I think this analysis is broadly correct. I think the point about Western and Ukrainian strategy being dictated by short-term media cycles and the need for headlines, is especially salient.
Basically; how do they think Ukraine is going to win? Russia has 3x the manpower. As of now Russia has not even brought in mobilisation, (save for a ‘partial’ mobilisation in 2022). Ukraine has full conscription and is still obviously struggling with manpower. In all areas Russia outguns Ukraine – not least in airpower and the ability to fire missiles all across Ukraine. Russia’s military-industrial based in untouched. How can anyone think that Ukraine can defeat Russia? All Russia has to do is what they are doing; advance incrementally in the 4 provinces in the East they plan to take, and weather the small-scale attacks in Russia which Ukraine can produce. I am not a military expert, but all the logic has to be that there is nothing Ukraine can do to stop this. But we have so many dreams in the West. I used to watch Times Radio but it has become unbearable. No facts from the ground get in the way of the dreams/propaganda. For example, today, we have “Putin ‘losing his mind’ as Kursk triggers ‘turning point’ in war” – an interview with a former British army colonel. They have been dreaming and talking about this “turning point” for two long years. And no reality has been allowed to intrude; Bakhmut, the much talked up but doomed to fail “Spring Offensive”, and so on. Like an addict, the answer always lies in one last hit, one new delivery of supplies, one new stunt. The other dream is expressed by this headline, also from Times Radio: “Putin’s warlords and oligarchs threaten coup as rouble craters”. But, there is very little chance of regime change in Moscow; and, if there was, there is a minute chance of some kind of pro-Western liberal government coming to power. As John Lennon said; “Life is what happens to you while you are looking the other way”. While they are dreaming, Ukraine is losing. To defeat Russia you would have to march on Moscow. And the US is not going to facilitate that because, (some sanity prevails), they don’t love Ukraine enough to die with them in a nuclear Armageddon.
When the speaker from the ISW, in Daniel Davis’ video, says that Ukraine should be given permission to strike Russia with long-range weapons in order to force Russia to negotiate on terms favourable to Ukraine, he has a point. The US could give Ukraine thousands of long-range ATACMS. (I did read somewhere they have a stock of 4000), and hundreds of cruise missiles, and say “go for it”. Ukraine could do some real damage to Russia. But, even then, I doubt that they would be able to reach Moscow with an armed force. So they could not defeat Russia. Would this though force Moscow to negotiate on terms favourable to Ukraine as the ISW speaker suggests? I very much doubt it. The Kremlin would understand that they were still not at risk of being defeated. They would not reason like the ISW speaker thinks they would reason, like a merchant weighing up a cost-benefit equation. They would see it as a fight to the death and they would fight. (Strategically, the point is that NATO in Ukraine is an existential issue for Russia and they are just not going to accept it short of being totally defeated). And that fight would be very bloody. Furthermore; the more Russia is threatened the easier the war becomes to sell in Russia; it would be seen increasingly as national defensive war and popular support would massively increase. This course could very easily go nuclear. So; even this path offers no path to victory for Ukraine. As long as the “regime in Kiev”, to borrow a term from the Russian lexicon, simply wants to hurt Russia they are blinding themselves to strategic realities and their own interests. The US is willing to supply Kiev with the weapons to achieve this purpose, hurt Russia, but not enough for Ukraine to defeat Russia, and indeed, that would not be possible (unless they pushed to total mutual destruction).
The US might go on keeping the war rolling for a while but at some point Ukraine is probably going to have to admit defeat. That means that they will lose a lot of territory in the East and they will be unable to join NATO. Tragically, for Ukraine, it seems they may even have cut off their path to EU membership. Putin has been at pains at various points in this conflict to say that he would not block Ukraine joining the EU, but he has also referenced the issue of the increasing militarisation of the EU, (e.g. the Lisbon Treaty which enjoins EU member countries to support each other militarily in the event of attack). With the crazy Commission President Ursula von der Leyen increasingly militarising the EU, “think about our union as intrinsically a security project” [1] the chances of Ukraine even being able to join the EU are increasingly remote. So, Mearsheimer is probably right; Ukraine is going to end up as a dysfunctional rump state, not a member of anything, and Russia will hold Crimea and the 4 provinces in the East. What happens then?
Daniel Davis points to the possibility of the US not being able to accept their loss in a proxy war with Russia and escalating. That seems possible; there are some voices on the fringes that would like to see exactly that. Zelensky would love, of course, to drag the US into the war; for example having NATO shoot down Russian missiles for him; a slope so slippery it is nearly vertical. But, my guess (emphasis guess) is that the US would not escalate militarily, If Ukraine is forced to capitulate, I can see the US sponsoring an insurgency based in the West. (I think this is what they intended at the start and were caught by surprise when it became a full-scale war). I can see them stepping up the economic war, though that seems to have reached a limit of effectiveness. They might see this as tying down Russia in the same way they managed to tie down the Soviet Union in Afghanistan by arming the Mujahideen. That situation is still fraught with risk. For example; if Russia suffered a serious insurgent attack sponsored by the West they could retaliate against e.g. Western infrastructure. But my guess is that the US would not become directly involved to save Ukraine. But even without that, this means one more point of serious instability in the world to add to the US-China confrontation. I do not think it is hysterical to think we are potentially in the foothills of WWIII.
Notes