As President Trump heads to the NATO summit in Ankara, neocon voices are demanding he commit more American treasure to Ukraine's border war — even as America's own southern border remains wide open and the price tag for years of foreign aid keeps climbing.
The stakes are straightforward: every billion shipped overseas is a billion not spent here, and the war party — bipartisan and well-funded — wants the spigot open indefinitely. A New York Post opinion piece framed the NATO summit as a test of Trump's resolve, insisting he must place "the robust defense of Ukraine at the absolute top of the agenda" and warning him not to "throw Kyiv under the bus." The piece called Russian aggression "Europe's generational security challenge" and argued that America and Europe's "shared interests" demand Trump rally the alliance for "decisive support." Shared interests, shared bill — but the invoice lands on the American taxpayer.
The opinion piece is pure Washington consensus: invoke Putin's nuclear saber-rattling, praise Ukraine as a "buffer between civilization and barbarism," and insist the financial burden "is nothing compared to" Ukrainian casualties. That's the standard playbook — shame the public into writing a blank check by pointing at someone else's suffering. The piece doesn't mention a cost ceiling, an exit strategy, or a defined American interest beyond vague warnings about Beijing and Tehran.
Meanwhile, the actual news tells a more complicated story. Vice President JD Vance told the Times of London that the White House encouraged Ukraine to shift to a defensive posture — and that it's working. "The Russians, they're paying a lot for every square kilometer they get," Vance said. "And I think that's because the United States and NATO have encouraged Ukraine to be more focused on defense — and that's proven effective." Vance argued that Russian gains are "vanishingly small — and getting close to zero," adding that "very well may create the space that we need to bring this thing to a close."
Trump himself said the war is getting "much closer than people realize" to ending, claiming both Putin and Zelensky want it finished. That's a very different tune than the Post's opinion page, which treats the conflict as an open-ended crusade requiring permanent American commitment.
Ukraine, for its part, has been anything but purely defensive. Kyiv is running its largest-ever long-range drone campaign inside Russia, hitting 22 oil refineries this year, according to the Institute for the Study of War. Finnish President Alexander Stubb told the Financial Times that NATO leaders back the strikes, saying they make the war "personal" to Russian citizens and could drive them to "turn against the conflict." Ukrainian Ambassador Olha Stefanishyna said Kyiv appreciates Washington's clear-eyed assessment but noted she was "unaware of efforts to discourage Kyiv from going on the offensive."
So the picture is messy: the administration talks defense and de-escalation, NATO cheers escalation deep into Russia, and neocon opinion demands Trump double down on an indefinite commitment with no stated endgame. The opinion piece buried any mention of a diplomatic off-ramp; the news coverage at least acknowledges that Vance sees an opening to close it out.
The question hanging over Ankara isn't whether Ukraine is fighting hard. It's who keeps paying, for how long, and to what end — and whether anyone in Washington will put American interests first before signing the next check.
