One of Britain’s foremost political analysts has suggested that Western leaders, intimidated by Vladimir Putin’s nuclear hints and alarmed by rising domestic costs, are “scared, deep down” that Ukraine may win the war that Russia is waging against it. Writing in London’s Guardian newspaper this week, Simon Tisdall took a swing at President Biden by claiming that this fear is already condemning Ukraine to one of the “forever wars” that, on the campaign trail in 2020, the American president pledged to end.

Mr. Tisdall makes a contrarian but not unconvincing case that a “timid” Mr. Biden is helping to consign Ukrainians to “an agonizing war without end” and calls his “too-modest war aims a manifesto for the muddled middle.” He sets out an argument that is all the more remarkable for appearing in one of the world’s most highly esteemed left-wing newspapers. 

He assails Mr. Biden’s recent decision to supply Ukraine with advanced rockets  on the precondition that it does not fire them at Russia itself, but not only that: The United Nations is also panned for seeking Russia’s accord to escort vital shipments of up to 22 million tons of grain from Odessa even after Moscow is responsible for causing the logistics crisis in the first place. Mr. Tisdall says a multinational force would be better suited to the task of “smashing” Mr. Putin’s illegal blockade. 

While it is no slam dunk casting the Turkish president as a Western leader, the foreign affairs analyst says that it is high time for “Turkey’s aging bully,” Tayyip Erdogan, to mind his responsibilities and that Ankara’s oversight of an obscure 1936 convention that restricts wartime passage of ships through the Bosphorus is a fig leaf. Last Friday Kyiv accused Moscow of stealing Ukrainian grain and selling it to countries including Turkey.

A former NATO commander in Europe, General Philip Breedlove, is quoted as saying, “We need to get serious about supplying [Ukraine’s] army so that it can do what the world is asking it to do: fight a world superpower alone on the battlefield.” And how: A headline in the Guardian published Friday morning in Europe put it bluntly, “We’re almost out of ammunition and relying on western arms, says Ukraine.” According to that new report, Ukraine’s deputy head of military intelligence has said the battle has now shifted to an artillery war and that “everything depends on what the West gives us.”

The West is still not giving Ukraine some things it has long sought: a no-fly zone and safe havens in the western part of the country. Mr. Tisdall believes that NATO has the “muscle and means” to do more to stop what he calls the systematic killing of civilians and push Russia back. China and India are not spared his scorn, profiting as they do from the protracted war in Ukraine by buying cut-rate Russian energy. 

Mr. Biden is throwing a lot of money at Ukraine but dollar bills alone are not accelerating the end of the war. When decoupled from unambiguous resolve, they may actually be perpetuating it, in Mr. Tisdall’s estimation. To support his argument he evokes Mr. Biden’s recent remarks that Russia “must pay a heavy price” but failure to mention anything about a Ukrainian victory. Instead of talking about winning, the president “spoke vaguely of future negotiations while offering personal assurances to Putin.”

This all raised the question: While it is probably prudent to not seek to overthrow your warmongering chief adversary on the global stage, is it truly necessary to tell him so? Some in Ukraine might spare a moment to wonder about that — but then they’ve also got a war to fight.

Speaking at West Point last month, the president reminded graduating cadets that he is their commander-in-chief, but according to reports he whispered it. If the ability to project power is in itself a form of power, the White House under Biden’s administration is coming up short. Diplomacy and sanctions may be valiant; both have failed. Weakness — or a “weak-kneed approach,” as Mr. Tisdall put it — is rarely part of winning wars.