What Happens When The West Runs Out of Willing Victims

The chicken said, "I've got it! We'll provide bacon and eggs to feed the hungry." The pig thought about the suggestion and said, "There's only one thing wrong with your idea. For you, it only requires a contribution. But for me, it demands a commitment!”

Leaders of Western nations— minus quivering Carney’s Canada—gathered in Washington this week to thrash out Donald Trump’s proposals to end the war in Ukraine. There was considerable discussion of contributions and commitments from the assembled nations. There was also resistance from some to Trump calling the shots in the room. They agreed to disagree.

Underlying the posturing of the PMs and presidents is the supposition that, however they decide to face down Vladimir Putin, they have enough boots on the ground to counter Putin. The Russian leader is showing no signs of abating his supply of cannon fodder to the conflict. Current estimates show Russia has lost upwards of a million dead/ wounded/ missing. Sacrificing soldiers is a sacred Russian tradition in war that Putin’s hell-bent on perpetuating.

But Ukraine has no such well of the willing. For them it’s drones and the conscripted. “Drivers, artillerymen, and cooks" are holding the line”, says Bohdan Krotevich, an officer formerly with the Azov Brigade's headquarters. "A maximum of 12 fighters hold sections 5-10 kilometres wide.” Russians regularly sneak through gaping holes in the line into Ukrainian cities and towns.

With no powerful ally sending soldiers, Ukraine has dredged up— at great cost— an entire generation of its young men to fight. Current estimates have Ukraine’s losses at over 100,000 dead and half a million civilians dead or wounded. The camouflage leader, Vladimir Zelenskyy, is desperate.

For perspective on their desperation look at the mysterious Ryan Routh, the man arrested in 2024 while stalking Trump with a rifle at his Jupiter golf club. Before his attempt on Trump Routh had mysteriously travelled the world trying to recruit mercenaries from Afghanistan, the Middle East and Asia to fight in Ukraine.

He was working with the U.S. State Department, collecting passports and having them processed through American embassies. Whether they were fighting for Ukraine or up to spy business is open to discussion. But they hardly filled the gap. For all the billions sent to Ukraine by Western Nations (absent Canada has sent an estimated $20 B.) you still need bodies to fight a war.

Israel is discovering the same about soldier shortages in its attenuated struggle in Gaza. Despite mandatory conscription, some soldiers are making a third or fourth return to military service since October. 7, 2023. The gap is widening with the exhausted army stating that it is facing a manpower shortage during the ongoing war, and currently needs some 12,000 new soldiers — 7,000 of them combat troops.

So the Israel Defense Forces announced last week that it would be giving draft dodgers — many of whom are members of the ultra-Orthodox community — a one-time opportunity to enlist in the military without facing punishment for desertion.

As opposed to Ukraine, Israel is no longer a puppy of Western democracies, many of whom— come on down, Canada— say they will recognize Palestine as a state in the near future. Tired of the bloodshed, Canada and others have stopped sending them military aid, leaving Israel isolated by all but the U.S. in its existential struggle to eradicate Hamas.

Which is ironic as Israel—like Ukraine—  is fighting a proxy war on behalf on those nations, wiping out terrorist Hezbollah, the Houthis  and the Iranian nuclear capability in recent months. In the analogy above, the EU and Canada are making a contribution. Ukraine and Israel are making a commitment in blood.

Not much has changed since we asked in our June 2022 column, “What Happens When The West Runs Out Of Ukrainians?”, “The entire fiasco is now as open-ended as the Stones Farewell Tour. Which is fine if the Ukrainians are, as advertised, willing to fight till the last man. America and the West can keep their hands clean. The media can play Plucky Little Belgium stories for their gullible viewers/ readers. “Experts” can war-game till the cows come home. 

The fly in this ointment is that, with American prestige and profit invested so deeply now, what happens if they run out of Ukrainian patriots to throw into the fire against a seemingly unrepentant Putin? If the proxies are pushing up daisies what is Plan B? No one in the Western elites is sending their boys to die in Kiev or the Donbas region.”

This begs the question “what would compel the effete EU nations and Canada to commit soldiers on the ground in any NATO conflict?” Say Putin moves on the Baltic States, formerly Soviet possessions, under the guise of creating a buffer state? What if he decides to reclaim areas along the Finnish border? 

Are Carney’s enervated Canadian progressives going to down their lattes and get killed in a foreign conflict? More to the point, can a bankrupt Canada obtain the weapons, materiél and logistics to meet their NATO obligations? If Putin or Xi are watching the current Elbows Up kabuki theatre in Ottawa do you think they’ll be dissuaded by Canada’s purity of thought from pursuing a new conflict in Europe or the Straits of Taiwan?

According to his spokesperson, Trump isn’t sending his boys/ girls/ other  to the Dnieper River. “@PressSec: "The President has definitively stated U.S. boots will NOT be on the ground in Ukraine, but we can certainly help in the coordination and perhaps provide other means of security guarantees to our European allies.”

Ditto for the Woke West or the EU. Will Kyle Starmer’s British or the Germans or French commit to the losses demanded for subduing Russia or China? Hard to see that sacrifice from peoples who’ve meekly accepted the immigrant wave the past decade. Don they even have a motivating national cause besides free healthcare? Speaking of Allies with manpower issues, the South Koreans are also sending out warnings that their declining birth rate is cutting their military preparedness by 20 percent. 

It doesn’t take much to see that the security blanket Western progressives count on to save them is, as Yeats said, “a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick”. An equation based on keeping their hands clean. Only luck will tell if they finally make a commitment or skate by with mere contributions. 

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.