The US obviously didn’t start the war in Ukraine. That was Vladimir Putin’s decision. As we all known, Putin really believed he’d roll tanks into Kyiv, government figures like Zelensky would flee and he would have effectively won in a matter of days or weeks. It didn’t happen like that thanks partly to Zelensky but primarily thanks to a coalition of western and eastern countries (the US, Britain, EU, Japan, South Korea) who recognized that nothing good could come from letting Putin walk all over one of his neighbors at will.

Nearly two years later the situation is changing. Putin’s forces have faced loss after loss during the first year of fighting including an attempted coup by the only group that managed to gain any ground. But thanks to months of preparations (made by a general who may have known about the coup in advance) Russia was able to mostly defend its annexed territories this summer. The Ukrainian counteroffensive broke through the Russians’ first defensive line but never made it through the other two before winter really clamped down on the ability to fight.

And now the future of Ukraine’s ability to fight back seems in doubt because House Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene have decided it’s time to cut off any future support and funding on the grounds that America has enough problems of its own and can’t afford to keep paying the bills to fight off Putin halfway around the world.

This strikes me as a pretty short-sighted approach for a number of reasons. Today Politico published an interview with Putin-expert Fiona Hill in which she lays out some of the ways in which this is a critical moment, not just for Ukraine but for the US. Of course not everyone will agree with her views but they’re at least worth considering because there’s arguably a lot more at stake here than where the borders of Ukraine wind up being drawn on a map.

What do you think Putin sees when he’s watching the debate taking place in the United States right now?

He does see the entire battlefield of the military, financial and political arenas tipping to his benefit. Putin really thinks that he is on the winning side. We’ve just seen in the last few weeks, something that looks rather suspiciously like a preparatory victory tour [by Putin] around the Middle East, visiting the UAE and Saudi Arabia, stepping out again in “polite company,” preparing to go to other major meetings. And then the coverage in the Russian press — their commentators are crowing with glee at the predicament of the Ukrainians, clapping their hands, literally and figuratively, about the peril for Ukraine in the U.S. Congress.

One thing that we need to bear in mind here is that Putin turned for assistance to two countries that should give Americans and members of Congress pause— Iran and North Korea. Russia has had significant shortfalls of ammunition and sophisticated technology because of sanctions and other constraints. Ammunition has come from North Korea, which continues to provide Russia with all kinds of rounds for shells, and Iran has stepped up with the production of drones. Iran and North Korea both see this as a kind of international opening for them. If Russia prevails on the battlefield, you can be sure that Iran and North Korea will get benefits from this. We already see Russia shifting its position on the Iranian nuclear front, and we also see Russia making a major shift in its relationship with Israel. Putin has gone from being a major supporter of Israel, to now an opponent, and has switched from what was always very careful public rhetoric about Israel to pretty antisemitic statements. Putin never denigrated Jews in the past. On the contrary, he presented himself as a supporter of the Jewish population. This is a dramatic shift and clearly because of Iran…

Putin initially thought he would just go and take Kyiv, and obviously, that didn’t happen. How do you think Putin now would define a win for himself and for Russia?

Well, there’ll be multiple ways he will define it, one of which is defeating the United States, politically, psychologically and symbolically. If the United States doesn’t pass the supplemental [bill to approve aid to Ukraine], and we get this chorus of members of Congress calling for the United States to pull away from Ukraine, Putin will be able to switch this around and say, “There you go. The United States is an unreliable ally. The United States is not a world leader.” And there will be a chilling effect for all our other allies. In the past, Putin has actually, for example, approached the Japanese and said, “Look, we can be your interlocutor with China. The United States is not going to be there to assist you in a crunch.” And that’s certainly what this is going to look like. The Japanese, the South Koreans, the Vietnamese, others that we have bilateral treaties with, are going to wonder, “OK, the United States made such a push here to support Ukraine, along with other European members of NATO, and now they’ve just walked away from it.” And you put that on top of Afghanistan and the withdrawal, also the withdrawal from Iraq, withdrawal from Syria, and the whole fraught history of United States interventions in the last two decades, and Putin will be able to present a pretty potent narrative about the United States’ inability to maintain its commitments and forfeiting its role as an international leader. So that that becomes a major political win…

What happens to the West if Putin wins?

We’ll be at each others’ throats. There’ll be no way in which this is going to turn out well. There’ll be a lot of frustration on the part of people who thought that this was the easier option when we reel from crisis to crisis. There’ll also be the shame, frankly, and the disgrace of having let the Ukrainians down. I think it would create a firestorm of recrimination. And it will also embolden so many other actors to take their own steps…

Another aspect of having this war resolved on Ukraine’s terms is that Russia is going to have to pay for or contribute to the reconstruction of Ukraine in some fashion. That is another major reason why Putin would see the U.S. and its allies stepping back as a major win, because then there’d be no leverage whatsoever or pressure put on Russia for rebuilding Ukraine. Russia could just step back, wash its hands of all of this and let everybody else fix what it broke.

So the best possible outcome here, beyond Ukraine being able to prevail on the battlefield, is a negotiated settlement that is in Ukraine’s favor, that leads to commitments to its security and reconstruction, and leads to some soul searching in Russia. That’s not going to happen under these current circumstances. The only way that that happens is when Russia believes that everybody else has the fortitude and staying power for this conflict. And right now, that’s not what we’re displaying at all. Actually, we’re looking pretty pathetic, I can’t think of any other way to describe it. And for Putin, this is just such a gift. This is such a gift.

This is a small fraction of the interview but you can go through these paragraphs and count up the ways in which abandoning Ukraine to its fate will likely be bad for the US going forward. Not only is Putin empowered but his friends in Iran, North Korea and China are too. And Putin will also spin this, somewhat plausibly, as a case of the US being fickle and walking away from its promises, something that will surely resonate loudly in Taiwan, Israel and other places. China will also use this as it warns Japan, the Philippines and other nations that US promises all come with an expiration date. And all of that’s on top of the general shame and recriminations among allies that comes from the awareness of having lost. And we’ll still feel obligated to help rebuild what Putin has turned to rubble.

The idea that we can walk away now without significant consequences for, say, the next decade seems very unlikely to me. You can debate how much we owe Ukraine but having been part of this conflict for nearly two years, its our credibility that is currently on the line. Putin and Xi know it even if MTG doesn’t. This is the withdrawal from Afghanistan all over again. It’s going to be another embarrassing spectacle for the US on the world stage, one that invites more bad actors around the world to try their luck.