Americans in a fight. All the fancy hardware and niche capabilities the United States Armed Forces bring to the table count for nothing if the will to use them is lacking - or the skill to employ them correctly. Something likely to be sorely lacking as Team Trump elevates partisan loyalists to senior Pentagon roles. I have my suspicions about the quality of the American military establishment as it stands, but the twits in charge now are the sort of fools who will try to do something even dumber than try to occupy countries in the Middle East.
Ukraine has the world's best fighters, cutting-edge drone capabilities, and a growing cadre of battle-hardened leaders who understand how to cope with Moscow's human wave tactics. Which are about all it has left. What NATO brings to the table is air power, surveillance assets, and gear in storage that Ukraine isn't allowed to have because US-dominated NATO insists on maintaining reserves in case of an all-out war with Moscow.
The tragic loop that has for three years prevented a lot more Ukrainian soldiers from being equipped with life-saving modern armored vehicles comes down to NATO wanting to be ready for the war Ukraine is actually fighting right now. Even though most of the gear NATO countries field is functionally obsolete in its intended role thanks to drones, it's still better than anything Soviet - or nothing. And it's still vital gear, even if it can only be fielded in less dense concentrations than doctrine demands.
With American leadership in NATO being largely responsible for NATO's posture in this regard, America's effective exit opens the door to a change in policy. A coalition of countries within NATO plus allies abroad need to recognize that victory on the fronts in Ukraine today is what prevents the need for large ground forces to permanently deploy along Europe's eastern frontier. If every European country not named Hungary or Slovakia decided to send every bit of gear used by their active forces to Ukraine tomorrow, what's Moscow going to do, attack Estonia or Finland in exchange for losing everything in Ukraine?
If Putin does, Ukraine can show all of NATO how to defeat standing orc tactics at the lowest possible cost. The end of Putin’s empire will only accelerate.
Another domain where Europe must step up and can do so with the greatest effect is the skies. Any part of Ukraine’s sky not within 200km of orc territory must be patrolled by aircraft from NATO countries. The new Sky Shield initiative is what used to be called a no-fly zone, only done right: as I’ve been writing for years, Ukrainian ground based air defenses make it insane for orc jets to fly closer than 100km or so from Ukrainian territory. This means that you won’t have Moscow’s jets flying over Ukraine and engaging NATO pilots. They’ll only be protecting against cruise missile and drone strikes.
With a very low, if never zero, risk of active fighting, not doing this in 2022 was a glaring sign of weakness that enabled Putin’s assault and led to the needless deaths of many Ukrainian civilians. Rectifying the error by maintaining even a single squadron on permanent patrol in three or four areas is of paramount importance. Recall also that two sides can exchange fire without descending into all-out war - Iran and Israel are a perfect example.
The swift transfer of at least a dozen Swedish Gripen fighters, long-range Meteor air-to-air missiles, and the promised AWACS needed to use them effectively, is also imminently required. If NATO aircraft can free Ukrainian jets from covering a huge chunk of the country and ensure that the several dozen modern ones they have can fight on even terms if threatened, Ukraine’s skies can be nearly closed. Likewise, NATO air defense systems need to flood western Ukraine, allowing Ukraine’s precious Patriots to be reserved for ballistic defense of cities closer to the front.
These steps, along with Germany offering Taurus cruise missiles and the technical support to give them targeting data that doesn’t rely on US sources, can secure the basic preconditions for a powerful Ukrainian counteroffensive this year. If successful, it could initiate the chain reaction that crumbles the orc front and forces Putin to abandon the war - or leads to a rebellion that ends his regime, hopefully life.
Something that Americans don’t seem to get about European intelligence capabilities is that they are, on the whole, more sophisticated. European satellite based remote sensing efforts are as extensive as anything American, and who knows what the real-world quality of US surveillance efforts shared with Ukraine actually was. While it appears that ATACMS and HIMARS are no longer usable at least inside of russia, Ukraine had few of the former and the threat of using them again ought to keep orc airfields in range very nervous. It is unclear whether the French SCALP-EG missiles share the British Storm Shadow version’s reliance on US-owned data. Taurus missiles might too, but hopefully a workaround exists or can be engineered in short order.
