1000 Days

It is an artificial kind of marker (like decades and centuries), but the Ukraine War is now 1000 days old. It was 1000 days ago that Russia, under its current Orthodox Tsar Vladimir Putin, launched an imperialist aggressive war against its European neighbor Ukraine - the first such imperialist aggressive war on European territory since 1945. Under the leadership of President Joe Biden, the U.S. and NATO originally responded effectively. Since then, however, Trump's reelection, MAGA isolationism, and a general societal fatigue with "forever wars" have imperiled that response and endangered Ukraine's long-term survival prospects.

While Ukraine has never really been "winning" the war, there was a time when it looked at least as if Ukraine were on the offensive. Now that illusion has been dispelled - as may be the illusion that the United States is a reliable ally. In the "second-guessing" game that inevitably follows any major conflict, it may well be that the Biden Administration has been too slow in supplying needed weaponry to Ukraine, often eventually supplying weapons (like the ATACMS) that might have been better supplied, with more effect, earlier. Whatever the reasoning was, a mistake may have been made in the pace of American military aid. 

What the Biden Administration did do very well was to mobilize European support behind the defense of Ukraine. Europeans, having frittered away the post Cold War "peace dividend" and having for far too long relied too much on the U.S. defensive umbrella, were finally fully awakened to the degree of threat posed by Russian imperialism. Russia's neighbors - Sweden, Finland, the Baltic States, Poland) know from their long history what a dangerous enemy Russia inevitably is. So their awakening seems to have been more complete and effective. Of all of this war's ironies, Putin's goal of undermining NATO led instead to Sweden and Finland joining NATO and the (at least short-term) overall strengthening of that indispensable alliance. Whether Europe can continue to stand up against Putin, now that the U.S. can no longer be relied upon, remains to be seen.