There’s a term for that: It’s called cashing a check before it clears.Įven so, for Boot, the operational imperative appears obvious. The optimism voiced throughout Western quarters stems in significant part from a belief that new weapons systems promised to but not yet actually fielded by Ukraine - Abrams tanks and F-16 fighter jets, for example - will have a decisive impact on the battlefield. For either Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy or Joe Biden to suppose that they’re exempt from its provisions would be daring indeed.īoot is hardly alone in expecting the much-hyped Ukrainian operation - with June upon us, will it become a summer counteroffensive? - to break the months-long stalemate. So too, assuming he’s still sentient, can Vladimir Putin. Bush for one can certainly testify to the truth of that dictum. As Winston Churchill put it in one of his less well-remembered “always remember” axioms: “The Statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.” The fact is that the good guys don’t necessarily win. Yet the long history of warfare sounds a distinctly cautionary note. Well, all I can say is: from Boot’s prayerful lips to God’s ear.Ĭourageous Ukrainians certainly deserve to have their stalwart defense of their country rewarded with success. “In the past, such talk may have contained a large element of bravado and wishful thinking, but now it is a product of hard-won experience.” From his vantage point in a downtown hotel, Boot reports that “continued Russian attacks on urban areas are only making Ukrainians angrier at the invaders and more determined to resist their onslaught.” Meanwhile, “the Kremlin appears to be in disarray and mired in the blame game.” “That’s how confident they are.” He shares their confidence. While Boot was there, Ukrainians repeatedly assured him that they would cruise to ultimate victory. “From my vantage point in a hotel room in the center of Kyiv,” he writes, “the whole attack was no big deal - just a matter of losing a little sleep and hearing some loud thumps,” as air defenses provided by Washington did their work. With the front “only about 360 miles away,” Kyiv is a “bustling, vibrant metropolis with traffic jams and crowded bars and restaurants.” Better yet, most of the residents who fled that city when the Russians invaded in February 2022 have since returned home.Īnd despite what you might read elsewhere, incoming Russian missiles are little more than annoyances, as Boot testifies from personal experience. Something akin to normalcy prevails and the mood is remarkably upbeat.
In a recent column reported from the Ukrainian capital - headline: “I was just in Kyiv under fire” - Boot writes that actual signs of war there are few. And as it happens, he’s positively bullish about the prospect of Ukraine handing Russia a decisive defeat in its upcoming, widely anticipated, sure-to-happen-any-day-now spring counteroffensive. Whenever that Washington Post columnist professes optimism about some upcoming bloodletting, misfortune tends to follow.
( ) – Allow me to come clean: I worry every time Max Boot vents enthusiastically about a prospective military action.
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