Give Trump a Chance? The Biden Administration Says No
Last week marked the 1000th dreary day of the Russo-Ukrainian War. It also saw a new, and disturbing, phase in the conflict.
Specifically, the Biden Administration (not the non compos mentis Biden, of course, but some shadowy cabal of aides) granted permission to Ukraine to utilize Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMs) to attack targets on some Russian territory, specifically Kursk oblast and environs. In response, the Russians launched a nuclear capable experimental intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) into Ukraine: the missile was topped with six non-nuclear (and in fact non-explosive) warheads.
In many respects the western response to Russia’s launch was overwrought. It was obviously a signal of escalation dominance that reminded me of Crocodile Dundee and the knife:
“That’s not a missile. That’s a missile.” I see your tactical missile and raise you a ballistic missile. I call.
Regardless of the merits of unleashing the ATACMs (which I will discuss below) it was utterly irresponsible for a lame duck administration to do so. It will not have to deal with the consequences. The incoming Trump administration will. And it can only complicate Trump’s already daunting task in Ukraine. Given how clearly disruptive this move was, it could only have been undertaken with malign intent. An “if we can’t rule, nobody will,” spiteful decision.
Regarding the merits. On the one hand ATACMs do not represent a substantial escalation: Ukraine has for months launched attacks on Russia using drones, and on soil Russia has claimed its own (notably Crimea) using various western-made cruise missiles. However, and ironically, by previously pointedly refusing to permit the use of ATACMs on targets in Russia the administration effectively deferred to Putin’s declaration that doing so would cross a red line. Thus, the volte face can only be interpreted as a deliberate flouting of said line, and therefore a deliberate escalation.
And for what? ATACMs, especially in the limited numbers that the US has supplied to Ukraine, cannot have a decisive effect on the war. (Nor can Storm Shadows, or SCALPs, or Taureses, or JASSMs). At most they can disrupt to some degree Russian logistics (e.g., by blowing up munitions depots) or command and control (by striking headquarters). (The fact that the administration made this argument to justify its previous denial of permission for using ATACMs in Russia demonstrates that it recent reversal was an act of spite rather than a reasoned military judgment).
But Ukraine’s military problems so fundamental that inconveniencing Russian operations in these ways will not be decisive.
Ukraine’s first fundamental problem is manpower. Yes, Russia is suffering far larger casualties, but the bloody minded Putin has shown his willingness to tolerate them, and Russia can absorb them far more readily than Ukraine.
Ukraine’s second fundamental problem is air defense, which has both a tactical and a strategic dimension. Tactically, after almost two years of complete ineffectualness, the Russian air forces finally found a way to influence the battle zone by dropping large numbers of FAB glide bombs (some weighing 3 metric tons) on Ukrainian positions from beyond the range of Ukrainian air defenses. Yes, ATACMs can be used to strike the airfields hosting the SU-34s that drop the bombs, thereby forcing the Russians to base them further away and reducing the number of sorties they can launch, but this effect is at the margins. Strategically, through drones and missiles (like iskander, which is more capable than ATACMs) Russia has devastated Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Whether Ukraine can survive another winter of concerted attacks on its power grid is debatable.
Zelensky has been screaming for more anti-aircraft missile systems (especially Patriots) and some have been forthcoming, especially from Europe. But the need far outstrips the capacity of the US to provide more.
Ukraine’s third fundamental problem is its military command, starting with Zelensky himself, his military chief Syrski, and his general staff (“GenStabU”). The excellent Sarcastosaurous substack is the go to source on this, but its critique is echoed by Ukrainian troops that bear the consequences of the command’s incompetence.
The problems are myriad. The underlying problem is that old Soviet habits die hard. Most notably, command is overly centralized, leading to slow responses to battlefield crises, and a shocking indifference to information coming from those on the front lines.
The centralization has also led to an extremely defective organizational structure. The Ukrainian army has brigades which control battalions, but it has no divisions that control brigades, or corps that control divisions.
