There are plenty of theories and speculations as to what motivated someone like Nuland – whose entire professional career seemed to hinge on getting this proxy war on Russia started  – to suddenly pack it in and pull out of the game, mid-inning. Especially as the Biden Administration and its supporters still largely claim (in public) that Ukraine can "win" and in fact is winning (with just one more cash infusion from Washington). Who would walk away when your life's work was just coming to fruition? Does it make any sense?

There are many theories. Let's look at some of them.

First theory: Cashing in. A sober Nuland sees the failure of "Project Ukraine" and wants out before it gets too hot in the APC. The neocons are very good at one thing: distancing themselves from their worst disasters in the most timely of manners. Example: all neocons circa 2006: "I never really believed Iraq had WMDs!"

In fact neocon Senator Marco Rubio just this week said that he'd always known Ukraine couldn't win, but, "tried not talk about this publicly because I thought it undermined the leverage that Ukraine had."

So at age 62 with a second Biden term looking very iffy, is Nuland looking to cash in for all her years in "government service" before her brand is tarnished by another Afghanistan-style collapse in Ukraine? There surely are plenty of think tank sinecures available for the likes of Nuland. The money that most Americans believe goes to protect us in the yearly National Defense Authorization bills, in fact to a grotesque degree goes to the Beltway "think tanks" promoting war – and is thereby used to promote…more military spending!

My old friend Chuck Spinney's "self-licking ice cream cone."