Putin's Own Goal

 We are four years into Putin's invasion of Ukraine that was supposed to be days or weeks to completion. The stoutness and adaptability of Ukrainian defenders has held a much larger army, population and economy at bay. Even as Trump has essentially ended aid to Ukraine, Europe has stepped up. This suggests that the longest impact of Trump's childish and short-sighted foreign policy will be the creation of a stronger, more independent Europe. As long as we eventually return to our liberal democratic roots, that's fine. Europe SHOULD stand up.

From Putin's point of view, a unified Europe is a disaster. He could count on Trump and Xi to more or less tolerate whatever he wanted to do, but Europe - especially Eastern Europe - has no illusions about what this fucker wants to do. What's more, the Ukrainian War has demonstrated that the future of warfare is not how much you can bench press, but your ability to leverage technical know-how and financial resources to create robot armies and air forces. The future of warfare is changing in Ukraine, and the US withdrawal from that conflict means we aren't going to be able to learn as quickly or as deeply as we should.

Meanwhile, Russia seems incapable of learning. They continue to demonstrate a lack of creativity, relying on the idea of brute force and brutalizing their troops. It was long assumed that a "frozen conflict" would disadvantage Ukraine, but the way the war has become a drone war seems to benefit Ukraine, who can use their drones to enforce a frontline that Russia can't exploit with their superior numbers.

The impact of this war on the Russian economy is murky, but it is doubtful that it's good. Russia has gotten around many of the sanctions, but not all - and its economy was no great shakes to begin with. 

It is, of course, sad to realize that a President Harris would have likely given more weapons to Ukraine and allowed them, perhaps, to roll back Russian forces. Maybe there is no victory for Ukraine that returns its stolen land. But there can be no question that this conflict has been a disaster for Russia.