Member-only story
Reasons To Still Care About Ukraine
From geopolitically selfish reasons for the US, to altruistic promotion of America’s ideals of liberty
The Soviet arsenal has largely been neutralized.
Ukraine has smashed the formidable Soviet stockpile of tanks, vehicles, weapon systems, and munitions stockpiled specifically for European invasion. That’s a major boon for future continental peace. A lot of this stuff was old and outdated, but it means a lot less stuff for the Russians to someday use against the Baltics or Poland.
Russia was humiliated, humbled, and may never be a peer rival of the US military ever again.
The war revealed Russia’s military to be a paper tiger. Putin spent two decades trying to modernize the Russian military, and his efforts were a kleptocratic failure. It will now take Russia years to replace the equipment it has lost in Ukraine, and the Russian military-industrial complex has proven widely incapable of keeping up with NATO’s capabilities.
Most of Russia’s domestically produced military systems showed major quality issues, and analysts who feared Russian technology can sigh a breath of relief that, nukes aside, Russia has a bit of a…
