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Our Cowardly Handling of Ukraine Could Come Back to Bite Us
If America has learned anything from foreign entanglements over the past century, surely it is this: enemy conflicts must be engaged only if our vital interests are at stake. A war worth fighting must have clear objectives and a path to victory.
Clearly in WWII, all options save winning were unthinkable. We did win and the modern classical liberal order was created.
We had no such resolve in Vietnam. Worried about riling China and with growing domestic programs to fund, we fought not to win but for containment and so lost to a determined foe. America was humiliated, forfeiting immense blood and treasure as well as our national self-confidence.
Meanwhile, the Cold War spanned 45 fretful years during which the world became more dangerous. Neither side could afford to fall behind in the nuclear arms race when Mutually Assured Destruction was our defense against annihilation.
Ronald Reagan’s idea of actually defeating the Evil Empire turned the tide. Massive arms superiority and strategic defense weaponry convinced the Soviets that future efforts were futile.
The Middle East wars were fought without particular strategic goals and no endgame. We seem to believe we could mitigate Islamist terrorism through nation-building and intervention in centuries-old intertribal conflicts. We finally beat a disgraceful retreat with little to show for our losses.
Yet these lessons of history seem lost on our current administration’s response in Ukraine. We don’t want our proxy, Ukraine, to lose but we’re not committed to winning either.
The heroic Ukrainians have fought to a virtual standoff. Yet, as a result of our indecisiveness, the outcome remains in doubt.
The seminal question was: why get involved at all? Is the Russian aggression basically a regional dustup, like our Middle East debacle? Or does a hegemonically ambitious autocrat represent an existential threat, analogous to the prelude to WW II?
Most Americans seem to realize this conflict has implications beyond the ancient Russian/Ukrainian grudges. If Russia successfully breaches Ukrainian sovereignty, it will be the end of the international rules based order that has sustained general peace and prosperity since WWII. Moreover, if nuclear weapons or their threat are decisive, it will embolden rogue states everywhere, including China and Iran.
President Zelensky has pleaded many times for faster delivery of air defenses and anti-missile systems. Yet our aid to Ukraine has been halting and inadequate. Not until late April did the Biden administration announce it would ship 90 desperately needed howitzers.
When the US finally decided to provide Ukraine with MLR (multiple launch rocket) systems, to defend against Russia’s unremitting air attacks,
only MLRs with a 70 km range, not the 300 km range necessary to reach Russian targets, were provided.
Too little, too late. Ukraine’s foreign minister lamented that if Ukraine had received more weapons earlier the situation today would be “much different… much better.”
Meanwhile, the unimaginable human toll, the death and destruction of Ukraine, continues to mount. Last month, the UN development agency announce that if the war continues, an astounding 90% of Ukrainians would be at or below poverty levels.
According to the UN refugee agency, 13 million people have been displaced, which has serious political and military consequences. When Ukrainians are scattered, it makes unity more difficult and Russian control easier. A hollowed-out Ukraine also enables Russia to take more Ukrainian territory at war’s end.
US hesitation to provide more robust help to Ukraine is based on the fear of escalation and possible nuclear war with Russia. Some have urged Ukraine into an armistice that involves territorial concessions.
But that wouldn’t stop the bear. Instead, it would incentivize further military incursions. Over-caution could actually increase the possibility of escalation.
Biden and NATO have repeatedly ruled out direct military involvement and nuclear deployment without getting any concessions in return. Our weakness sends a message to Russia and other aggressors that threatening nuclear weapons works to soften western resistance.
The free world must decide what it stands for and how to meet this moment. If we don’t thwart Russian ambitions now, it will likely get more dangerous in the future. Ukraine, for their survival and ours, deserves protection now.
Published in Foreign Policy, Military
Indeed. You can get away with that as a global hegemon if you behave as a global hegemon. What you can’t do is get away with that if you are going to behave as a chump. Biden is all chump all the time. Also while you can get away with it as a global hegemon, you shouldn’t because all you are doing is setting up a resentment which will be exploited by your competition.
Now this is an interesting development.
Ukraine urges Canada not to hand over gas turbine to Russia
Today, the Germans begged Canada to return the gas turbine in order to prevent a catastrophic gas shortage in Germany.
