What's the US Goal in Ukraine?

A subtle but important shift poses unexplored risks for the United States

Just a quick reminder that I’ll be Zoom Chatting today at 12:30. It’s the first one of these I’ll have done in a few weeks, so I’m very excited to see many of you this afternoon. Besides the latest doings in American politics and the war in Ukraine, I’d be happy to talk about why I think the Celtics are the favorites to win the NBA title! Here’s the link … and I’ll see ya in a bit!

A Shift In Strategy

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

I have a new piece up today at the New Republic on the change in US policy in Ukraine:

Over the past several days, there has been a subtle but significant shift in the U.S. approach to the war in Ukraine. No longer is the U.S. focused on simply ending the conflict. The goal now is to “weaken Russia.”

In his recent trip to Kyiv with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin made this crystal clear. “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” said Austin.

A spokesperson for the National Security Council went a step further, telling CNN, “We want Ukraine to win.”

But as I asked in the piece: what does Ukraine “winning” and a “weakened Russia” look like?