Ukraine’s Western allies were “overly optimistic" about the war in 2023 and assumed that providing Kiev with the required ammunition and training would lead to victory, chief of the NATO Military Committee Admiral Rob Bauer told the Financial Times on Sunday. …
For now, the West’s plan is to “keep the Ukrainian military from collapsing".
I actually do not believe this for a second. My understanding is that the actual higher ups wanted to engage Russia in a war regardless of the outcome plus the ammunition/training part is just the military industry enriching itself. If anything, I think they were actually overly optimistic about Russia turning into a sort of an international pariah and the effectiveness of the sanctions imposed on them, both of which did not pan out at all.
Yeah, I’m sure capital didn’t care about what the outcome for Ukraine would be. But as you say, it certainly did care about what the outcome for Russia was - the West has been dreaming for decades of a Balkanized, subservient Russia. And anything that got it closer to that would be considered a victory.