We're used to "Beltway Bandits" as a journalistic cliche, referring to the ring road around Washington, DC, which is lined with DC's favorite contractors, such as Unisys, Honeywell, and Booz Allen Hamilton. However "bandits" may not be obvious enough in some circles. Too cartoony. How about the "Beltway Mafia" instead?
The Beltway Mafia is heavily into matters military and needs to keep the flow of weaponry going. The front keeps shifting, from Iraq, to Afghanistan, to Ukraine. The goal is not to fight these countries, but to arm them against their foreign enemies and their internal insurgents. That's called the protection racket, which the Mafia is good at playing. Accept our protection, or else.
Ukraine is especially dependent on the Beltway Mafia for operational support, while the BM is in turn dependent on the US (Uncle Sam). The defense of Ukraine against its internal and external enemies is a high priority of these subcultural icons.
Some Ukrainians at first may have wanted peace with mother Russia, another homeland for many of them. The Beltway Mafia put an end to those pipe dreams early on. A new raison d'être had been found. A goldmine. The new big business inside the beltway would be to "fight to the last Ukrainian".
