The Ukrainian people continue to die while America’s politicians endlessly debate whether to send or not send aid to Ukraine. The war has become stalemated with neither Russia nor Ukraine possessing the combat power or reserves to achieve a major breakthrough.

However, America remains the Free World’s leading country and its political deliberations have a global audience. That means the world is watching while America’s political elites dither, their words and actions observed beyond the domestic American constituencies they seek to impress.

Instead of chasing polls, our politicians should consider the beyond-Europe consequences of a Ukrainian defeat or collapse. As the calamitous withdrawal from Afghanistan and mass Western flight from Ukraine encouraged Putin, so will abandoning Ukraine inspire aggress- ors elsewhere to fulfill their dreams of conquest.

However, that does not mean Washington and others should just throw money and material at Kyiv. Its corruption level is too high for that.

Rather than repeat America’s mistakes in Afghanistan, Iraq and more distantly, Vietnam, Ukraine’s aid providers should dispatch weapons and material instead of funds. More importantly, they should monitor and track what they send to ensure it reaches the fighting forces and not the black market.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy needs to root out his government’s corruption. Graft is serious enough in peacetime, but it becomes treasonous when one’s nation is fighting for survival. Turning command of the fighting over to the military will free Zelenskyy to drive the anti-corruption effort, which will increase domestic and foreign confidence in his war effort.

Strategically, Ukraine is on the defensive. Operationally, the war has become one of attrition with both countries trying to break the other’s political will. That is, their operations are intended more to inflict casualties than retake or hold territory.

Technology has advanced further than military doctrine and tactics can assimilate. That has shifted the advantage to the defense. It is much like World War I, where massed firepower destroys an area and its defenders, but the defender has the firepower to prevent the attacker from advancing beyond the devastated area. Advances are limited, and come at great cost.

Both armies are digging deep trenches with overhead cover and wherever possible, placing their troops in concrete buildings and strong points to protect them from artillery, bombing, drone, missile and mortar attacks. They are also laying minefields to restrict enemy movements and channel attackers into “kill zones” where the defender can mass firepower against them.

The war’s outcome will be determined by which country first loses its political will. Russia President Vladimir Putin hopes that Ukraine’s losses will reduce its troop morale and effectiveness. However, Putin must also be worried the impact of his own military losses. Russia’s losses in World War I broke Russian morale and led to the Czar’s fall.

Zelenskyy should not ignore that historical example either. Ukraine’s 31,000 killed-in-action (KIA) are proportionally equivalent to America losing over 300,000 (1.3% of the population). Traditionally, noncombat military deaths add another 10% to that toll and the number of wounded and missing usually is double that of a conflict’s KIAs. None of which includes the civilian losses. Russia’s military losses have been heavier, but with five times Ukraine’s population and a history of casualty-tolerance, the math may be on its side.

Predicting a war’s outcome is a fool’s errand, but its future course can be assessed. Barring a complete collapse of public morale in either country, the war will continue through next year, but the level of the fighting will decline to sporadic exchanges of fire within the next two years. The Russo- Ukrainian War will not end per se, but rather continue at lower-level of violence limited to sporadic exchanges of fire until both sides’ political leaders can find domestically acceptable peace terms.

Meanwhile, the U.S. and its allies must do all that they can to assist Ukraine’s defense. The world’s other aggressors and bad actors are watching and will be encouraged or deterred by Ukraine’s fate — and America’s action or inaction that facilitated it.

Honolulu resident Carl O. Schuster is a retired Navy captain and former director of operations at U.S. Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center.