 It's been 100 days since the war began in Ukraine. The past 100 days have made it clear that the conflict is not between two countries, but between Russia and the US-led NATO alliance, and that it is part of global conflicts that have been brewing over the past decade. The US has played a huge role, and in fact the preponderant role in the escalation of the conflict. On May 31st, US President Joe Biden wrote a guest essay in the New York Times explaining the US stance on Ukraine. But behind the slogans and the supposed principles, what has been the US role in the country? Why is the US so deeply involved, and what is its end game? Eugene Porir of Breakthrough News explains. It seems that the strategy of the United States, the strategy of the Biden administration as it concerns the war in Ukraine, and really perhaps as it concerns the buildup and the lead up to the war in Ukraine, was to create a fate accomplice situation whereby Russia would be forced into essentially a humiliating capitulation in terms of the expansion of NATO, which of course they'd spoken very vociferously against in the general US war drive in Eastern Europe, and that if not a climb down, perhaps an actual military conflict that would allow the United States to strengthen its position, strengthen the position of NATO inside of Europe, and to strengthen the ties vis-a-vis the Euro-Atlantic alliance. And this is something obviously that has been discussed, really going back to the Obama administration with the issue of what is NATO really for, the tensions between the European Union and Turkey, the tensions between the United States and the European Union around things at that time, like Nord Stream 2, European relations with China, and the fact that the sort of centerpiece of the imperialist alliance worldwide, which is the quote unquote Euro-Atlantic alliance, you know that the edges around that may be fraying, and in an attempt for the United States to sort of re-up and re-push forward their attempts to isolate China, isolate Russia, and continue the unipolar imperialist order, it seems as if the strategy has been heavily geared towards trying to find a way to continue to contain both those countries I just mentioned, in this case, Russia, but also through the context of being able to play up the issue of Russian aggression, do exactly what we've seen. We have Sweden and Finland two formerly neutral countries now attempting to join NATO, we have the ending of Nord Stream 2, which is obviously a strategic victory for the West against Russia. And I think overall this has been the goal. Now that being said, I think sort of beyond that, there wasn't much of a goal. And I do think that's the context of the Biden article and certainly the criticism from even, you know, very warlike sectors of the foreign policy establishment about what is this thing really about? But it seems that there was one initial goal and that was really to push forward the attempt to erode any challenge to unipolar US power and especially to reaffirm the imperialist alliances across the Atlantic Ocean that have underpinned that unipolar order. One of the key announcements made in the essay was that the US would supply Ukraine to quote, more advanced rocket systems and munitions that will enable them to more precisely strike key targets on the battlefield. The US has already approved aid worth over $50 billion for Ukraine since February. Where has this money gone? Will these advanced rocket systems make a difference? I would say the advanced missile systems don't seem to be a major escalation to me. It seems to be really an attempt to just increase the positioning of Ukraine. The missiles they're giving them are not the longest range missiles for the system. Ukraine already has somewhat similar Soviet style systems that are already there. We've seen in terms of the things that have been shipped to Ukraine so far or even beyond that, really the intelligence assistance vis-a-vis US satellite control which has already been existing for the existing missile forces is perhaps probably the biggest assistance the US has really given to Ukraine and that has been from day one. Obviously the switchblade drones which are designed really specifically to attack armored columns and other sort of waiting and staging areas for troops. So I would say that, and it's very much in line with what we've seen so far, obviously the javelin missiles that ultimately the United States has sought at each different stage in the war to provide new weapons systems or to provide bolster existing weapons systems based on the current phase of the conflict. Of course, initially the big focus was on javelin missiles because the big focus was really on sort of blunting the armored attack. Now you see the bigger force, the bigger focus on sort of standoff artillery. I think that to a large degree is designed to try to disrupt Russian operations that while moving relatively slowly seem to be grinding forward pretty inexorably. So from my point of view, what we have seen in the $1 billion worth of weapons that have been spent in six months that has been appropriated in six months which is far beyond anything we've seen in terms of speed and unity for actually pro-working class measures here in the United States, even ones with smaller price tags. I think this is really very much a piece of that and very much a piece of what I think the sort of broader recognition is of the US and other Western forces that it's probably not possible for Ukraine to quote unquote defeat Russia but if they can continue to give them weapons systems that allow them to blunt the impact of the particular nature of the Russian strategy at a given moment that it increases the ability of Ukraine and really by proxy of NATO to have a better sort of positioning in terms of what the ultimate outcome of the conflict is. Biden did write that the US would work with its allies to quote strengthen Ukrainian supported efforts to achieve a negotiated end to the conflict. However, the past hundred days have in fact seen very little diplomatic efforts and the US and its allies have been at the forefront of warmongering. What explains the reluctance to aid or encourage diplomatic initiatives? I think the United States playing down the diplomatic option really can be chalked up to the fact that there are still Ukrainians that are willing to fight Russia. And I think the United States has committed to a policy really from day one that has been escalation, escalation, escalation. And of course they're doing it on the back of saying we're