Supposedly because divisions are too expensive. Getting brigades and battalions destroyed due to command and control problems isn’t?
The lack of divisions leads to poor coordination between adjacent brigades, and the Russians have learned to exploit these seams. (Seams between units are always a vulnerability. Multiplying the seams multiplies the vulnerabilities). Moreover, Syrski et al control the brigades and even battalions directly, and shuttle them around willy-nilly in response to the latest front line crisis. This has created numerous opportunities that the Russians have exploited, for example by attacking when a new unit is shuffled into line without adequate preparation, or by putting units with no communication channels next to one another, making coordinated response to Russian attacks almost impossible.
When you see reports of this brigade or that being in some place, it is often not an intact brigade, but just a few battalions (and sometimes only one) from that brigade. Meaning that Ukrainian lines are held by jumbles of units controlled (or pretended to be controlled) by generals in Kyiv with minimal operational awareness. It makes the (often exaggerated) Chateau Generalship of World War I look good by comparison.
The Ukrainian command has also exhibited at times a Hitleresque (or Stalinesque) tendency to demand that units fight to the last and not withdraw when caught in an untenable situation, leading to pointless casualties (including the loss of prisoners who are executed by the Russians). This is particularly disastrous when manpower is in precious short supply–as it is.
Ukraine’s only saving grace is that Russian command is even more incompetent. The difference is that Russia has the material resources to compensate for this incompetence. Ukraine does not.
Ukraine has also made some incomprehensible decisions on how to allocate its scarce resource. Most notably, despite the demonstrated effectiveness of the Russian prepared defenses (and in particular the use of heavy minefields) in stopping the much vaunted but failed Ukrainian counteroffensive of 2023 (the Surovkin Line), time and again Ukraine has failed to fortify obvious targets of Russian offensives.
So as it is, Ukraine is barely hanging on. It’s not losing yet, but it certainly is not winning. And definitely not by Zelensky’s definition of victory: regaining all occupied Ukrainian territory. That is the pipe dream to end all pipe dreams.
Yet he insists on it.
The situation now is that both sides need an end to the fighting, but neither is willing to acknowledge it. Ukraine’s dire circumstances are evident, and although Russia’s aren’t quite so dire, they are bad, and the cost Russia is incurring is certainly not worth the possible gain–adding another string of shitholes to Putin’s collection. Eastern Ukraine was a shithole before Russia invaded: now it is a depopulated shithole buried under rubble.
And the economic consequences for Russia have been baleful. Speaking of rubble, that describes the ruble now: it is now worth less than a penny. Official Russian statistics tout the strength of the Russian economy, but it is a war economy. Shoveling massive resources to the military, to be blown up in Ukraine, props up GDP, but people don’t consume aggregates. The economic circumstances of Russians have degraded substantially in the past 1000 days, and will only degrade more every additional day the war goes on. The Portuguese living standards that Putin once promised are a bad joke now.
Neither side can achieve victory as they have defined it. Heretofore neither side has been willing to acknowledge that.
Trump has boasted that he will end the war. Given the intransigence of the parties, this boast seems unrealistic. But perhaps he can exploit the fact that neither side gains from continuing the war to to cobble together something resembling peace.
The most likely path: another frozen conflict in which Putin will get de facto control of what he has grabbed in the past two plus years.
The biggest obstacle to this outcome is Zelensky. I think he is genuinely dead set (emphasis on the dead) on driving the Russians from Ukrainian territory. But that is a delusion.
Zelensky, apparently not realizing that he who pays the piper calls the tune, has demanded that the west supply the resources to achieve his objective. For one thing, such resources don’t exist, and meeting even a fraction of Zelensky’s demands would denude the US’s already scanty stocks of missiles and shells. The US has more pressing concerns than eastern Europe: eastern Asia in particular. Moreover, the real binding constraint on Zelensky’s ambitions is not hardware but meatware. Ukraine has too few soldiers, a large fraction of its military-age population is unwilling to serve, and it is even more of a demographic basket case than Russia.
