'Staying the Course' In an Unwinnable War Is Folly

It isn’t defeatism to acknowledge when the most ambitious goals are out of reach.

Ukraine’s foreign minister attacks “deluded” skeptics, but he is the one that is imagining things:

But pessimism is unwarranted, and it would be a mistake to let defeatism shape our policy decisions going forward. Instead, policymakers in Washington and other capitals should keep the big picture in mind and stay on track. A Ukrainian victory will require strategic endurance and vision—as with our recent counteroffensive, the liberation of every square meter of territory requires enormous sacrifice by our soldiers—but there is no question that victory is attainable.

“There is no question that victory is attainable.” This is the line that supporters of every unwinnable war have used. In the last twenty years, we have often heard the same false promises of victory and calls to “stay the course” from leaders in denial about how badly things were going. The victories never came, and staying the course was a terrible idea. It would have been far better to face reality years or decades earlier. If victory here is defined as expelling all Russian forces from all Ukrainian territories taken over the last nine years, that outcome is very doubtful.

It isn’t defeatism to acknowledge when the most ambitious goals are out of reach.