Russia can’t lose and the Ukrainians can’t win. Biden should end this now, but he won’t

“God created war so that Americans would learn geography.”
― Mark Twain

Joe Biden’s bid for a second term office in 2024 now largely hinges on the contours of the conflict in Ukraine. For a man whose foreign policy record has been disastrous up to this point — Afghanistan, anyone? — he is clearly desperate to emerge from the conflict in Ukraine with an outcome he can use to restore his foreign policy credentials — assuming, of course, that he ever had any in the first place.

But Biden and his administration’s stance and posture when it comes to Ukraine has already failed. It is a failure measured in the ocean of blood spilled and still being spilled as Kiev’s counter-offensive continues to falter against an extensive and effective Russian defence.

The underestimation of Russia’s military capability after the initial failed attempt to take Kiev has proved catastrophic, as has the over estimation of Ukraine’s military capability, drawn from the same event. The failure to understand that Putin has been fighting the conflict with one hand tied behind his back — starting Russia’s military campaign as a police operation more than the kind of blitzkrieg with which the Americans invaded Iraq in 2003; and going out of his way to…