“The hard truth is that introduction of new weapon systems won’t change the strategic outcome in Ukraine,” retired US Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor warned in The American Conservative.
‘Flawed Strategy’
“Instead, the authors of the letter seek to reinforce failure. They are demanding a deeply flawed strategy for Ukraine that will lead in the best case to Ukraine’s reduction to a shrunken, land-locked state between the Dnieper River and the Polish border. These are results of misguided policies originating in the Nineties under the Clinton administration, which drove Russia into political isolation from Europe and forged Moscow’s alliance with Beijing,” Macgregor wrote.
“Even if NATO’s European members, together with Washington, DC, provided Ukrainian troops with a new avalanche of weapons, and it arrived at the front instead of disappearing into the black hole of Ukrainian corruption, the training and tactical leadership required to conduct complex offensive operations does not exist inside Ukraine’s 700,000-man army,” he wrote, adding that there is an “acute failure to recognize that Moscow would react to such a development by escalating the conflict.”
“Expanding NATO to Russia’s borders was never necessary and has become disastrous for Europe. The longer the war with Russia lasts the more likely the damage to Ukrainian society and its army will be irreparable. Neutrality on the Austrian model for Ukraine is still possible. If Washington insists on perpetuating Ukraine’s war with Russia, the neutrality option will vanish, NATO’s fragile 'coalition of the willing' will collapse, and Ukraine will become the new 'sick man of Europe' and remain a catalyst for future conflict,” Macgregor wrote in The American Conservative.