In other words, Ukraine wishes Germany to continue cutting power, rationing energy, go dark, in order to maintain the sanctions that aren’t working and have only made Russia wealthier anyway.
Someone really didn’t think this through.
Fascinating how the leaders of nations show their commitment to the Green Religion by making their people suffer.
You must suffer for Zelenskyy!
Just lie back and think of Ukraine.
Tom Patterson : “A war worth fighting must have clear objectives and a path to victory.”
Hmmm… Exactly what are our clear objectives? What now is our path to victory?
The Obama Administration, the Biden Crime Family, our corrupt State Department and our incredibly corrupt CIA have so thoroughly muddled the situation in Ukraine it is very difficult to know who are the good guys in this situation. We clearly though our agents been involved in some very dirty business in Ukraine , and the Biden Crime Family, along with some often very favored special interests, have been clearly been in the thick of it profiteering on the back of our government involvement.
While yes Russia has had some dubious conquests in Ossetia and Crimea in the past, in this case there seems to be at least some serious questions about what was happening in the ethnic Russian provinces and how ethnic Russians were treated as well as our involvement in the 2014 election.
And in the end, any investigation of our involvement, and any honest report of what exactly has been happening has been so thoroughly stonewalled by our government with the help of our media that is almost impossible for the American public to clearly understand exactly what our “objectives” should be, and surely one could not believe the pronouncements of our Supreme Leader Traitor Joe with his complicity in the corruption of Ukraine .
But when we as citizens raise questions about our involvement all we get as Drew says are “all you get are snide insults about being a Putin-lover or a Chamberlain-like appeaser or something. (We will never run out of WWII analogs it seems.)”
Tom: The free world must decide what it stands for and how to meet this moment.
Excuse me, but does that mean what we want for all the world is for all governments to be a Neo-Nazi Corrupt regime that quashes dissent, arrests the opposition, seizes assets at will and shells it’s own citizens like this Ukrainian government did in the Ukraine?
But then back to the clear “path of victory ” issue . What on earth would that mean in the Ukraine? Even at the beginning of the war there was an uprising in the Donblas that had to be dealt with, but now the Russians have consolidated their “Land Bridge” to Crimea and likely will soon semi-annex that territory. So now are we to attack Russia directly, which of course there have been reports that Ukraine has done that already? Short of all out nuclear war, how are we to attack Russia’s position?
The fact of the matter is that from the very beginning strategically speaking there never was a clear “path to victory” in the Ukraine, but Traitor Joe just had to provoke this war from the very beginning of his Administration, a war that in the end likely will permanently disrupt the supply of food and energy to the entire world. Gee Thanks Traitor Joe!
These have seldom been clearer. Get Russia out of Ukraine so that Ukraine can continue independent. The path is through arming and supporting Ukraine.
Please define “Ukraine”.
How did Biden provoke this war? The thoughts on this are becoming increasingly bizarre.
The country whose internationally-recognized borders were established at the time of the fall of the Soviet Union.
Through weakness. By making the invasion by Russia thinkable.
By constantly assuring the Ukrainians he had their back, maneuvering them into a position of intransigence, and refusing to consider the Minsk Accords. The Ukrainians were shelling and killing vivilians in Donbass since 2014.
I agree that Biden is incredibly weak, and little deterrent to China and Russia, but that is not the same thing as “provoking Russia to invade a country.” It is instead “standing by cowardly.”
I don’t buy that. I’ve heard it from Zafar and a few others but when I checked into the facts, it was more like they were defending themselves against a Russian invasion. It was either Ukrainian rebels or Russians in Donbass, that shot down a Malaysian jetliner killing all 298 aboard in 2014.
There are videos of it. Patrick Lancaster has been publishing them since 2014 when he moved there.
Then how come you haven’t posted them?
Now that’s aggressive…and probably the right answer.
Now, how much “arming and supporting” are you prepared to provide to return to 2021 borders? Then pre-2014 borders? Any other territories before that that need to be reclaimed?
(It may be worth remembering that ~15% of all “supporting” dollars are earmarked to be channeled back to elected DC critters via business ventures and campaign funds and 50% of what remains will be lost to internal Ukrainian corruption. But, hey, all for a good cause…?)