supporting our brave Ukrainian freedom fighters. And despite what President Biden said in the op-ed which is that they weren't looking to have a long-term war to weaken Russia it seems very clear that they are determined to keep the war going as long as feasible in order to make sure that it has the greatest maximum impact against Russia both on the battlefield in terms of their sort of broader military preparedness and also in terms of the ability to use military events to continue to try to tighten the screws of the economic war that are being put forward with the sanctions and the coercive measures that have been put in place against Russia. And so I think that is the evaluation we've certainly seen the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff make that point over the past weekend where he said specifically that he views that there's gonna be several months more of fighting and essentially basically said the best solution is a negotiated solution but that's not gonna happen anytime soon. They're gonna keep fighting we're gonna keep giving them weapons. So it seems to me and this is something that we've seen similarly we saw in the Vietnam War we saw this in the Korean War that the United States is willing to prolong the conflict no matter what the outcome is for the people of any given region by massively pumping in more weapons and massively upgrading the level of violence in various theaters of war in order to try to improve their negotiating position to have either the best possible outcome or the least humiliating outcome depending on which war we're talking about. But it's a standard issue policy I think when it comes to US war fighting strategy and I think as long as there are Ukrainians who are willing to stand up and be counted in this conflict I think the United States is gonna be very lukewarm on negotiations and I think is not gonna be just not want to be seen as placing any pressure on Ukraine to start negotiations no matter what the sort of long-term sort of thing looks like. And I think Biden's op-ed and comments we've heard from others Boris Johnson I think it's relatively clear to the West at this point that at some point there's going to have to be a negotiated solution but they want to make sure that Russia is in the weakest possible situation which means they'll continue to push a war-like policy and they continue to suggest that perhaps Ukraine can somehow quote unquote win. And finally the war continues even as there is increasing focus on US domestic politics with midterm elections in October Joe Biden and the Democrats are facing a potential defeat. What has been the internal response in the US to the deep engagement in Ukraine? What has been the US political classes response to the war? I think it's gonna be very interesting to see how the US political scene starts to shift. I mean, one thing that we've seen for absolute certain is the polling every couple of months that comes out from the Pew Research Associates shows that there's a smaller number of people each time they poll. It's been every about three months now of people who think that the US is doing too much in terms of aid to Ukraine. There is an increasing number of people who think the US is doing too much. There's a decreasing number of people who think the US is doing too little and sort of growing plurality. I'd say this is the majority of people who think what the US is doing is quite right. But you've got just under 60% of people saying that they deeply fear a nuclear conflict coming out of this. There's a lot of fears that we're seeing in polling from individuals saying that the fallout whether it be in terms of the economy or in terms of a potential war between the US and Russia is something that people are very dangerous about. And of course, Biden addressed that directly in terms of saying that he knows that many people are concerned about nuclear war. And in the last tranche of aid to Ukraine, the $40 billion, the US government really took quite a PR hit because this was happening at the exact same time as the baby formula shortage. And it's still going on now, but as the really sort of spike in the baby formula shortage. And that really helped to rip the mask off of the nature of how there is money for war, but never money to feed the poor as the great poet Tupac Shakur once put it. And I think that ultimately what we've seen is some slight cracks, by and large, just about everyone in Congress is still lockstep behind this policy. There were 11 Republican senators that voted against the $40 billion. They did show so for their own reasons, but what I can say is most of these people are pretty war-like, very pro-military. So obviously if they felt they had to vote against that says something about sort of the nature of how many people in their states are feeling about this. And I think on the democratic side and the progressive and the liberal side, there is a greater questioning of what's going on in the New York Times editorial that came out saying that Biden essentially has to find a way to end this thing and tells Zelensky that it's not a blank check. And I think that even though we don't see that on MSNBC, certainly there are no democratic representatives who are speaking this. I would say that the general trend amongst sort of progressive left-wing people is similarly a growth in skepticism. So as we move into the fall, I think it's possible we can start to see some cracks on this issue. I think Biden's op-ed to some degree was an attempt to define some very loose, to define them as maybe saying a little bit much, but to try to create some sort of framework that tries to give people some understanding of what's happening here because the anticipation is going to be is that from the electorate, especially there's going to be a growing clamor to end the conflict and to reduce what's happening there. And it'll be interesting to see if anyone in Congress steps against it. Now that being said, I'd say the democratic party, any sort of semblance of anti-war activity on this issue at least is completely lacking in any sort of presence. And that's a huge stumbling block to the ability for progressive people to have their voices heard in the political conversation on this. So a lot of different variables here. I think obviously everything's going to heat up because of the elections coming up this fall. And I think it's likely we'll start to see a few more cracks in the dam as it were in terms of the unlimited support for the Ukrainian conflict from the military industrial congressional complex.