By Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from Washington D.C, United States - 210225-D-WD757-1532, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=105962439

Speaking of the seven-week war in Ukraine ignited by Vladimir Putin, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is warning us to expect a war that lasts for years.

“I do think this is a very protracted conflict … measured in years,” Milley told Congress. “I don’t know about a decade, but at least years, for sure.”

As our first response, said Milley, we should build more military bases in Eastern Europe and begin to rotate U.S. troops in and out.

Yet this sounds like a prescription for a Cold War II that America ought to avert, not fight. For the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, while a declared goal of U.S. policy, is not a vital U.S. interest to justify risking a calamitous war with Russia.

Proof of that political reality lies in political facts.

For 40 years of the Cold War, Ukraine was an integral part of the Soviet Union. In 1991, Bush I warned Ukrainian secessionists, who wanted to sever ties to Russia, not to indulge such “suicidal nationalism.”

And though we brought 14 new nations into NATO after 1991, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama never brought in Ukraine.
Indeed, during the seven weeks of this war, President Joe Biden has refused to transfer to Ukraine the 28 MIG-29s that Poland offered to make available, if the U.S. would replace the Polish MIGs with U.S. fighter jets.

Biden has warned that this could ignite a collision with Russia that could lead to World War III. And he is not going to risk a third world war that could escalate to nuclear war — for Ukraine.

What is Biden saying by denying the MIGs to Ukraine?

That preventing Russia from amputating Donbas, Crimea and the Black Sea coast of Ukraine is not a U.S. interest so vital as to be worth our risking war with Russia. Ukraine is not only outside NATO; it is outside the perimeter of U.S. vital interests justifying war.

This crisis in Ukraine is calling forth the larger question:

For whom and for what should the United States go to war with a nation with a larger nuclear arsenal than our own, but which does not directly threaten us?

Currently, the Beltway war hawks and neocons are bristling with demands the U.S. send the MIGs to Ukraine, and the S-300 air-defense system, and anti-ship missiles to sink Russia’s Black Sea fleet.

They tell us Putin is blustering and bluffing when he suggests that Moscow might use tactical nuclear weapons rather than accept defeat and humiliation in Ukraine.

Yet, looking at a cost-benefit analysis of continuing this war, it would appear that the sooner it ends, the better.

For who would be the likely winners and the losers of Milley’s “protracted conflict” that will last “at least years for sure”?

The greatest losers would be the nation and people of Ukraine.

Already, in seven weeks, 10 million Ukrainians have been uprooted from their homes, and 4 million of them have fled the country. That is a fourth of the nation uprooted, and a tenth lost to Ukraine.

Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have died resisting the invasion. Thousands may have been murdered. Cities like Kharkiv have been horribly damaged, with Mariupol on the Sea of Azov destroyed.

President Volodymyr Zelensky’s willingness to negotiate with Putin after the proven atrocities and to accept temporary occupation of part of Ukraine suggests that he knows that, from here on out, Ukraine, which has won the first battles, could steadily lose the longer war.

Indeed, if the known huge losses for Ukraine came from the first seven weeks of fighting, what will be the losses from a second seven weeks, or a third, on the bloody road to Milley’s long war?

Putin’s Russia is a second loser in this war.

The initial invasion failed to capture Kiev or Kharkiv. The Russian army around Kiev has departed and, reportedly, many thousands of Russian troops have been killed, wounded, captured or gone missing.

The Russian economy is suffering from severe sanctions.

Yet over 80% of the Russian people still support Putin and his war. And Russia’s renewed drive into the Donbas and to take the Black Sea coast of Ukraine from Crimea to Odessa is not yet lost.

But while Ukraine and Russia have suffered greatly, the U.S. and NATO have suffered barely at all. Nor has China, which stands to be the major beneficiary when a bleeding, isolated Russia goes in search of support.

What Americans have to worry about is the long war that Gen. Milley is predicting, and the possibility that Russia’s continued bleeding causes it to resort to tactical nuclear weapons to end the losses and humiliation and prevent an outright defeat.

Thus, the sooner this war ends, the better for us and our friends — even if it means having to talk to the man Biden cannot stop calling a war criminal and clamoring for his prosecution.

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.” To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.

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Comments

  1. Miley is a flaming a–h—. He has about as much military gumption as Howdy Doody. Get someone in the “Puzzle Palace” that knows what they are doing. SECDEF is no better. He is all WOKE and CRT. We have already lost more candidates at the military academies’ than ever in U. S. history due to this moron… From a former 25 year military veteran.

  2. Our Fraudulent “President” O’Biden and criminal family will Never Admit too doing Anything Bad and Sadly Much Less Impossible For Doing Anything Good For We The People and Our True America!!!! O’Biden is controlled by Handlers and all are involved with China, Russia and Ukraine!!!! They are Totally Against Doing Good For America and We The People!!!! Their Evil Agenda End Goal is to Bring Down and Destroy America!!!!!! Their Totally Unlawful and UN-Constitutional Illegal Immigration Crisis is One of Their Initiatives, as This Will Destroy Our Economy, Our Rule of Laws, Our Constitution, Our National and Personal Security and Our America!!!!!!
    Wake Up America, We Are In Very, Very Serious, Grave and Dire Danger “From Within” By The Washington, DCivers!!!!!!

  3. To hell with MILLEY he is a democratic lyer and a fraud in the military.Send him to Levenworth for attempting to destroy AMERICA.

  4. After the Afghanistan fiasco Millie should be stripped of his 4 stars and dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army. He’s obviously a yes man for our wannabe dictator, Joe Biden.

  5. Funny how the delusional democrats cried Trump would get us involved in a war , but here we are with the democrats letting a civil war run a muck in our country and now it looks like we maybe entering ww3 . Tell me again how Biden is doing such a great job … go a head … I’ll wait … in truth Biden isn’t doing any of this , he’s a puppet being played . The only reason Biden is here is to take the fall for who’s really pulling the strings and I think it’s Obama . Him being a Muslim and all you know him and his wife hate America and what we stand for . If you remember Michelle saying the USA is now a Muslim country . And the fact she and Obama are racist haters of whites cause whites are the problem here . Which she’s right to a point . But now it’s everyone being haters for free stuff from the democrats for helping them win the power they used to corrupt our government to destroy our country . Everything they cried Trump would do … their doing , and all the dumb azz’z are following right along like sheep . To bad we don’t have any real men left to take back our country and turn it around like Trump tried to do . So now we suffer so the corrupt delusional democrats gain . Time to get ready for this ww3 the democrats are forcing on us . Good luck with that .

  6. Mille also believes “woke” soldiers make better more effective soldiers. He’s wrong about that too.

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