I'm not sure that this is a complete assessment with regards to "western stupidity."
From an American warfighter's stanpoint in the Pentagon, we now have the opportunity to seriously degrade the military capacity of one of our sworn global enemies. We can do so by sending equipment (much of which is older and being mothballed or relegated to training) to Ukraine, to be used without American personnel, and then request appropriations to replace the "donated" material with modern versions. From the Pentagon's viewpoint, this is as close to a win-win situation as can be.
Our military planners are absolutely fighting a proxy war against Russia. But, Russia has no proxy and has real skin in the game. Our government, and possibly Zelensky, are willing to fight to the last Ukranian.
In the end, the Ukrainian people are being murdered by Russia and are being continuously fed into the proverbial grinder by their allies.
"Warfighters in Pentagon" will always have a sworn enemy to "DEFEND OUR FREEDOM" from. Milosevich was trying to take away our freedom, Saddam was trying to take away our freedom, Ho Chi Minh was trying to take away our freedom and so did Kim's of North Korea. "Warfighters in Pentagon" will always push that argument, no matter how delusional it may be. Russia has been trying to be our friend for a few decades, but we need them only as an enemy. They got the message.
Nazi Germany wanted to control only Europe. United States wants to control the world. Both are willing to sacrifice millions of lives. U.S. just has better and more sophisticated PR. Hitler was too honest about it.