Part 1 - what could the US have done differently

The two prescriptions by the author are one - more aid earlier, but they recognize that this wouldn't be any guarantee (read, it wouldn't have really made a difference). The second is this:

Once Russian forces got stuck outside Kyiv in March 2022, Washington might have given Putin an ultimatum: Pull your forces back to where they started or face Western military intervention, led by the United States.

Setting aside the escalatory risk of defacto making ukraine part of NATO, this was not logistically possible. The US did not have forces disposed to execute a land campaign in ukraine. Mobilizing forces does not happen at the drop of a hat. It would have taken US and allies 3 to 6 months to rally a meaningful force to be ready in ukraine. Setting that aside, the end of March 2022 was the best time to negotiate peace, evidenced by the ceasefire/peace treaty that was scuttled by the US/UK. In a parallel universe, if NATO had pushed peace rather than undermining it, this probably would have happened. The threat to both Russia and ukraine of direct US involvement if peace didn't happen would provide even more push to this.

In short, the author of this article suggests only one thing the US could have done differently, and that would have been tacking an ultimatum onto the extant Peace negotiations. Of course, the author doesn't mention these negotiations at all.

Ukraine’s Desperate Hour: The World Needs a Russian Defeat

This article is mostly doom and gloom about the western order. It is generally directionally accurate though with many missing pieces, most notably the deindustrialization of Europe, the proliferation of military industrial capacity and technology transfers between Russia, Iran, and North Korea, and the continued erosion of support for the west in the global south. The article ends with the following:

If the US and its allies can find the fortitude and commitment to see Ukraine through to an acceptable outcome — one that makes it economically viable and militarily defensible — while also ratcheting up the pain Russia suffers for its aggression, the conflict might still have mostly constructive consequences.

In other words, absolutely no lessons learned from the abject failures of 2022-2023, only doubling down on the same maximalist objectives with no strategy to get there. When all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Part 3 - Ukraine’s Desperate Hour: Victory (of a Sort) Is Still Possible

This part is forward looking. The author admits that 2024 is going to be ugly for ukraine as they "can't win a decisive victory in 2024." instead, the author recommends weathering the storm on the ground and seeking victory via pinprick strikes on the black sea navy, Crimea, sabotage in Russia, and seizing Russia's foreign reserves. The article does not mention the difficulties and reluctance of the euros on that, but does question whether such a step would erode the dollar's reserve status.

The final strategy described is the same as 2022/2023 - build a new army so that they can do another counteroffensive in 2025.

The fifth prong, then, involves sustaining Ukraine’s defenses in 2024 while building for a major offensive in 2025. This means new injections of artillery, air defenses, armor and airpower. It requires providing more long-range strike assets — such as US ATACMS and German Taurus missiles — that can help strike Russian targets throughout Ukraine. It also means helping Ukraine train its forces more thoroughly — some were sent into combat last year with just a few weeks of preparation — and to raise its ability to conduct complex offensive operations at scale.

Even with this support, Ukraine probably can’t retake all the territory it has lost since 2014 — or even since February 2022. But such aid will be the minimum requirement of a program to reclaim some lost territory, show that time is not on Russia’s side, and strengthen Ukraine’s hand for an eventual negotiation.

Note that there is literally no discussion of where the materiel, personnel and money for such a 4th (5th?) army might come from, no discussion of industrial capacity, and no discussion of how to build such an army without it being destroyed by kinzhals before it gets to the front. Also, no discussion of what Russia's actual objectives are beyond "being bad & conquering ukraine". The failure to discuss what an enemy's actual objectives and values are means that durable peace is impossible. The only thing that can be conceived of is endless hammering with one's only tool.