In 1918, German General Erich Ludendorff realized that if he didn't win the war in the next few months, Germany was going to lose it. He devised a plan that he hoped would restore Germany's position on the Western Front and knock Great Britain out of the war.
Ludendorff believed that a couple of hard blows would cause the British army to collapse, allowing Germany to survive for at least another year.
However, Ludendorff was delusional. He vastly overestimated the fighting abilities of his own exhausted troops and underestimated what the entry of the U.S. into the war meant for Great Britain and France. Although his assaults gained more ground than previous battles, it wasn't nearly enough. The British tanks eventually stopped Germany's advance, and the Americans poured troops into the fight, sending the Kaiser's troops reeling.
The war had been lost since the U.S. declared war on Germany in April of 2017. Still, Ludendorff fed the Kaiser's delusions about victory, and the war went on until Ludendorff's own delusions were shattered when the October American offensive obliterated the German army.
Today, we see a similar situation in Ukraine with President Volodymyr Zelensky hanging onto the delusion that he doesn't have to give up any territory to achieve a peace deal. He does so because his equally deluded European "partners" are urging him not to give an inch of his country to Russia.
Both Zelensky and the Europeans believe they still matter in power politics, that they're meetings, summits, pronouncements, and démarches have any effect whatsoever on Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin.
Trump has absolutely no illusions about the Europeans who are cheerleading for Zelensky to hang tough against the Russian advance. "He’s gonna have to get on the ball and start accepting things, Trump said. Europe is "talking," but "they don't produce," he added.
But Europeans are acting as if it's 1939. No one cares what they think about war and peace.
So Merz with the courage of a mouse squeaks that he's “skeptical” of the U.S. plan. Macron claims Europe has “cards in our hands" (with a serious face). Starmer demands a “just and lasting ceasefire. Translation: a peace partially shaped in Washington terrifies them more than a war collapsing in Ukraine. Because a peace they don’t control is an admission they never controlled the war and that they will wear the humiliation.
And the timing isn’t accidental. Ukraine is staring at a €71.7 billion budget hole next year, a hole European leaders can’t fill and Washington doesn’t want to. Speeches are cheap. War is not. You could feel that arithmetic haunting the red carpet. The best the EU and London can conjure up is to complete the suicide pact by blowing up remains of the post WWII financial order. So yes Macron is right, they have cards to play, really bad cards to play.
Ukraine is losing the war. They may be losing in slow-motion, but their troops are being ground to dust, and they're losing men they can ill-afford to lose. Draft avoidance is at staggering levels.
Between January 2022 and September 2025, Ukrainian law enforcement registered over 19,000 criminal cases for draft evasion. The number of convictions for these offenses remains much lower, while draft offices have issued over 400,000 reports on draft dodgers since the beginning of the war.
It is estimated that over 20,000 men have illegally left the country to avoid conscription since the war began. Ukrainian legislators also reported in May that 45,000 men had left the country illegally since the ban started.
As of early 2025, nearly 6 million Ukrainian men had not updated their information in military enlistment centers, and most of them likely do not have grounds for a deferment or exemption. On top of that, a June 2024 poll indicated that 46% of Ukrainians feel there is "no shame in evading military service."
Zelensky is clinging to the delusion that the Americans will come and rescue him if he can only hold out until a Democrat wins the presidency. Even under Biden, it was never going to happen. Putin knows this. Trump knows this.
The Europeans and Zelensky are going to experience a reckoning. It won't be pretty when it happens.
