General Jack Keane, former Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army, keeps repeating that Russia is on the verge of defeat: "Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wants to stop the atrocities by driving them [the Russians] out. He wants a victory, and he can get it".

A small contingent of Ukrainian soldiers is still heroically resisting Russian forces in what remains of the destroyed city [Mariupol]. Is anyone coming to their rescue?

Others still say that Putin should be offered an "off-ramp" as a face-saving device. Putin does not want an off-ramp. Putin wants Ukraine -- as much of it as he can get. Putin getting any of it simply sets a precedent for other predators. Putin should not be rewarded with land. He should be rewarded with a war crimes tribunal, perhaps similar to the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda or, as former US National Security Advisor John R. Bolton recommended, by Russians or Ukrainian tribunals -- just not by the "illegitimate" and "lawless" International Criminal Court (ICC). But that would be later.

Arming Ukraine, providing it with means to defeat Russia's unprovoked aggression and drive the Russians out of Ukraine, should be seen as a way to force Putin, and other potential predators, to understand that the costs for aggression are astronomical. So far, although the Biden administration has been generous, many Americans find that it has not given Ukraine many of the weapons it desperately needs, or given them fast enough. Hopefully, this is changing.

Does the Biden administration secretly want Putin to win? The former chess grand champion and Russian dissident Garry Kasparov has suggested that Putin is "the devil you know." The US seems naively to have considered Russia an ally to negotiate a new "nuclear deal" with Iran and as a partner for "climate change". For Russia, climate change concerns in the US means Russia can sell more oil to a country that has shut down its own gargantuan energy supply. So far, as Russia and Iran plan how to evade US sanctions on Russia and enrich themselves, America's interests appear the last concern of Russia's negotiators in the Iran nuclear talks.

There seems to be a current Washington fantasy about Russia: that Putin and Russian officials are people "you can do business with." The business has, in fact, been done: according to the New York Post, a "[US Senate] report says, Hunter Biden profited from a 'financial relationship' that he and associate Devon Archer had with Russia's richest woman, Elena Baturina, former wife of the late Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov."

The Biden administration appears to have gambled that if they were nice to Russia, Russia would be nice to them. They began their term by giving Putin the two things he wanted most. They extended the New START Treaty so that Russia could continue making tactical nuclear weapons, and they gave Putin the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to ensure that he would be able to supply Europe and Germany with natural gas in winter (while bypassing Ukraine) -- or shut the gas off. The US also allowed Russia's negotiators in the talks to revive the 2015 JCPOA "nuclear deal" with Iran in Vienna, Austria – where the US was not allowed in the same room with Iranians -- to have Russia's lead negotiator, Mikhail Ulyanov, represent the US. Not surprisingly, Ulyanov emerged from the talks saying that "Iran got much more than it expected."

The way to end the war, of course, is to defeat Putin -- and send a message to other aggressors waiting in the wings that they should not even think about taking on the United States.

Trump, an experienced businessman, spoke nicely to and about Putin -- but delivered nothing. Putin, however, especially after the woebegone US surrender to the Taliban in Afghanistan, quickly took the measure of Biden and his administration. If they had wanted Putin to go to war, they seemed to do everything they could to bring one about.

Putin could be on the verge of defeat -- if the West, which has everything to lose, would just enable Ukraine to defeat him. Allowing Putin to win would not only be a betrayal of that international commitment to Ukraine; it would also broadcast to the world that any country can commit all the war crimes it wants without suffering any consequences. It would signal the defeat of all the values​​ Western world leaders claim to defend. The geopolitical implications could well be devastating.

Fear and food are more important to many developing nations than democratic ideals.

In Latin America, a form of anti-Americanism among the educated classes has translated into a reluctance to openly criticize Putin. This is amplified by messages vocally propagated by Cuba and Venezuela.

China sees no reason to anger Russia, a major supplier of oil, gas, and coal, especially since Western nations are discouraging the production of the very fossil fuels that China needs. Policy-making circles in Beijing are not crowded with idealists, and its decisions are invariably self-interested and pragmatic.

Arab leaders are unhappy with the Biden administration for its precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan last year, its ongoing negotiations with the threatening regime in Iran, and its laxity in the face of the Yemen-based Houthi terrorist and rocket attacks. For the first time, Arab leaders are asking questions, publicly, about the sustainability of the American political system and the coherence of American foreign policy.

On the Iranian nuclear dossier, Israel, one of the firmest allies of the US in the region, fears that the Biden administration wants at all costs to conclude an agreement with the Iranian regime without taking into account the possible impact on the regional aggression of Tehran.

What has been eroding for some years now is the commitment of American leaders to defend, maintain, and advance an international order in which states observe common rules and standards, embrace liberal economic systems, renounce territorial conquests, respect the sovereignty of national governments, and adopt democratic reforms.

In today's increasingly complex global environment, the US can only achieve its goals by leveraging its strength through a cohesive foreign policy that responds to the challenges posed by Russia and China. To do this, the US must deliberately strengthen and cultivate productive relationships with its allies, partners, and other nations with common interests.

The US must offer attractive political, economic, and security alternatives to China's influence in the Indo-Pacific, Africa, and beyond.

Rather than condemn the nations that abstained from voting against Russia, America must seek to understand why they thought sitting out the vote was their best option. Next, America must make clear that it still supports the rule of law and the ideal of democracy and put steel behind its ideals.