In brief, Zelensky played a vital role at the outset of the war, and his conduct then was exemplary. But it has quite clearly gone to his head, and he is now a delusional autocrat who is an existential threat to the people he claims to represent. Not to mention a military incompetent (as discussed above).
The establishments in the United States and Europe inveigh against a settlement that leaves Putin in control of even a sliver of Ukraine. They invoke the ghost of Munich, and claim that Putin will use the respite to rearm and will then set his sights on Nato’s eastern flank.
As if. If this war has shown anything, it has shown that Russia’s ability to project conventional military power beyond its borders is virtually non-existent. Further, the army that went into Ukraine was supposedly the product of serious reforms that addressed the flaws exposed in Georgia in 2008. In the event, it wasn’t. Given the systemic defects of the Russian system (of which corruption in the military is just one symptom) any future “reforms” are almost certain to be as tragicomic as the previous ones.
And how long would they take? Years. The establishments obsess on Putin, who is already 72. He will be well past his sell by date (especially by Russian male standards) by the time his allegedly reformed military will be capable of doing anything. And that is time that the Europeans can use to put on their big boy lederhosen and pantalons and create something other than Potemkin militaries that Putin (or more likely his successor) would be unwilling to confront.
That is, deterrence of Russia is completely in European hands. And if they decide to forego it, that’s their choice and their problem.
So Trump has a chance to realize his boast by negotiating (a la Teddy Roosevelt perhaps) an outcome that satisfies no one. But war is politics by other means, and politics is the art of the possible. The dreams of Putin, Zelensky, and the establishment are impossible. If Trump can get them to accept that, an imperfect peace is possible. And an imperfect peace is far preferable to the current nightmare.
The biggest challenge to achieving this is making it clear to Putin that he cannot prevail. Abandoning Ukraine altogether now would undermine that. So, rhetoric and I think genuine belief notwithstanding, to get his peace Trump will have to hold his nose and continue to fund Ukraine to some extent. The delicate balance to be found is between providing enough support to persuade Putin that continuing the war is futile, but not so much as to refill Zelensky’s pipe of dreams.
The acts of the dying Biden administration are certainly no help. The road to a settlement is torturous enough as it is without its malign actions.
Give Trump a chance. The odds are against him, given the characters involved in the conflict. But the Biden administration seems hell bent on stacking the odds against him and denying him–and hence those dying in Ukraine–that chance.
I think Zelensky understand quite well he cannot liberate the occupied territories. It is all about internal Ukrainian politics. He want to show to the Ukrainian popuilation that he was forced to stop fighting. I am native Russian speaker, read and understand Ukrainian. The level of BS in Ukrainian mass media is unbeliavable. Probably only Russian media is worse.
Comment by Yan Naroditsky — November 26, 2024 @ 2:13 pm
+++The level of BS in Ukrainian mass media is unbeliavable. Probably only Russian media is worse.++
I can confirm it, this is a fair description.
Comment by LL — November 26, 2024 @ 3:36 pm
Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov: The situation on the battlefield indicates that diplomatic settlement regarding Ukraine is still far away.
(TASS)
MOSCOW, Nov 26 (Reuters) – Russia opposes simply freezing the conflict in Ukraine because Moscow needs a “solid and long-term peace” that resolves the core reasons for the crisis, President Vladimir Putin’s foreign intelligence chief said on Tuesday.
Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), said that Russia had the initiative on the battlefield.
Naryshkin said Russia was categorically opposed to the “freezing of the conflict”, adding that Russia wanted a long-term peace. Russia is open for talks, Naryshkin said.
Trump has his work cut for him.
Comment by LL — November 26, 2024 @ 3:39 pm
What a godawful mess.
‘Zelensky has been screaming for more anti-aircraft missile systems (especially Patriots) and some have been forthcoming, especially from Europe. But the need far outstrips the capacity of the US to provide more.’
