Ukraine is losing the war for many reasons including the all-too-familiar cycle of Russian military ventures. Corrupt, politicized, undertrained, badly supplied, incompetently led the Russians start out failing pathetically, hold on in the interim by massive blood sacrifices of untrained troops, and finally, battle-hardened and led by officers competent enough to have survived, use their massive advantages in manpower and their disregard for human life to win in the end.

To these familiar woes Eric Schmidt, (yes that Eric Schmidt), writing in Foreign Affairs, adds yet another. Ukraine is losing because it relies on U.S. technology that is proving embarrassingly inferior to Russian technology. In particular, the drone war, which initially helped Ukraine against Russian armor, had begun to go badly.