War never changes. It features different people in the same predictable patterns. Those with power manipulate those without to serve elite interests … that’s it.

By examining the timelines of the second world war and the current Russia-Ukraine conflict we can identify some questionable similarities in the strategies of our major players. While details differ, the overarching motivations of sacrificing lives for power and profit remain unchanged.

In 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland under the pretence of preventing Polish aggression against ethnic Germans. This marked the beginning of the second world war in Europe. Having conquered Poland and France, Germany began its siege of Britain, hoping to bomb its enemy into surrender. Despite British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s pleas for aid, America refused direct involvement, instead passing the Lend-Lease Act in 1941 to supply weapons while remaining officially ‘neutral’. The US joined the Western Europe war for the D-Day invasion in June 1944, 5 years after the conflict began.

Compare this to February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine claiming the need to protect Russian-speaking people in the Donbas and counter Nato expansion. Within months Russia had seized the susceptible territories and completed its ‘special operation’ by creating a land bridge to Crimea. Just as Britain did in the past, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy desperately sought out military aid from the Americans so that they may have a hope of recapturing their lost territory. In May 2022, US President Biden quickly passed a Ukraine version of the Lend-Lease Act, enabling the supply of weapons just 3 months into the invasion.

Unlike the events of the second world war, the American government, which some may argue have become faithless and divided, couldn’t restrain its insatiable greed, and eagerly engaged directly in the conflict from the start, openly using Ukraine as a pawn to weaken Russia by proxy. Hitting the US foreign policy jackpot, not only did they enrich their financial sponsors whilst inconveniencing a strategic rival, but they also had the perfect distraction from their domestic woes. Zero risk, pure reward. Having learnt from their time in the Middle East, The US could minimise casualties and maximise economic gains all from the comfort of their self-proclaimed moral high ground.

Different weapons, same manipulative strategy.

Unfortunately, today’s version of Lend-Lease is a touch more horrific than last time. What the US has done is essentially incentivise the Ukrainian government to foolishly expend lives and resources in repeated and ever-increasingly reckless attacks against Russia to justify its ongoing aid. The lure of power and profit has once more corrupted ruling institutions at the expense of the vulnerable.

The numbers speak for themselves. Ukraine has suffered catastrophic losses, with estimates reaching up 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed while 300,000 Russian soldiers have reportedly died. Much like the devastating suicide charges into German machine guns, the Ukrainian military hurls under-trained conscripts into futile assaults against highly fortified Russian defences. Despite horrific casualties, they continue pressing hopeless attacks, demonstrating total disregard for human life.

To no one’s surprise outside of the ‘West’, this waste benefits US arms manufacturers, as endless equipment losses necessitate constant American resupply and higher lend-lease profits. Ukraine is bleeding dry and Ukrainian mothers must now bear the agony of watching their sons march to slaughter at the whims of old men in castles playing human chess to satisfy their avarice.

After Germany’s bombardment in 1941 and the three years that followed, Churchill conserved British military strength in a defensive capacity only, doing his best to uphold morale on the home front until such a time that a logical opportunity to counterattack presented itself. But in 2022, Zelenskyy appears to have embraced the role of US proxy. The result has been more blood and more aid. This highlights the immorality of US lending policies intentionally designed to encourage military waste abroad.

Experts are now estimating the cost of rebuilding Ukraine, should they ‘defeat’ Russia, to be upwards of $500 billion. Despite the conflict still raging with no end in sight, it hasn’t stopped enormous companies eagerly volunteering to lead the rebuilding efforts. These ‘philanthropic’ corporations are lining up to help privatize Ukrainian infrastructure and resources to lift them from the ashes of war.

The theory is simple. US weapons manufacturers generate sales from lending schemes financed by the American people. Politicians approve the aid packages and benefit from a range of kickbacks. Then, establishment firms move in to reap billions more from the war-torn country’s eventual reconstruction.

Ukraine, like its many other ‘strategic allies’, is and always will be, a pawn for US imperial ambitions. Ukraine’s government readily accepts ‘aid’ from all over the Western world with full knowledge that rising casualties will yield even greater financial contributions.

The promise of wealth and power has always blinded leaders to the cost of human life. And so the cycle continues, with politicians funnelling taxpayer money to the military-industrial complex, which in turn comes right back to the politicians again. Rinse and repeat.

By using Ukraine as cannon fodder in a proxy war against Russia, America has secured both strategic interests and financial gain without risking the political fallout of US troop losses. It is the ordinary Ukrainians who pay in blood and debt bondage to make that happen. Their national trauma is a business transaction for US elites drunk on hubris.

Comparisons aside, when we strip away the ideological labels and rhetoric, the patterns of exploitation are the same. Governments amplify external threats and dehumanise outsiders to justify atrocities in pursuit of more power, more wealth, and more control. No matter how noble the purported cause, innocent lives are merely fuel for the machine.

The second world war did not end in 1945 as hoped. Its horror evolved into more insidious forms, cloaked in euphemisms like ‘intervention’ and ‘collateral damage’, perpetrated by those very same countries who champion ‘peace and unity’. Without a doubt, the suffering remains real for those caught in the crossfire of imperialist power plays.

It is the young who bear the scars of trauma. And the innocent and powerless who pay for the sins conjured by the powerful.

War never changes.