I sincerely hope ‘someone’ in the Trump team is looking at this. I suspect Elon’s time would at the moment be better spent getting US munitions production up to speed and scale, and possibly automating the entire production line; but if via DOGE he can find out where the approx. $700 billion in annual defence spending is being wasted, and fix that, directing it towards actual fighting readiness, then he will again have proven himself to be worth his weight in bitcoin.
I’ve given up on the euros, including the Brits. The only explanation I have for their behaviour – squaring up to Putin while actively deindustrialising, demoralising their young men, and cutting their defence budgets – is a sort of collective senility. Either that, or one of those brain-infecting parasites, e.g. toxoplasmosis gondii, that causes the animal to draw itself to the attention of, and thus make it vulnerable to, predators.
Comment by Ex-Global Super-Regulator on Lunch Break — November 26, 2024 @ 8:04 pm
The basis for not achieving a settlement to this crisis is that “giving” in to Putin is appeasement and exposes the rest of Europe to Russian advances. But this was ridiculous BEFORE this conflict and is pathetic now.
With proper operational planning the Russians had a chance to destroy Ukraine. But their operational plan was idiotic (Stalin would have been busy executing the planners of this operation). Instead of concentrating their mobile forces, logistic capacity, and air power on a decisive attack on the western side of the Dnipro River encircling Kyiv, they spread their forces across 2500 km of front, weakly attacking everywhere without adequate logistical or air support. This was a mistake the Russians could never recover to win a decisive victory but Ukraine weakness allowed the Russians to reorientate and take the fight to eastern border oblasts they wished to acquire.
Essentially this is a stalemate akin to the 38th parallel of the Korean War. Both sides tried to launch offensives that could shift the stalemate in their favor, but could never maintain their gains. IN this case, a small factor of “victory” should go to the Russians because it is clear they have more ability to withstand the attrition of this war.
The Russians will achieve their lowest strategic goal: creating a land bridge to Crimea. But the area they will obtain is devastated, thousands of lives have been destroyed and the only way to recover is long term reintegration into the world economy.
Comment by MARK — November 26, 2024 @ 9:58 pm
“Russia is suffering far larger casualties” – any evidence for that statement except for MSM lies? Ever heard about the role of artillery in the modern warfare?
“the ruble now: it is now worth less than a penny”- you seem to be happy about that (again). Could you please take a look at USD/JPY rate and give us your thoughts?
Comment by a.russian — November 27, 2024 @ 1:48 am
I fail to see exactly how taking out a few Russian airfields and ammunition depots can be bad for anyone. You think Putin will be more belligerent not having them vs. having them? Also that’s somewhat fewer Russian FABs hitting that insufficient Ukrainian manpower, making it less insufficient, isn’t it? Whatever the bad reasoning behind allowing ATACMS strikes that late, it’s still better than not allowing them.
And given the state of the Russian economy, perhaps the Russian version of Dundee should be wielding his own sharpened tibia for the movie clip to be closer to reality. Clearly dangerous, but there are other aspects.
Comment by Ivan — November 27, 2024 @ 8:16 am
In WWI there was an occasion when Germany wanted to discuss a peace. As I understand it (no expert) it made a couple of conditions that were to be non-negotiable. One was that Germany would get to keep Belgium. So no go, there, then. People who want to put on a performance of seeking peace, or at least an indefinite truce, can probably play such games for years.
In this case any demand that Russia return the Crimea to Ukraine would be mere performance.
Comment by dearieme — November 28, 2024 @ 9:09 am
What happened to the Australians? Bring back the clan of Dundee!
Comment by Pat Frank — November 28, 2024 @ 12:04 pm
It is true that Putler has rubble-ized Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine
In doing so, Putler has cut off Ukrainian commercial ports and shipping via the sea of Azov.
