Can Ukraine Win Without America?

Aaron MacLean (0:00)

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Today on School of War, we're going to talk about the ongoing links between the war in the Middle East and the war between Russia and Ukraine. At the level of warfighting, but also at the political level where, well, the connection has been in the news over the last week or so.

President Trump has repeatedly made the case to the American people that high energy prices are worth it if, as he puts it, that's the cost of keeping Iran from having a nuclear weapon. But clearly the upcoming midterm elections have him worried about those prices and unable to do much to change the situation with Iran. He has been attempting to compel the Ukrainians to cease one of their most effective campaigns of the war so far. Their strikes on the Russian energy economy, on the theory that them stopping would help the situation with prices in America. There's no one better to unpack what's behind all of this and help us explore the connections between these two theaters of war than my regular guest, Major General Mick Ryan of the Australian Army, retired. Let's get into it.

Mick Ryan (1:41)

It is a prescription for war, this Iraqi invasion of the place.

Aaron MacLean (2:16)

Hi, I'm Aaron MacLean. Thanks for joining School of War. I am delighted to welcome back to the show, Mick Ryan, a regular School of War guest. He is, of course, a retired Major General in the Australian Army, a extremely prolific author on all things dealing with war since then, even during them, but especially since then. He has another novel coming out next year, which you should look out for called Pacific Storm, which is a sequel to his last novel, White Sun War, the campaign for Taiwan.

You should subscribe to his newsletter, his sub stack, Futura Doctrina. He's got a couple of fascinating recent pieces on unmanned ground warfare, on the ongoing nature of adaptation in warfare called Fastfall. And we're going to talk about all of that during the course of our conversation today. Mick, welcome back on School of War.

Mick Ryan (3:05)

Thanks, Aaron. It's always a pleasure to be here.

Aaron MacLean (3:08)

We check in a few times a year on the war in Ukraine, the war in the Middle East, looming potential war in the Pacific. And you're the guy I always want to turn to, Mick, when these wars seem to be connecting. I mean, in a way, they're always connected, and that's one of your major themes.

But there are some weeks when they seem more connected than others. And this past week has certainly been one of those when it comes to both Ukraine and the Middle East. I'll say we're recording this Washington, DC time about 4 o'clock in the afternoon on Sunday, October the 18th, whenever we talk about these current affairs things, especially when it comes to the Trump administration, things have a way of shifting quickly. So with that caveat stated, let's start at the political level of the wars. And then as our conversation goes on, we'll talk about war fighting more directly. But I want to get your take on where things stand about the length between Iran on the one hand and Russia, Ukraine on the other. President Trump in the last, say, couple of weeks seems to have taken another hard turn against Ukraine. We were here once before in 2025 There was that extremely nasty dust up between President Zelensky, Vice President Vance, and others in the Oval Office back early in the first year of Trump's second term, a real souring of relations for a few weeks after that. But then things kind of stabilized, not necessarily to a great place, but to at least a stable place. And then for a period there, this year, it looked like things were kind of warm between Trump and Zelensky personally, the United States and Ukraine more broadly. And then we've had this recent dust up, which has to do with the price of energy being very high. In particular, in the United States, the price of diesel is very high.