How will this war end?  And what kind of end should the West be seeking?  Walter Shapiro states the problem as follows:

Even with enhanced weaponry (including fighter jets) being sent to Ukraine by the United States and NATO allies, the only certainties are more death and destruction. We may be headed toward a stalemate in which military lines remain roughly static for months in ways reminiscent of World War I. …Underlying all these knotty questions is the conundrum of whether America is willing to grant Putin any reward for his morally indefensible war and the war crimes that have gone with it…..

The obvious face-saving exit route for Putin is to ratify his de facto control over large segments of the Donbas region that Russia seized in 2014. Of course, there is no guarantee that such a cynical bargain with Putin would be successful. But if the war could be ended along those terms, tens of thousands of Ukrainian lives might well be saved.”

I think that a cynical bargain along the lines Shapiro describes is the best outcome that we can  realistically hope for.  But Shapiro, who seems to be headed toward that same conclusion, reverses course later in the article:

…[A] strong case can be made that anything less than abject defeat will encourage Putin to open new fronts in his chosen war with the West. If Putin were bought off with the Donbas, at what point would the Russian megalomaniac try again for Kyiv with a better military strategy and hardened troops? Or next time around—having endured NATO economic sanctions—would Putin try to absorb the Baltic states, daring America and its allies to get into a shooting war with a nuclear power?…. The Ukraine war is one of those rare times when the morally right course—forcing Russia to retreat from all of Ukraine—is also the approach that appears to make the most strategic sense. There are no certainties in an irrational war seemingly brought on by Putin’s passion to restore the Soviet Union. But America should do everything in its power—short of sending troops—to bring victory parades to Kyiv.”

So, Shapiro makes the reasonable argument that a “cynical bargain” might save tens of thousands of lives, but it just invites more depredations by Putin in the future.  But the striving for victory also carries risks. Shapiro worries what Putin might do if he isn’t utterly defeated.  We should also worry about what he might do if he is utterly defeated. If there is a danger that a Putin somehow bought off with the Donbas might be encouraged to new aggression, is there no danger that a Putin pushed out of Ukraine might look for a consolation prize elsewhere?  How’s Moldova for a try? And of course we need consider the risk of nuclear escalation if Putin faces utter defeat in Ukraine. Putin has already been humiliated by his failure to bring Ukraine to its knees.  As Thomas Friedman observes today, “…[T]here is nothing more dangerous than a twice-humiliated leader with nuclear weapons.”

My own assessment of the risks is that the best we can strive for is a military stalemate in the Eastern Ukraine, leading to an admittedly ugly bargain which somehow recognizes Russia’s interest in the Donbas—if not through outright independence or Russian annexation, then a major degree of regional autonomy within Ukraine. So, our policy should be to give the Ukrainians enough military aid to be able to fight the Russians to a stalemate, but not enough to  reasonably try for outright victory. Of course, our leaders would never say openly that that is what they are doing—it does sound too cynical.  But I would hope that’s what they have in mind.  I fear, though, that it is not.  Based on recent statements by Austen and Blinken, I think they may be leaning to the Shapiro view.

The only certainty in this war is that we can all look forward to an extended period of anxious uncertainty.