This is trench warfare with drones, missiles, and the standard sovok mining of vast areas, as the Kremlinoids have done previously all over the world.
But still, the Ukrainians hang on, and have inflicted massive casualties on the cannon fodder – and weapons – thrown at them by Putler and his Kremlinoids.
And, as you point out, the West has had a chance to see and evaluate some of its weapons in action.
But there is one more thing, SWP – coal, natural gas, lithium and other resources in eastern Ukraine.
Putler started transporting factories from eastern Ukraine in 2018, and even earlier, when a couple of guys sat down on couches in front of video cameras in 2014, and declared themselves to be the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic.
But even back then, there were white trucks labeled Gruz 200 – Cargo 200 – the military identifier for transportation of dead bodies from the battlefield – going back to Rasha.
Putler can’t get to the resources right now because he has rubble-ized all access to it.
And – there are now quite a few countries in Europe that have finally realized that Putler will not stop in Ukraine, and they have taken appropriate steps in response.
Also – Putler has blown up one of his own palaces after it was identified as his by the opposition – so as to “avoid being a target.”
Good.
Regardless of what you think of Ukraine’s military, noone else in NATO has the battlefield experience that Ukraine has – and they have hung on.
Had the Brandon (and Obummber) administrations provided appropriate aid early on (instead of MRE’s and blankets), Ukraine would have already prevailed. So be it – water under the bridge.
Better late than never.
Finally – the ICC should have indicted Putler, not Netanyahu.
Comment by elmer — November 28, 2024 @ 3:38 pm
I sense a theme in both military and economic posts around the trend toward decentralization
Comment by Jeff Carter (@pointsnfigures1) — November 28, 2024 @ 7:47 pm
This is somewhat delusional. You say that Trump must continue to fund Ukraine. It’s easy from your armchair to say that tens of thousands of people must continue to fight and be killed. The Art of the Deal Man must demand an immediate cessation of hostilities and back it up by telling Mad Vlad #2 Zelensky that the plug has been pulled. Trump is not a warbird. His first term proved that. Callous theorists are happy to see blood being shed to teach Putin a supposed lesson, which Mad Vlad #1 appears to have learned by now and wants to get out of this while he still has some face remaining. Trump wants the dying to stop NOW. Yes it’s not Americans so who really cares…
Comment by Michael van der Riet — November 28, 2024 @ 11:19 pm
One more thing, SWP
Putler and his Kremlinoids have never – I repeat, never – abided by any agreement they have signed.
Starting well before the Budapest Memorandum of 1994.
For the Rashan Federation, agreements are simply things to be broken.
That is the Kremlinoid “art of the deal.”
Comment by elmer — November 29, 2024 @ 8:13 am
I offer a 28 minute commentary video with Prof. Mark Galeotti, who is extremely well qualified to comment on Putler’s “special operation” in Ukraine, to “de-nazify” Ukraine, which has now morphed into a “war on Europe”, in Putler’s mind.
Putler is now targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure – the idea being to freeze Ukraine into submission.
In the meantime – the Rashan ruble has turned into rubble.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0php0mtXOek
Comment by elmer — November 29, 2024 @ 9:54 am
I think Biden is making a late push to avoid the nicely alliterative “Biden the bungler” judgement of history. Sadly, it’s probably the correct one at this point. It seems pretty clear that the administration thought they were oh-so-clever by gradually ramping up aid to the Ukrainians – the brilliant approach of self-imposing arbitrary red lines on one’s own support for one’s ally.
Of course, this brilliant approach under resourced the Ukrainians, wasting tens of thousands of lives by gradualism – when they ended up giving the Ukrainians what they had asked for eventually anyway. More seriously – the administration seemed not to understand this was going to be a war of attrition, even though that was fairly obvious, fairly quickly that yes, Russia was going to stay the course regardless of the death toll. A war of attrition where Ukraine couldn’t seriously target Russian soil to degrade Russian capabilities has a 99.999% win rate for Russia. Obviously, a few missiles into Russia isn’t going to change that to even odds, but every bit counts and there never really seemed any particular reason why Biden drew that arbitrary redline.
