The freight train that is the conflict in Ukraine inexorably advances to its final destination. Each one of its passengers feels inextricably trapped onboard as the infernal machine acquires more speed and time runs out for an off-ramp. For years, the exit signs have succeeded one another so as to turn into an ever more indistinguishable blur: The Minsk Agreements, the late 2021 Russian proposal to Washington on security guarantees, the aborted peace negotiations held in Istanbul at the onset of the war. All that remains is the (increasing) background noise of random security experts, pundits and occasional reality-based politicians offering the notion that maybe Ukraine might just not be able to win the West's proxy war with Russia.

Why won't sensible heads in Washington own up to the situation and call it a day? Why does the West keep sending Ukraine billions of dollars better spent at home while exhorting Ukraine to send countless young (and old and female) Ukrainians to certain death? What is it about Ukraine that seems to prevent the foreign policy Blob from finding a way out, as happened in Korea, Viet-Nam and Cambodia?

Can it be because Ukraine remains to this day the exclusive playground of a concentration of interests which, taken all together, constitute a who's who of the Washington Establishment--including DARPA, DTRA, the EcoHealth Alliance, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to name but a few. For years, Kiev had served as a home away from home to US political figures and their offspring, furthering Ukraine's deserved reputation for being one of the most corrupt places on Earth. For years, Ukraine offered all of them opportunities to advance their respective projects and operate with total impunity.

Arnaud Develay dives into the murky waters of Washington's "external management" of Ukraine dating back to the infamous Maidan coup d'tat and extending forward to include the political weaponization of law and elections foibles, past and forthcoming, reflecting the fracturing of the American political class.

It's one hell of an expose, full of the nitty-gritty on how America seems ready and willing to tear itself apart.

Foreign Entanglements: Ukraine, Biden & the Fractured American Political Consensus