For all the turns in U.S. policy during the nearly four years of the war in Ukraine—from Joe Biden’s “ as long as it takes ” to Donald Trump’s “ you don’t have the cards ”—the fundamental nature of the conflict has remained remarkably stable. Russia has insisted on limiting, if not negating, Ukraine’s sovereignty, and Vladimir Putin has long believed that he is just around the corner from convincing Ukraine’s Western backers that this is the only sensible outcome. Ukraine, meanwhile, has held out for security guarantees from the West, so that any end to the fighting would be durable, and not merely a pause that leaves the country in a perpetual state of vulnerability, awaiting the next invasion.

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