Zelensky has no real plan for victory

When the Ukrainian President came back to the United States recently, his primary purpose in visiting was to pitch his secret "victory plan" that would presumably allow Ukraine to "defeat Russia" and retake their lost territory, driving Putin from the field of battle in the process. Some might plausibly argue that he was also engaging in a bit of attempted election interference, courting the support of Kamala Harris and eventually Donald Trump when he really should only have been talking to Joe Biden. To describe the reception his victory plan received as "cool" would be generous, and few military analysts found it to be plausible. But Fox News analyst Rebekah Koffler dug a bit deeper to determine precisely where the plan missed the mark. She draws a parallel between Zelensky's proposal and that of Reagan's vision for how the United States could eventually win the Cold War against the Soviet Union. The key difference is that Reagan's vision actually included a path to victory. 

From Fox News:

The plan lacks a realistic definition of victory and a viable strategy to achieve it. President Reagan famously described in 1977 his vision for winning the Cold War with the Soviet Union to his confidant and adviser Richard Allen – "We win, they lose." Sounds simple.

But underpinning this approach was a thoroughly thought out strategy of containment, developed and executed by Reagan and his team over the course of many years. This strategy comprised of a series of very specific measures that centered on boosting America’s military might and defense economics while weakening the Soviet Union’s.

Unlike Reagan’s, Zelenskyy’s plan is little more than the same old plea he’s been employing for over two years – more U.S. and European weapons and permission to launch missile strikes deep into Russian territory. This repackaged request that lacked a comprehensive strategy to win left senior U.S. and European officials "unimpressed," according to the Wall Street Journal.

Therein lies the fundamental blind spot (intentional or otherwise) in Zelensky's victory plan. It's simply more of the same as it's been since the beginning. More taxpayer money for Zelensky's people, for weapons, for everything they need. Yet all of that money would be going down the same rabbit hole. His vision remains the same. He wants to drive Russia out of all of the land it has taken - including Crimea - and force the Russians back fully inside their own borders. He also wants membership in NATO to be put on the table.

Yet Ukraine lacks the leverage to accomplish any of those goals and seems to forget that NATO membership was one of the driving factors that kicked off the war to begin with. The plan also ignores the fact that the Russians have been slowly but steadily taking more and more Ukrainian territory while the Ukrainians have been forced backward, with the brief exception of a temporary incursion into one rural part of central Russia. (And even that is already slipping away.) 

The calls for additional long-range missiles is equally impractical. The number of such weapons required to turn the tide would greatly exceed the reserves and future production capacity of the United States to supply them. The best that Zelensky could reasonable hope for is a temporary stalemate and he lacks the supplies to keep his people afloat on the home front under these circumstances.

Zelensky's goals are completely understandable, but his plan is untenable. And if we're not careful he's going to drag us into this war whether we like it or not. That can't be allowed to happen.