We are now more than seven months removed from Vladimir Putin's regrettable incursion into eastern Ukraine and Crimea. But despite that elapsed time and all the various developments since then, the United States' formal position on the conflict has changed markedly little.
That overly simplified and Manichaean position, in short, is one of Ukrainian maximalism: Putin is evil, Volodymyr Zelensky is noble, and -- here is the big logical leap -- the United States will thus support the Ukrainian effort to retake every square inch of territory in the Donbas and Crimea from its nuclear-armed adversary, seemingly no matter the cost to the U.S. taxpayer.
