Both on a personal and national level, condemning the war in Ukraine does not mean supporting the Ukrainians with as many weapons as possible. Ukraine has turned into a testing ground for the US military. England is sending tanks. Germany has resolved to spend $100 billion to upgrade and expand its military—the first significant military action by Germany since the end of WWII. Even right-wing Poland is involved.

There has been such an enormous amount of support generated by the US against Putin and his actions. And rightfully so. But the idea that we must fight Russia’s forces with by supporting Ukraine’s military because this is the real world and that’s how it works is nonsense. This is a wonderful opportunity for US arms manufacturers. The US is and has been for decades the largest arms dealer in the world. The US military is experimenting with new gadgets by supplying them to Ukrainian forces.

There are diplomatic and economic means of pressuring Russia. Some of those economic means have been pursued—slowly. Biden eventually banned direct imports of petroleum from Russia. It took much of the EU till now to begin doing the same. But India is simply buying from Russia what the US/EU were formerly buying from Russia and selling it to the US/EU. This is only one example of how Russia has adapted to sanctions.

Putin is a malicious dictator. I agree absolutely that he should be countered as much as possible. I commend everything the Ukrainians have done to defend themselves. But US arms manufacturers should not be counting on long-term profits from a protracted land-war in Europe. If we care about the US cares about the Ukrainians then we should be making every effort to establish a cease-fire.