Why the West Must Continue to Arm Ukraine
As Europe learned in World War II, resistance movements don’t always win wars but they are crucial to winning the peace.
U.S. antitank weapons being delivered.
Photographer: Sergei Supinsky/AFP/Getty Images
An immensely brave Ukrainian army, aided by civilians equipped with Molotov cocktails and small arms, is vastly outmatched by Russian armed forces. NATO countries are trying to help by providing more weapons: rifles and machine guns from the Czechs, missile-launchers from the Dutch, antitank missiles from the Estonians, munitions and more antitank weapons from the United States. Even Germany, which has shied away from direct military actions since World War II, is sending Stinger surface-to-air missiles and other shoulder-launched rockets.
At best, this will prolong the carnage of the Russian invasion. While Ukrainians have fought tenaciously, they almost certainly cannot win a conventional military conflict against Russia. (An extended guerilla war is a different matter.) The longer the fighting goes on, the more people will die, including many civilians. Much of Ukraine's great cities could end up as rubble. It's fair to ask, then, what is the point of providing more arms for a war that cannot be won, at least in the short term?