The End of the Story in Ukraine?

It looks as if we’re getting to the tough choices part of the program. CNN reported Thursday that Ukraine has run out of Patriot interceptor missiles. This news came after several days of wrangling and slap-fighting between Washington and Kiev over intelligence-sharing, internet support for Ukrainian operations, and whether or not Ukraine would continue striking Russian energy infrastructure. 

This is bad for Ukraine, although not altogether surprising. For months, the press has been full of ominous stories and analyses about the dire state of American munitions stockpiles after the U.S. began its latest little jaunt in the Middle East. (Including those in The American Conservative—please subscribe!) Two weeks ago Axios reported that the U.S. had moved Patriots to Saudi Arabia and Qatar to protect energy interests in the Persian Gulf region from Iran and its allies. That decision was hardly a shock; the main weapon Iran has deployed against the U.S. and its fellow travelers has been wreaking havoc on oil and gas interests, and consequently on Western economies. Keeping Aramco up and running is a priority for the White House, especially as fuel prices have become the thematic issue for the American midterm elections.

But the fact is that material reality is beginning to bite. As Jennifer Kavanagh has written in these pages, interceptor stockpiles are probably still at a level where the U.S. can comfortably continue the war in Iran without undue risk to American assets, but such a continuation will come at the cost of readiness in other theaters. The competition between Ukraine and American clients in the Middle East for advanced munitions is not a new phenomenon, and has previously resulted in some resource-shuffling that would be amusing if it weren’t so desperate. The Iran War is new, though, and it is a war that, because of direct American involvement and its bearing on American economic interests, will always tend to demand more attention and resources than the proxy conflict in Europe. America’s extension (one might justifiably say overextension without a hint of partisanship) doubtless has informed Russia’s escalating attacks on Ukraine.

One reasonable interpretation of the White House’s alleged fresh hostility to Ukraine—widely decried in the pro-Ukrainian sections of the Western press—is that it arises from the bare recognition of this physical reality. There are only so many missiles to go around; the U.S. is not going to sacrifice the safety of its own military personnel and its own economic security for Ukraine. The well is dry, and the Ukrainians are going to have to pack things up here. 

Of course, the question is whether the pushme-pullyou dynamic inherent to the Ukraine War will now take over. When things are going badly for the Russians, the Ukrainians become more intractable; when things are going badly for the Ukrainians, the Russians have less incentive to quit. Hence the argument for the necessity of President Donald Trump’s deal to waive sanctions on Russian diesel to “soften” Russia’s position: offer some goodies in exchange for Russia calling off the dogs. The proof will be in the pudding, but prospectively it is not clear that the volume of diesel moved under the deal will amount to a very large goodie at all.

After five paragraphs of even-keeled exposition of the news, is it too early to say we told you so? We really, really told you so. The limitations of the American defense-industrial base and the finite nature of American munitions stockpiles are not fresh topics! No amount of will or principle, no amount of admirable Ukrainian valor and ferocity, can overcome physical reality, and this physical reality was as large and obvious as an iceberg hulking on the horizon, or a volcano twitching and smoking over a city, or a tornado ripping merrily through the green fields of Kansas toward an idyllic trailer park. The United States is a polity of unparalleled wealth and might, but it is not, in the end, exempt from the laws of the universe; Uncle Sam is not quite up to the challenges of godhead. We told you so, and now the Ukrainians, our allies in the Middle East, and the American people are going to bear the consequences of going ahead and trying to sustain vast wars in two separate theaters anyway. It’s just a matter of deciding who is going to get to hold the muddiest part of the stick.

Trying to continue in this fashion is, I would submit, madness, but we may not even have the luxury of indulging madness at this point. The missiles are running out. That is the end of the story.

And you know what? Don’t even mention Taiwan.

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