One reason why many Americans are skeptical of helping Ukraine is, well, Ukraine itself—specifically its graft and corruption, its oligarchs’ disturbing history of bribing U.S. influential figures, its interference in U.S. elections, and its dictatorial suspension of human rights, political parties, and elections.

In truth, the West and the U.S. have no strategy for a Ukrainian victory over Russia. Much less do they worry much that a quarter of the Ukrainian population has fled the country, and the military is running out of recruits. The default assumption is to keep fueling the 1 million-man meat grinder to the last Ukrainian and hope that Russia tires first—the sort of non-strategy that the left used to lecture was amoral and senseless in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Ukraine is on the doorstep of NATO and any regional war would endanger America’s NATO allies far more than an Israel-Iranian conflict.