The US, especially, seems to by trying to help Ukraine win, but not win so hard that Russia collapses,
My sense is it's not that they don't want Ukraine to win that hard -- they just (very reasonably) don't see how anyone can expect that to reasonably happen within any meaningful time frame.
So they fall back on the next-best alternative, that Ukraine not lose, as a sibling commenter already pointed out. Much more definable, and infinitely more achievable -- if there's a broadly shared understanding (and consensus reality) in place as what that would necessarily entail.
Only problem is -- there's still been a lot of noise among those who run things in the US/West about pretending to believe in the former ("Ukraine must simply win") as a stated goal. Leading inevitably to reduced confidence in what the US/West says, and to the further erosion of public discourse as we're seeing here.
My sense is it's not that they don't want Ukraine to win that hard -- they just (very reasonably) don't see how anyone can expect that to reasonably happen within any meaningful time frame.
So they fall back on the next-best alternative, that Ukraine not lose, as a sibling commenter already pointed out. Much more definable, and infinitely more achievable -- if there's a broadly shared understanding (and consensus reality) in place as what that would necessarily entail.
Only problem is -- there's still been a lot of noise among those who run things in the US/West about pretending to believe in the former ("Ukraine must simply win") as a stated goal. Leading inevitably to reduced confidence in what the US/West says, and to the further erosion of public discourse as we're seeing here.