The president who campaigned on extricating America from “forever wars” cannot have missed the warning from the new head of Britain’s army yesterday that British troops must prepare for battle in Europe as the war in Ukraine drags on. General Sir Patrick Sanders, who took the reins as chief of the general staff last week, said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “underlines our core purpose to protect the U.K. by being ready to fight and win wars on land,” adding: “There is now a burning imperative to forge an Army capable of fighting alongside our allies and defeating Russia in battle.” 

Most haltingly, the general wrote his new charges, “We are the generation that must prepare the Army to fight in Europe once again.”

While the general’s remarks, as first reported by Britain’s Sky News, were ostensibly meant for British domestic consumption, the message will likely not be lost on Washington. That is because not only is America Britain’s closest strategic ally, but because there has been no major land war in Europe in the past 108 years in which British troops fought and American troops did not at some point thereafter follow. 

If the Russian invasion of Ukraine had heretofore been a ghost at the gates of any presumptive 2024 re-election bid by President Biden, it is now galloping toward the White House lawn. The writing has been on the wall for weeks now, and increasingly in the press. With respect to the duration of the war in Ukraine and clinching a victory over Russia, NATO’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, told Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper: “We must prepare for the fact that it could take years.” 

In that interview, Mr. Stoltenberg  also allowed himself some drift from matters purely military: “We must not let up in supporting Ukraine,” he said, “even if the costs are high, not only for military support, but also because of rising energy and food prices.”

Underscoring the ongoing hazards and unpredictability of the war, the contours of the battle keep changing. The eastern Donbas region is on the whole under siege by Moscow despite vigorous Ukrainian counter-offensives, buoyed by Western armaments even if many shipments have yet to be delivered. Mr. Stoltenberg said he believes that weapons given by NATO will make it more plausible for Ukraine to eject Russian forces from Donbas.

And yet: On Sunday, a Ukrainian interior ministry official warned that Russian forces were trying to approach Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, to “turn it into a new frontline town.” While the Ukrainian army previously succeeded in pushing the Russians out of artillery range from Kharkiv, it came under attack again. The Telegraph reported that the Russian defense ministry claimed to have fired Iskander ballistic missiles, resulting in the destruction of Western weapons supplies that had only recently been delivered.

Sir Sanders noted that he is the first chief of the general staff  of the British armed forces since 1941 to take command of the army “in the shadow of a land war in Europe involving a continental power.” His comments dovetail with the unambiguous words and characteristic resolve of the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, who after a second visit to Kyiv last week has, it has emerged, forged a solid personal relationship with the Ukrainian president, Volodymr Zelensky. Writing in the Times of London over the weekend, Mr Johnson said, “I am afraid that we need to steel ourselves for a long war, as Putin resorts to a campaign of attrition, trying to grind down Ukraine by sheer brutality.”

“Everything will depend on whether Ukraine can strengthen its ability to defend its soil faster than Russia can renew its capacity to attack,” Mr. Johhson wrote, adding, “Our task is to enlist time on Ukraine’s side.”

By contrast with the scripted pronouncements and halfhearted support that has come in a slow drip from certain European capitals in recent weeks, among them Paris, Britain’s backing of Ukraine has been steadfast and unerring. A new poll commissioned by the Munich Security Conference ahead of next week’s G7 summit found that Britain “stands out” among its Western allies in the face-off with Vladimir Putin — ahead of Germany, France, and America, the Telegraph reported.

With any prospect of peace talks between the Kremlin and Kyiv off the table for the foreseeable future and dozens of Ukrainian soldiers being killed every day by relentless Russian artillery fire, the urgency of tilting the balance back in Ukraine’s favor cannot be underestimated.

As the conflict intensifies, the engagement and robust anti-Moscow stance of Britain’s military top brass stands in contrast to that of some of Westminster’s relevant American counterparts, including the busy secretary of state, Antony Blinken. One of the Democrat’s official social media feeds in recent days referenced fatherhood, the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict, and Juneteenth — but about the bloody war raging on in Europe, nothing.

In the same timeframe a top advisor to President Zelensky, Mykhailo Podolyak, said in a tweet directed at the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, “You cannot invade countries and plunder [their] resources, organize mass executions, build concentration camps … the voice of Russia will be heard if you stop behaving like barbarians from the Middle Ages.”

Just how many troops it will take to put those Russian “barbarians” in their place, and from what countries, remains to be seen.