Given Vladimir Putin’s audacious attempt to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and those of other countries around the world and his recent brutal invasion of Ukraine, it is understandable that he has become a global villain, especially to both policymakers and publics in the United States and Europe. And it is also understandable that much support in the West exists for weapons, military training, and money flowing to the Ukrainian war effort. Finally, it is even more understandable that President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is highly skilled in public relations, is leveraging his country’s “David” status to repeatedly demand more of those potent armaments to battle the invading and evil Russian “Goliath.” However, the time has come to be more clear-eyed and hard-nosed in evaluating Zelensky’s weapons requests.
As the war has progressed since the Russian invasion of late February, the United States and European countries have become less and less inhibited about aiding Ukraine, sending arms such as the U.S. HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System), which has been used to launch rockets with lethal effectiveness into Russian command posts and supply depots around 50 miles away behind enemy lines. Also, the Biden administration has sent High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARMs), to home in on and destroy Russian radars and Harpoon anti-ship missiles to threaten Russian naval superiority of Ukraine’s coast. And this help came after the West shipped many handheld Javelin anti-tank missiles and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, which contributed to Ukraine’s initial halting of the Russian thrust toward Kiev.
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