Forum Analysis: US Wears Down Russia, Europe Pays the Bill

Forum analysis claims the US wears down Russia while Europe pays the bill

The thesis running through the analysis is uncomfortable for almost everyone: the West has not improvised anything in Ukraine. Each step of military supply—from initial anti-tank weapons to stop the advance on Kyiv, to precision artillery, air defenses, armor, and aircraft—would have been calibrated to the pace of the Russian response, so that each Kremlin move seemed the cause rather than the consequence. The result, according to this argument, is a war of attrition where Russia provides the dead and material, while NATO only provides invoices.

The proxy army the West refuses to send

The central argument is that a classic NATO invasion of Russian territory is unthinkable: a country with huge defense spending, a population that responds to mobilization without questioning it, vast and hard-to-control territory, and a climate that has already defeated other armies. This is compounded by the fact that Western societies tolerate their own casualties poorly. The solution, according to this current, is a buffer state that provides the dead and receives the weaponry: a proxy army that is also sold in the narrative as a democratic David facing an uncivilized Goliath.

The point generating the most discussion is Ukraine's supposed strength. Part of the analysis emphasizes that Ukrainian society has been at war since 2014, with compulsory military service, and that its capacity to absorb casualties is incomparably greater than that of an average Western country. For them, it is a war of independence, an existential matter. The objection comes from the demographic side: it is argued that the country has lost millions of inhabitants between refugees and occupied territories, carries a demographic winter of decades, and that forced mobilization is already practiced in the streets. The conclusion of this sector is that Ukraine could sustain a low-intensity conflict in the Donbas, but not this intensity for much longer.

The round business: zero own casualties and foreign attrition

For Washington and the arms industry, the balance is unbeatable, according to this analysis. There are no own casualties, but there are immense Russian losses in men and material. NATO, which was suffering brain death due to the lack of a clear enemy, has been reactivated with an adversary perceived as more real than ever. Sanctions have deprived Russia of essential technology for high-value-added models. And the defense lobby, both American and European, finds in the conflict a stimulus difficult to match.

Some go further, arguing that the true goal was not just Moscow. The thesis is that the United States is using the conflict to decapitalize Europe: making its energy expensive, forcing the flight of industry and talent to America, and leaving the continent disarmed and dependent. The ultimate beneficiary would not be Ukraine or NATO, but the capital crossing the Atlantic.

The rupture that can no longer be reversed

One of the least discussed and most relevant points is cultural. Regardless of who wins, the disconnect between Ukraine and Russia is presented as irreconcilable. Russian has stopped being taught in schools, channels linked to the Kremlin have been closed, and the political influence network has been dismantled. The idea that a hypothetical occupation could integrate millions of Ukrainians is dismissed as unsustainable: they would be millions of rebels within Russian territory. Russia, in this terrain, has already lost.

The second lost terrain is energy. The gas blackmail has been diluted: Europe has stopped depending on Russian supply, and although the initial cost was high—filling tanks at exorbitant prices—the trauma was less than expected. It is the second leverage point Moscow loses.

What if the cook were someone else?

Not everyone buys the story. One current argues that the American plan was not to weaken Russia but the opposite: to strengthen it against a Europe that depended less on Moscow and Washington each year and was flirting with allying with China. From this reading, the result has been the opposite of what was desired, because Russia has been pushed toward Beijing, precisely what a previous administration had tried to avoid.

Another objection points out that Russia did not fall into any trap: it merely reacted in its sphere of influence against a NATO encirclement that had been going on for a long time. And a third warns that you don't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs: if Russia were to collapse, the business would end, so at the last moment it would receive oxygen.

The disconcerting fact is not in any capital. It is that, after years of analysis, no one has managed to explain why European industry continues to pay the most expensive energy in the world while its main ally sells it gas and steals its factories.