Stepping back, I think Team Biden kept hoping “any day now, Putin has to come to his senses and realize this is a tragic waste” and never really developed any strategic plan. Hence, Biden the bungler. History may come to the not unreasonable conclusion that an 80-something year old man well past his prime simply lacked the vision and leadership to handle the vicissitudes of office.
More seriously – it’s clear the West’s industrial base is a joke. I’m not sure USA 2024 could defeat USA 1944 in a conflict. I don’t see how it’s not a question of “when” not “if” China decides to take Taiwan and there doesn’t seem to be a damn thing the US can do. Any real war between the US and China would be one of industrial scale attrition and the US couldn’t keep up. A “pivot” to Asia would just add to the humiliation – better to lose Taiwan while “focused elsewhere”.
Comment by Fun while it lasted — November 29, 2024 @ 5:42 pm
The ICC should have indicted Putler instead of Netanyahu
Keeping the lights on:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/meet-energy-workers-battling-keep-lights-ukraine-2024-11-29/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_campaign=Daily-Briefing&utm_term=112924&lctg=6322a28cf3befb806e0cd48d
Comment by elmer — November 30, 2024 @ 9:58 am
How Biden Made a Mess of Ukraine
He treated the conflict as a crisis to be managed, not a war to be won.
By Phillips Payson O’Brien
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/11/biden-ukraine-policy-failures/680834/
Joe Biden filled his administration with geniuses: Rhodes scholars; Ivy Leaguegraduates; people with extensive global experience; a national security adviser, JakeSullivan, whom the president has described as a “once-in-a-generation intellect.” Thepresident himself has been immersed in foreign policy for half a century. Yet despite all of those impressive résumés, the Biden administration has badly mishandled the war in Ukraine, not only hampering a beleaguered ally’s ability to fend off a Russianinvasion but also throwing away a remarkable chance to improve America’s global standing and democratic powers’ position in the world.
In defending themselves far more effectively than expected, the Ukrainians showed a capacity to deal Russian President Vladimir Putin a major military defeat, but again and again, Biden and his experts have constrained Ukraine’s ability to fight until it was too late. Just recently, only after his party lost the presidential election, Bidenfinally gave Ukraine the tightly limited ability to use American weapons on military targets in a small part of Russia. The president’s decision comes after 33 months of
war, during which Russia has launched long-range attacks anywhere in Ukraine it wanted, in many cases using Iranian-made weaponry.
Biden has promised the Ukrainians that he will stand by them “for as long as ittakes”—but he has nevertheless made sure that the war has gone on much longer than it had to.
Nataliya Gumenyuk: I’ve watched America and Ukraine switch places
Nearly three years in, the conflict is becoming ever more grotesque, and the number of war crimes keeps rising. The conflict has also become more global in nature, asRussia, by economic and military necessity, deepens its alliances with China, Iran, andNorth Korea. When Putin was gathering his invasion force in late 2021 and early2022, the United States had good intelligence and tried to warn Ukraine aboutRussia’s plans. A far harder call was what would happen when an invasion began, and in that respect, the Biden administration didn’t understand what it was looking at.U.S. officials assumed that if Putin went ahead with his plans, Ukraine would stand no chance and the Russians would prevail in short order. Stung by the disastrousAmerican withdrawal from Afghanistan just months earlier, Biden reacted to the new crisis with self-pity: According to the journalist Bob Woodward’s new book,War, the president complained, “Jesus Christ! Now I’ve got to deal with Russia swallowing Ukraine?”
In fact, the United States had greatly overestimated Russian might. Instead of unleashing shock and awe, Putin’s military was a shoddy instrument. It had ample firepower but was also hindered by corruption, uneven morale, command-and-control shortcomings, and logistical problems. Meanwhile, the Ukrainians showed themselves to be far more resilient, adaptable, and willing to fight than the Biden administration had understood. At that point, the U.S. could have capitalized immensely on theUkrainians’ spirited resistance and on Russian weakness.
