OPINION: Cowering to a Killer: The West’s Collapse Before a Soulless Orc
The next war will not be a trench fight. It will be swarms of AI-operated drones turning the sky black. And the West will not be prepared without Ukraine’s help.
Originally published at Kyiv Post on May 20, 2025
In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia's President Vladimir Putin meets with attendees of "Znanie" youth forum at the Museum of the Great Patriotic War, also known as the Victory Museum, at Poklonnaya Hill in western Moscow on April 30, 2025. (Photo by Alexander KAZAKOV / POOL / AFP)
While Vladimir Putin rains kamikaze drones on Ukraine, slaughtering civilians in their sleep, the so-called leaders of the free world sip coffee, call for restraint, and wonder if they can still negotiate with a man who bombs maternity wards. The message from Moscow could not be clearer. They are not talking. They are killing.
And yet, the West still pretends this is politics.
Let us be blunt. The world is bowing to a genocidal war criminal. And it is not just appeasement. It is suicide.
Putin’s regime does not negotiate. It invades. It rapes. It tortures. It executes. It deports children and brags about it. And for all our diplomatic caution, he only grows bolder. Because cowardice feeds monsters.
But what should truly terrify us is not just what is happening. It is what is coming.
Russia, Iran, China, and now North Korea are not only building the largest drone and missile arsenals on Earth. They are harvesting data, refining AI, and running live battlefield tests at scale in Ukraine. Every drone strike is logged. Every intercept analyzed. Every Ukrainian response is studied in real time and fed into machine learning systems designed to optimize destruction.
Ukraine is the world’s testing ground for AI warfare.
Russia is the Los Angeles Dodgers of drone combat. Relentless. Systematic. Lethal. Ukraine is the New York Yankees. Battle-hardened. Seasoned. Setting records in real time. And the West?
We are tee-ball teams. Clueless. Naive. Gloves on the wrong hands. Running the bases backward. We have no real doctrine for drone war. No infrastructure for swarms. No hardened defenses for AI-driven attacks. And no will to confront what is now the most rapidly evolving threat to human life since the nuclear age.
When you hear the term drone swarm, do not imagine fireworks or a tech demo.
Imagine 100,000 autonomous flying weapons, moving in synchronized formation, blacking out the skies over Europe.
Arm Ukraine decisively. Partner on drone warfare and AI defense. Collapse Russia’s oil revenues through American energy dominance.
And here is the kicker. China has already tested this. The dazzling drone light shows seen over Beijing and Shanghai were not just celebrations. They were strategic tests. Demonstrations of battlefield-scale coordination, formation management, and real-time AI control. That was not entertainment. It was a warning.
The next swarm will not be a light show. It will be war.
And it will not just fly toward Kyiv. It will cross Greenland through Russia and China’s growing Arctic military alliance and head straight for Boston and New York. This is what JD Vance was warning about. The future battlefield will not have front lines. It will have swarms.
And do not forget North Korea. While the West sleeps, Pyongyang supplies munitions to Russia, tests ICBMs over Japan, and prepares its own drone and cyber capabilities. The axis is forming and it is not theoretical. It is operational.
The swarm will not be controlled by human pilots. It will be run by AI. It will not pause. It will not negotiate. It will identify targets. Humans. And it will execute.
This is not science fiction. This is the logical evolution of warfare when democracies fall asleep and authoritarians invest in scale.
And yet, where is the leadership?
Where is Friedrich Merz? Germany still refuses to release Taurus missiles that could sever Russia’s supply lines and cripple its occupation of Crimea. Stop the excuses. Send them.
Where is Alexander De Croo? Belgium is sitting on 250 billion dollars in frozen Russian assets. That is Ukraine’s money. Release it and put it to use saving lives and liberating territory.
Where is Emmanuel Macron? France postures about strategic autonomy while withholding the weapons that could help end this war. Stop talking. Start acting.
Where is Donald Tusk? Poland understands the threat better than anyone, yet still waits for others to lead. Lead.
And where is Keir Starmer? The UK has been a staunch ally but leadership means escalation in defense of freedom, not caution in fear of headlines.
And in the United States? Our own Congress continues to be soft and silent. They hide behind the White House and pretend this is not their responsibility. Newsflash. We are not a dictatorship. We are a republic. Act like it.
It is not the job of one man in the Oval Office to stop Putin. It is the duty of every elected official in the House and Senate who claims to stand for liberty. This is the moment to prove that oath still means something.
The Peace Through Strength Plan lays out the answer. Arm Ukraine decisively. Partner on drone warfare and AI defense. Collapse Russia’s oil revenues through American energy dominance.
It is not complicated. It just takes courage.
But if we fail now, if we stay asleep, stay soft, stay scared, the swarms are coming. And they will not stop at Ukraine.
The next war will not be a trench fight. It will be the sky turning black.
And the machines will not care who hesitated.