The policy position of the United States with respect to the present armed conflict in the region where Russia and Ukraine share a border is incoherent.
Whenever considering a new project one must be aware of the expected cost and the expected revenue of the project. A project which only loses money is a project which is never started. A project with a positive present value, after discounting, must be considered among the range of projects with a positive present value before determining anything about the relative merit of the project being considered.
There is no possible world in which the United States can generate a positive expected return on the Ukraine project. The United States' position has been to throw piles of money at politicians and military generals. The United States spent $150 billion and counting on a project which does not have any revenue streams attached. Tax payers have funded a project which will return them $0. When the last missiles have been fired and the final borders are drawn, the realized gain earned for American taxpayers will still be $0. The quantitative profile of the conflict, for the United States, is one where the United States taxpayers record a return on investment of -100%.
A project where the expected ROI is negative is one which must be precluded from consideration. Yet, the United States policy position has been to throw good money after bad. Have you ever heard of the sunk cost fallacy? Despite only recording a negative ROI in Ukraine some people have suggested spending even more money on a proposition which, according to reasonable standards, must be ruled out altogether. X marks the spot where the anti-logic has been identified. The x belongs wherever there is an expression of the Ukraine project's self-defeating proposition.