I struggle to think of another time when unexpected events offered a U.S.president more favorable conditions to remake the geopolitical landscape. For years, American strategists have discussed reorienting U.S. military forces away from Europe, where they serve primarily to guard democratic nations againstMoscow’s military aggression, and toward the Indo-Pacific region in order to deter afast-growing China. If the U.S. had helped Ukraine win in 2022—which is to say, liberate its own internationally recognized territory—and then joinNATO, it would also have protected the security of countries to Ukraine’s west.The presence of a militarily powerfulUkraine in NATO would have moved the balance of forces within Europe decisively in favor of democratic nations and restored global confidence in American leadership, which the Afghanistan debacle had undermined. The United States could then have drawn down its military footprint inEurope and focused its energies on Asia. The world would have been much safer and stabler.
However bold the president’s promises to stand by the Ukrainians, though, his administration seemed cowed by Russian threats that Putin would use nuclear weapons if the U.S. assisted Kyiv too much. Moreover, an ingrained fixation on seeking stability in Russia seemed to make the White House nervous about doing anything that would threaten Putin’s rule too much or yield chaos in Russia. In a Foreign Affairs essay last fall, Sullivan boasted multiple times that the Bidenadministration was helping Ukraine defend itself. The problem is that defensive tactics alone will never be sufficient to allow Ukrainians to defeat an invasion by amuch larger power.
Even so, Biden and his aides pursued a Goldilocks strategy, hoping to help Ukraine fight without provoking Putin too much. They provided very limited types of military equipment to Ukraine and even then made sure to restrict what Ukraine could do with it. At first, the Biden administration seemed terrified to give Ukraine anything that could hit more than 30 miles or so from the front lines—so the U.S. supplied only short-range weaponry. It certainly didn’t want Ukraine to be able to targetRussian military assets in Crimea, which is internationally recognized as part ofUkraine and has been illegally occupied by Russia since 2014.
Anne Applebaum: Putin isn’t fighting for land in Ukraine
So for the rest of 2022, when Russia’s initial invasion faltered and then went into reverse, Ukraine was deprived of any ability to hit Russian targets far in the rear, even if those targets were within Ukraine’s own territory. And the battlefield results that followed were predictable. Although Ukraine made some deep advances in the fall,the Russians were always able to recover, having a broad sanctuary where they could regroup and supply their forces.
That was the start of the Biden administration forcing Ukraine to fight in a way that the United States would never contemplate for itself. When Kyiv sought longer-range weapons systems in 2022 and early 2023, the Biden administration at first refused,citing Putin’s supposed willingness to use nuclear weapons. The possibility of nuclear escalation was regularly repeated when Ukrainians sought access to other Western weapons systems, including ATACMS missiles, Abrams main battle tanks, F-16fighters, and more.
When the U.S. eventually got over its reservations and provided the requested systems, albeit in limited numbers, Putin always backed down. The standard Russianstrategy was to downplay the arrival of the new equipment and go out of its way to assure the Russian public that it would make no difference in the war. And in fact,those Western weapons had significantly less impact than they would have if the U.S.had transferred them earlier and in greater quantity.
An inability to learn became a major, repeated failure of the Biden administration’s overall strategy toward Ukraine. Extreme caution about provoking Putin was perhaps understandable in early 2022. American defense planners had for years played numerous wargames that resulted in nuclear weapons being used if some imaginedRussian redline was crossed. Both Woodward and The New York Times have reported that, as Ukraine was taking back territory in the fall of 2022, the Bidenadministration believed—based on intelligence that likely will never become public—that there was a 50 percent chance that Putin would use nuclear bombs. Even so, the administration should have adjusted its thinking after Russia’s military weakness and its tendency to bluff on nuclear matters became clear.