As for other American intel sources like signals monitoring, a great deal of its effectiveness probably depends on the analysis. And there, if your science is flawed, your results and forecasts will be too. This may explain much about US intelligence, or lack thereof, as is too often the case. Overall, I’ve come to trust European scientists more quickly than American.
Again, European capability to replace the US isn’t in doubt, only the lasting will. European leaders, however, play the game of democracy differently than their American counterparts. When a major assumption is publicly broken, they take that as a license to make changes they always desired. As Europe began to diverge from the USA during the Iraq War while tacitly supporting the US through NATO, now it finally has the space to make a more comprehensive break.
That doesn’t mean all will be well. But this much is clear: the course of the Ukraine War seems set to change. Very possibly for the better, after some pain.
Geopolitical Brief
North America
Really, what is there to say about the USA’s self-inflicted decline at this point? It’s funny that, having already won re-election for the last time he’s allowed to under the Constitution, Trump doesn’t see that there’s precious little point in satisfying his base if the consequences are a recession. Which is what a trade war is bound to cause, because it isn’t as if there are tooled-up factories lying idle across the USA because of foreign competition.
It takes time to build out capital, so all tariffs do is make people pay more for goods they can’t get otherwise. Taxation without representation for the 21st century. And markets are already starting to panic. What’s grimly hilarious about the whole thing is that by levying tariffs on individual countries like Canada and Mexico (the absolute dumbest ones to hit with tariffs thanks to their deep integration with US business supply chains) you’ll only shift business to unaffected countries in an endless game of whack-a-mole. China can export to wherever, and they’ll re-export to the USA, just as happens with the chips powering ruscist missiles that land in Ukraine. American consumers will pay higher prices, the feds won’t get revenue, and Beijing will take a little pain and smile while watching the USA hurt itself far more.
The USA is trapped in a doom loop caused by a nasty intersection of outdated political institutions and the partisan team sports dynamic which insists that any and all goals the team scores are glorious - even if they’re for the wrong side. It’s like watching a parody cartoon from Grand Theft Auto V come alive, only the people running the show aren’t in on their own joke!
Having been arguing for about a decade now that this moment would come for the USA in the middle of the 2020s, I don’t much like having been right. But at least I’ve got a pretty clear sense of where things are heading. Civil war, while perhaps possible on some limited scale, is nothing most Americans have the stomach for or the skills to carry out. Lasting dysfunction or legal separation is the fate of the fifty states, barring something truly Earth-shattering.
With support for Ukraine now at the whim of the Oval Office, it’s almost pointless to even consider what America could do for Ukraine anymore. Trump is handing the Democrats a huge win, too - when Ukraine wins without his aid, he’ll look even worse than he does now. I’m sure that at 82 he’ll approach the humiliating end of his time in office with as much concern for the welfare of everyone around him as the last idiot did.
Europe
It is difficult to fully capture the immensity of what is happening in the European Union right now. A scenario formerly reserved for near-future fiction scenarios in books, TV, and video games has come to life: the USA is no longer a reliable partner to the democratic world. Plenty of American states, if allowed, would be, but about a quarter are totally isolationist now - except apparently with respect to Canada, Mexico, Greenland, and Panama.
Europe has more people, an equally large but still under-utilized economy, and collectively enough hardware and intelligence assets to replace the USA in qualitative terms, even if not quantitative. And Ukraine is handling the quantity side in most categories of support except modern armored vehicles, aircraft, and ammunition.
Losing the 40% of its support relative to 2024 hurts, but Europe’s contribution to Ukraine is already skewed in that figure by the fact that the Biden Administration rushed some aid - though nowhere near enough, of course - during its final days. In reality, the US provides more like 1/3 of Ukraine’s capabilities, though some are niche and not easily replaced. And Europe is basically planning to double annual defense spending while presuming that the USA won’t necessarily be part of NATO. The alliance will be better with South Korea, Japan, and Australia in it anyway, or at least formally aligned.
It is possible that an ongoing end of American aid will prevent Ukraine from launching a major and sustained counteroffensive effort like it needs and fairly obviously hopes to in 2025. However, I wouldn’t count on it, especially if European countries come through with their boosted commitments. Norway just doubled its planned contributions for 2025, and it’s one of those oil powers with a healthy sovereign wealth fund worth more than a trillion dollars. Take just 5% of that - a rough average rate of annual returns on properly hedged investments over several decades - and you’ve got a $50 billion dollar pool derived purely from profit. And then there are the hundreds of billions in frozen orc assets to consider.
