But a matter of little choice and less practical change.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has—reportedly—dropped his insistence on a path to NATO membership as a condition to an end of the war that Russia has inflicted in his nation. Instead, Zelenskyy has said that he would be open to a security arrangement that has

Washington and European states offering security guarantees in the event of another invasion, according to the Financial Times. “We are talking about bilateral security guarantees between Ukraine and the United States—namely, [NATO] Article 5-like guarantees…as well as security guarantees for us from our European partners and from other countries such as Canada, Japan, and others,” he said.

Zelenskyy had little choice in making this offer, since Ukraine had little chance of joining NATO for all the pre-war favorable talk about such a thing. The acceptance of a new member requires the unanimous agreement of the existing members, and too many members, out of timidity, ego, or being too close to Russia would say no to the accession.

The offer represents even less as a practical matter. Many of the same nations that would guarantee Ukraine’s national security in the event of another invasion are the same signatories to the Budapest Memorandum that guaranteed Ukraine’s national territory and sovereignty and who promptly betrayed Ukraine over 10 years ago when Russia invaded and occupied Crimea and first invaded Ukraine’s Donbas region.

Still, Zelenskyy has little choice but to make such an offer, regardless of its practical foolishness. That’s the outcome of the West’s collective decision to withhold from Ukraine the wherewithal to defeat the barbarian and drive him back out of Ukraine, a victory that Ukraine almost certainly could achieve were it not being held back.