By Michael F. Duggan
A former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer has estimated that Ukrainian combat deaths to date might be 300,000 or more. He also observed that in this war of position—a war with an intensity beyond what most Americans can imagine, and which is reminiscent of the Western Front in WWI—the best of Ukrainian manhood is dying. They have fought magnificently with courage, skill, and tenacity beyond all expectation. The fact that they have gone toe-to-toe with Russia in a vicious conventional conflict is striking. But through no fault of their own, the balance of numbers and resources are against them. It is time to end this war.
From the start, there have been only four possibilities of how the war could end: 1). A Ukrainian defeat. 2). A stalemate—a frozen, festering war, an ossified war of position, that settles into a hot demilitarized zone that could reignite at any time. 3). A Russian or Western defeat after direct NATO intervention, followed by a nuclear war. 4). A settled peace. No matter how unsatisfactory it might sound, the fourth possibility is the only sane option.
As things stand, the situation is only a few rounds of escalation short of a wider war, and Russia is moving nuclear weapons to Belarus.