So as I outlined above, it’s time for Europe to act as if Ukraine is already in NATO. A coalition needs to push substantial amounts of gear into the country, fast, perhaps transferred from Turkish stocks now that the regime in Syria is no more. If the Turks will agree, maybe the Greeks will pare theirs down too. They maintain a huge arsenal despite the country’s size because of historic animosity with Turkiye.
And side note, fine, to be diplomatic I’ll adopt the new preferred spelling, but without accent marks. Sorry, but I consider these to be inherently elitist efforts to preserve language against the inevitability of change.
In any case, the early signs of change in Europe are mostly positive. With the leaders of Germany, France, and the UK all in apparent agreement, the big three military powers aside from Poland seem ready to backstop a joint European security plan. Details, as with anything in the EU, are to be determined - possibly forever.
But right now, I’d bank on a lot of money revitalizing the defense sector across Europe. And once that ball gets rolling, America loses its last real hold over its most essential allies.
Middle East
The region continues to be its usual turbulent self, Hamas and Israel jockeying over terms of the next phase of the ceasefire, if it is going to continue at all. In Syria a serious outbreak of violence in the Alawite-majority region along the coast is proving to be a major test of the new government. The U.S. aircraft carrier Truman, repaired after her mishap, is back in the Red Sea with her escorts for some reason, though the Houthis haven’t been attacking shipping lately.
Escalation somewhere in the region appears more likely than not. Once Trump has moved on from Ukraine and tariffs, I expect that Iran will draw his ire. But if Israel does ignite the war with Hamas again, the Houthis can probably be expected to get involved.
Pacific
The Trump-Vance administration has achieved something until now almost unthinkable: Japan, South Korea, and even Australia are all staring down a much more dangerous future than they anticipated. New Zealand is right there too, of course, but it has long relied on Australia and the USA for all but local matters, so is pretty much stuck with Australia right now, like it or not. Taiwan’s position is far more precarious, facing a high probability of Trump doing a deal with China or going the complete other direction and provoking a military crisis.
I can’t forecast the current United States Armed Forces doing well in that encounter. What I’ve review lately of emerging doctrine and thought among the officer class suggests that the entire institution has entered that terrible stage where most energy is expended maintaining a status quo for the sake of it. Certain purely aesthetic preferences drive senior leaders, who cultivate relationships with politicians and lobbyists who are happy to help sustain their pet projects, for a price.
The most effective warfighting institutions in history have been able to simply and succinctly express basic principles in a form that even ordinary line soldiers could comprehend and adhere to, most of the time. That’s why wartime manuals are usually much shorter than peacetime regulations and procedures.
Even a healthy, functional American federal government would benefit tremendously from having, as was the case in the Second World War, different parts of the planet be managed from top to bottom by distinct institutional structures. Sure, the Pacific and European Theaters were linked together in D.C., but different design requirements led to equipment being used in one area but not the other much of the time. And it worked.
When you combine the need for a very different approach to security in the Pacific thanks to geography with the disaster that is D.C., my case for a separate Pacific Forces committed to defend the Constitution and the people who depend on it against all hazards becomes pretty strong. The Pacific democracies wouldn’t need to depend on distant Europe if they had a reliable partner in Pacific America.
Concluding Comments
Alright, I’ll call that sufficient for this week. More or less, the situation in Ukraine continues to move in the direction it inevitably had to. But as vicious a backstab America’s betrayal of Ukraine under Trump and Vance is, Ukraine was prepared. Doing what little a blogger can to accomplish this mission has been a mission of mine for over three years, ever since I realized that war was inevitable and the USA would do nothing to stop it.
I don’t know whether my incessant warnings about America got through to someone, or Ukraine’s leaders always knew exactly where they stood all along, but I’m damned glad to see the necessary steps being taken at last. That much I call a win for this blog, because even if nobody remembers it or a particular post by name, just getting the ideas out there can sometimes do good. Anyone can come across a good bit of analysis they see online and make use of it without saying a word to anybody.
As I’ve mentioned, my schedule will be a little uncertain over the next couple months, and it is likely that next week’s post will be delayed again. Just a heads-up. Take care, everyone!