Ukraine Is the Sacrificial Lamb of the American Empire

Ukraine Is the Sacrificial Lamb of the American Empire

For over two years, Russia has annexed and occupied the Donbas provinces in Ukraine. Despite the US-supported Ukrainian resistance effort, there is no foreseeable end to the conflict.

The mere idea of overthrowing the Russian regime is completely insane, and control over the entire Donbas region is now out of the question.

Meanwhile, both sides conscript from a dying generation of young men who will be doomed to fight on until a peace settlement is reached. The US government has expended $175 billion in taxpayer money, an outrageous number for a country ravaged by inflation and saddled with a national debt of $35 trillion.

The cold, hard truth is that neither the US nor Ukraine have any remotely realistic plan or actionable goals. It doesn’t take long to realize there is no endgame.

Zelenskyy recently postured to the contrary when he presented a plan to the European Council, which calls for—wait for it—more US funding for Ukraine’s weapon systems and economic development.

And while even NATO has been reluctant to add Ukraine to NATO during the war, Zelenskyy reiterated his insistence that its membership was mandatory. This is even though Russia had long made it crystal clear that the country’s entry into NATO would signify a “red line” that threatened its security.

Furthermore, Russia remains steadfast in its refusal to withdraw its forces from Ukraine as long as NATO expansion remains on the table—a fact admitted even by former Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg.

Prominent Ukrainian soldiers, such as Roman Losynskyi, have called Zelenskyy’s recent “victory plan” a “set of slogans and nothing more.” The reality on the ground seems only to confirm this.

The US stands to gain nothing from Ukraine’s fruitless project outside of rampant debt, inflation, the empty graces of the military-industrial complex, and nuclear brinksmanship with Russia.

So why does it keep earmarking billions of dollars to the cause?

Because the US government has decided to put Ukraine on the sacrificial altar of the American empire.

It was a decision made gradually, and then suddenly. Ever since Russia invaded Crimea and denied the US war machine its aspirations for regime change in Syria, Putin became the unique existential enemy of US warmakers. When American forces finally withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, the military-industrial complex’s favorite forever came to an end, leaving a void that eager bombmakers and ambitious politicians needed to be filled. As Julian Assange famously said, they had benefitted for two decades from “an endless war, not a successful war.”

Despite US Secretary of State James Baker original promise that the US wouldn’t push NATO “one inch eastward” of Germany, the following decade produced many waves of eastward expansion and a US-supported coup in Ukraine in 2014. NATO has been brought to Russia’s doorstep, a geopolitical gambit that assured a fierce Russian reaction.

 

With the ousting of Viktor Yanukovych, the US had fully primed Ukraine to be its proxy for a new forever war with Russia, creating a new lucrative opportunity for the military-industrial complex.

After Russia invaded Ukraine, the US government and Boris Johnson pressured Zelenskyy not to negotiate, hoping that their replacement for Afghanistan would manifest—and manifest it did.

So here we are in 2024, where Zelenskyy continues to conscript men, suppress political dissent, suspend elections, and shut down Eastern Orthodox churches, and the US political establishment continues to fill his coffers and fuel his resistance effort.

It is not for genuine empathy for Ukraine, or a farcical commitment to “democracy” that the US government is all-in on Zelenskyy’s boondoggle. It is to satisfy the lobbyists, line the pockets of the military-industrial complex, and expand US hegemony despite risking conflict with the world’s biggest nuclear power in the process—all at the expense of the American taxpayer.

An actual pro-America and pro-Ukraine foreign policy calls for a negotiated settlement to the conflict, where territorial concessions in the Donbas are made, where fighting comes to an end, and where Ukraine’s prospective entry into NATO is removed from all consideration.

Even if a settlement to end the conflict cannot be reached, it isn’t too late for the US to change course and stop the revival of a new Cold War. The US government should withdraw all bases and forces from Eastern Europe, discontinue its funding for Ukraine’s weapon systems, and end all economic sanctions on Russia. And most importantly, it should make the decision it should have made at the conclusion of the Cold War—withdraw entirely from NATO and the system of costly entangling alliances that come with it. Until then, Ukraine will remain the sacrificial lamb of the American empire.