Russia has adjusted its tactics and is trying to win. It has used Iranian drones,retrofitted with thermobaric weapons, to burn Ukrainian civilians alive; it’s in the process of deploying 10,000 North Korean troops to do its fighting, while sacrificing its own soldiers at a rate reaching 45,000 injuries and deaths a month. (The Britishgovernment estimates total Russian casualties at about 700,000.) The Bidenadministration, meanwhile, is tying itself in knots deciding whether to allow Ukraine to attack military targets of great strategic value with weapons designed to do just that.
In practice, the Biden administration has treated the Ukraine conflict like a crisis to be managed, not a war to be won. The administration doesn’t seem to understand that Russia can be beaten.
For all of their caution, Biden and his foreign-policy experts have been caught unaware more than once—by the chaos surrounding the U.S. withdrawal fromAfghanistan
in 2021, and even more strikingly by the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. The latter event occurred a week after Sullivan
pronounced the Middle East “quieter today than it has been in two decades.” (He used similar language in the
print version of his Foreign Affairs essay, which was
revised before publication online.)
Unfortunately, the administration seems to have been just as surprised by Ukraine’s ability to resist Russian aggression—and lacked the wisdom and imagination to take advantage of the situation for Ukraine’s benefit and America’s.
The war has now gone on so long that Biden won’t figure in its ending. Ukrainianscan still fight on with Europe’s help. Perhaps President-Elect Donald Trump will confound his allies and detractors alike by standing with Ukraine instead of indulgingPutin. What’s clear is that Biden missed the moment. The administration has dithered, looking more and more powerless as Ukraine has suffered and as an emergent anti-Western alliance that includes Iran, North Korea, and China has come to Russia’s aid. Biden could have helped create a better, more secure world than the one that existed in February 2022. Instead, he’s ushered in a much more dangerous one.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Phillips Payson O’Brien
is a professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews,in Scotland. He is the author of The Strategists: Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, Mussolini, andHitler—How War Made Them, and How They Made War
Comment by elmer — November 30, 2024 @ 4:56 pm
“Joe Biden filled his administration with geniuses”. Forgive me if I repeat myself but I sometimes think there are Americans who think that “genius” = the brightest boy at my high school.
“The president himself has been immersed in foreign policy for half a century”: ha, ha. Even when he was compos mentis he was a dim and vain buffoon, a weathervane of a man, with the weakest of attachments to the truth.
Comment by dearieme — December 1, 2024 @ 11:11 am
dearieme
as they said on the British TV program – “I can’t possibly comment”
but I think they were trying to be polite in the articles
Comment by elmer — December 1, 2024 @ 2:05 pm
@Elmer, I think you’re right – I’d missed the point that the author was being sarcastic with “geniuses”.
I can believe that an intelligent, shrewd chap like Nixon could work with a very intelligent chap like Kissinger.
But the idea that Joe Biden could work with a “once-in-a-generation intellect” strikes me as risible.
Comment by dearieme — December 2, 2024 @ 3:11 pm
@dearieme
“I couldn’t possibly comment” 🙂
Comment by elmer — December 2, 2024 @ 5:17 pm
@MARK. I agree. The Russian offensive in 2022 was farcical, and they haven’t improved much since.
It appears that it was mainly the result of massive overconfidence. Sort of like the Austrians invading Serbia in 1914. Ironically, the biggest favor the west may have done for Ukraine is to buy into the idea of the Russian military juggernaut: that no doubt went to Putin’s head.
I mentioned the Korea analog in 2022. It’s even more apt today.
Interestingly, it took the inauguration of a new president (Eisenhower) to implement an armistice that stopped the futility and froze the conflict.
Comment by cpirrong — December 7, 2024 @ 4:04 pm
@Pat Frank. The world wonders. It seems that the jailer mindset won out in the end.
Comment by cpirrong — December 7, 2024 @ 4:06 pm