Congress recently approved a $60.8 billion package to address the war in Ukraine. While President Joe Biden has expressed that the United States will stand with Ukraine for “as long as it takes,” a specific strategy and end state for the war in Ukraine has not been articulated. More money, ammunition and weapons may provide support to forces at the tactical level of war, but they do not necessarily provide answers to vital strategic questions about the direction of the war in Ukraine.
Is Ukraine waging an unlimited war to retake all occupied territory since 2022? Does its leadership also seek to retake Crimea? Or does it seek another strategic end state, such as locking in today’s battlefield lines? Each of these courses of action describe in loose parameters what “winning” would look like under a theory of victory and would elicit unique strategic, operational and tactical responses. Unfortunately, at a time when the United States continues to pump more money into the war, a theory of victory has not been clearly described by Ukrainian or American leaders.
It is also unclear how more weapons, money and ammunition on their own will substantially remake the war, as Ukraine has pushed past its culminating point with diminishing returns, even after the United States and allies have provided billions of dollars worth of aid to Ukraine.
By summer 2022, Ukraine reached a culminating point. It achieved a string of victories against Russia, including by retaking significant territory in the Kherson region. However, Ukraine and American leaders, drunk on the victories of the summer of 2022, pushed past this culminating point, some even calling for the recapture of Crimea, and demanding regime change in Russia.
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