JRL NEWSWATCH: “Will the U.S. Abandon Ukraine?” – WSJ
“Two years after Russia’s invasion, America’s waning commitment is raising fears that Putin could win the war — and that Europe may be on its own in future conflicts.”
“… Ukraine has proved a formidable foe, regaining half of the land initially occupied by Russia and inflicting staggering casualties on Russia’s much more powerful military. Europe, too, has absorbed the economic shock of severing Russian natural-gas supplies and is boosting its military spending and commitments to Ukraine. This month the [EU] passed a new $54 billion aid package … overcoming [Hungarian] objections …. While Europe and other allies already account for more than half of Western support for Ukraine, only the U.S. possesses the stockpiles of ammunition and other weaponry, such as air-defense interceptors, that can significantly help Ukrainian forces in the immediate future. European production of ammunition, though rising, [reportedly] won’t be sufficient to sustain the Ukrainian military until … 2025[] or … later …. Some key pieces of military equipment can only come from U.S. stocks. … Europe is definitely stepping up now, expanding ammunition production and approving new funding for Ukraine. … The EU last year pledged to supply Ukraine with a million shells but was able to furnish only about one third of that …. North Korea alone, by contrast, [reportedly] has supplied roughly a million shells to Russia …. In recent months, European nations have started taking more seriously the possibility that, if Russia defeats Ukraine, it [reportedly] would be tempted to test the defenses of current members of NATO and the EU ….”