That’s why the Big Z is demanding $750 billion. He knows he’ll only see a small portion of that.
If recent history is our guide, Pelosi will round that off to $1250 billion and it will be passed without anyone reading or debating any of it. Clearly, it would be cowardly not to do so.
You may have some wrong information. Obama and Biden were trying to push Ukraine into the Minsk accords ever since the Russians started the invasion and killing in Donbass in 2014. The Minsk accords would have meant the eventual loss of all Ukrainian sovereignty, and Ukraine was wise to resist.
Certainly pre-2014. 1991 borders. However, it’s hard to say whether Ukraine will be able to get Crimea back after Russia’s armed conquest. That should be the goal, though.
There will be a lot less internal Ukrainian corruption when the Russians are booted out for good. It’s a struggle, though.
Based on . . . ??
He may have done more than stand by cowardly, if the sequence of events provided by Andrei Illarianov is correct. (It is verifiable, but I haven’t done the work to verify it.)
Based on the Russian/Ukrainian corruption that was eliminated when Yanukovich was booted in 2013-2014, and on my meager attempts at trying to figure out the loyalties and affiliations of some of the other corrupt actors. Carl Bildt of Sweden doesn’t go so far as to say all the corruption is Russian corruption, but he points out that a lot of the Ukrainian corruption in the gas industry went away when Yanukovich fled to Russia.
The cynical me would expect the eliminated corruption to be more than back filled by US interests. I wouldn’t be surprised if both the DNC and RNC set up field offices there.
I’m not buying that. The corruption just switched to different people. 2014 was when Hunter Biden got his phony baloney job at Burisma, for example.
The Reticulator:
“These have seldom been clearer. Get Russia out of Ukraine so that Ukraine can continue independent. The path is through arming and supporting Ukraine. “
Riiiight! Exactly how do you propose to “Get Russia out of Ukraine”? What do you want a nuclear war? When are you guys going to start dealing in reality? This war is for all purposes lost! Are you going to attack Russian Territory? Further escalation will only cost us more lives and treasure by the bucket load. You guys fail to realize that the Corporatist/Communist Deep State alliance has severely weakened our military, political and economic wherewithal to the point where we can not any longer just push people around without any plan.
And yes, Biden from almost day one provoked Russia into this war by repeatedly egging Ukraine on to join NATO, plus his and the corrupt State Department”s assorted other previous shenanigans like installing Bio-Weapons labs close to the Russian border did not build any trust in the behavior of this Administration in the Russians. Please explain why egging Ukraine on to join NATO was in our strategic interest?
This war was never thought through. It is never in America’s interest to get involved in wars unless we have clear interests in doing so and that there is a clear way to “win” this war. There was never any credible “path to victory” without a full scale confrontation with Russia, and the consequences of this screwed up war have been just horrific. Just to name a few issues: destroying the influence of the western alliance and it’s standards, virtually creating the structure for a rival China Dominated “bi-polar economic and political world” of the new Alternate G8 plus Saudi Arabia that threatens to create a whole new set of world wide intractable problems, and lastly but not in the least, destroying the existing networks of food and energy distribution; a destruction that will haunt humanity for all it’s incredible death and destruction for a very long time.
Well, Biden was involved in some of the corruption, but I don’t think it was in the US interest.
That was some of the Russia corruption, as far as I can tell. It would be good to have more details, though. But we’ll never have an investigation, because the U.S. media always protect the Bidens, and a large segment of what should be Biden’s opposition is busy inhaling Russian propaganda, unfiltered, which blames Russian propaganda on Ukraine just as Democrats blame their own abuses of power on Trump.
How did you arrive at the conclusion that corruption in Ukraine is the Russians’ fault?
False dichotomies abound in the above. Maybe do the possible instead of the unwise?
I haven’t seen any evidence that Biden or anyone in the U.S. was egging Ukraine to join NATO, other than the usual Russian propaganda to that effect. Ukraine had its own reasons to get into NATO, just as Poland and Lithuania did. The Bio-Weapons labs were installed in many places around the world, as they should be. Russian propaganda tries to make something sinister out of something that was very ordinary and above-board.
There is a lot of evidence that it doesn’t require a full-scale confrontation with Russia. Putin’s Russia has frequently backed down when confronted with strength and resolve.