In this video that this take is based on, the speaker is Douglas Macgregor, who is a retired Colonel and former advisor to the Secretary of Defense under the Trump administration. He is a well-known critic of U.S foreign policy and has been known to make predictions about wars that don't materialize. He frequently appears on Russian state media and the alternative media platforms that promote an "America First" agenda. The people hosting this video prioritize "counter-narrative" content to attract people who're skeptical of mainstream news. According to "The Pentagon & Intelligence Community," the official U.S. policy frames the aid not as a tool to "harm Russia" but as a "security assistance" measure to uphold the UN Charter, which is put in place to stop the changing of borders by force. Also, the "Institute for the Study of War (ISW)" shows that MacGregor's claim that the Ukrainian military is on the verge of collapse is false. ISW data shows that Ukraine has successfully retaken significant territory through its own tactical decisions.
In the video, Macgregor says that the U.S is "paying all the bills." While the U.S pays for a good amount of Ukraine's civil service salaries to prevent state collapse, tracing this back to World Bank and IMF reports shows that this is a standard international protocol for nations that are under invasion. It isn't just tailored for Ukraine; it is done to prevent a crisis throughout these countries being invaded that would cost the world more in the long run.
Lastly, Macgregor claims the U.S blocked a peace deal in April of 2022. Tracing this to the original people a part of this peace deal, the talks stalled because of the discovery of the Bucha massacre, which shifted Ukrainian public opinion against negotiating with Russia at that time.
MacGregor's interest represents a school of thought known as "Political Realism." His affiliation is with a specific political movement in the U.S that wants to pivot military spending away from Europe and toward the U.S southern border or toward China. His interest is in proving that the Ukraine mission is a failure to make sense of a policy shift at home.
In essence, Douglas Macgregor's argument relies on the premise that Ukraine has no agency of its own and is a tool of the U.S. While the video points out the massive scale of U.S financial support, which is true, it ignores the documented internal motivations of the Ukrainian people and the broader European security interests. MacGregor's "interests" as a political commentator and his history of inaccurate military predictions suggest that he is more of a critique of U.S leadership than actually reflecting the reality on the ground in Kyiv.
Works Cited
Macgregor, Douglas. "Ukraine's Gov Propped Up by U.S. Just to Harm Russia." Daniel Davis / Deep Dive, YouTube
Institute for the Study of War (ISW). "Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment." Understandingwar.org, 2024.
World Bank. "Public Expenditures for Administrative Capacity Endurance (PEACE) in Ukraine." WorldBank.org, 2023.
