Biden’s Ukraine Quandary
The war in Ukraine is now in its seventh week and its direction is becoming clearer. Vladimir Putin has reassessed his objectives and is no longer seeking to take control of the whole of Ukraine. Instead, he’s currently focusing on capturing the “Donbas” (a region consisting of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk provinces) and the areas bordering the Black Sea. To this end, he has pulled his forces away from Kyiv and the surrounding towns and moved them eastward. The Russian army’s exit from the Kyiv area has revealed its barbaric conduct and its total disregard for what is generally considered the “rules of war.” The targeting of residential neighborhoods, hospitals, and schools in Mariupol a few weeks ago was only a precursor to what took place in Bucha, a small town outside of Kyiv. There, civilians (several of whom had their hands tied behind their backs) were beaten and executed, women were raped and bodies were dumped into mass graves. This prompted President Biden to accuse Putin of war crimes and the U.N. to suspend Russia from serving on its Human Rights Council.
The revelations in Bucha have triggered a number of other reactions. They’ve hardened the resolve of Ukrainians to resist Russia’s efforts to seize control of their country; they have turned world opinion against Russia and they have elevated the pressure on President Biden to take more forceful actions to end the war. From the outset, it has been the approach of the Biden administration to provide Ukraine with economic support and to supply it with defensive weapons such as the “Javelin” anti-tank and “Stinger” anti-aircraft missiles. The Biden Administration has resisted calls to supply Ukraine with heavy offensive weapons such as warplanes and tanks. This was because they were concerned that the Ukrainians would not have time to train themselves to use more complex weapon systems and would have been compelled to surrender them had the Russian army not botched its invasion. The Biden administration was also concerned that taking more active measures, including injecting NATO forces into the war, would have prompted the Russians to expand the war to other countries and to employ more deadly weapons, such as chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
The immediate reaction of the Biden administration to the recent revelations was to impose economic sanctions upon additional Russians close to Putin, including his two daughters, and to encourage European nations to cease their purchases of Russian coal. Neither of these measures is likely to have any noticeable impact on the conduct of the war. General Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this past week testified before Congress that the conflict in Ukraine is likely to go on for years and that the criminal actions of the Russian army are likely to escalate as necessary to overcome Ukrainian resistance. This danger was underscored this week by Putin’s appointment of General Alexander Dvornikov to direct Russia’s prosecution of the war. General Dvornikov oversaw Russia’s actions in Syria which have been described as “notoriously brutal.”
It should be understood that there is only a minimal overlap in the interests of the Ukrainian government and those of the U.S. and its NATO allies. Ukraine’s primary objective is to protect its territorial integrity and secondarily to protect the lives and well-being of its citizens. By contrast, the foremost objective of the U.S. and its allies is to prevent the war from spreading to a NATO country thereby requiring their active participation and bringing about an almost certain escalation in the level of the conflict. Preventing Russia from seizing more Ukrainian territory and thereby profiting from its invasion is only their secondary objective. While the U.S. and its allies deplore the fact that tens of millions of Ukrainians already have been driven from their homes and scores of thousands have been slaughtered, until now this has not caused them to commit their own armed forces to the conflict.
To be sure, the recent revelations of war crimes committed by the Russian forces have increased the calls, both here and abroad, for the U.S. and its allies to become more actively involved in the conflict. They also make it clear that the Russians will not honor the rules of war spelled out in the Geneva Convention; nor are they likely to await further NATO participation in the war before they commit even more heinous violations. In short, they appear prepared to use any and all means at their disposal (including the use of WMDs) to achieve a military victory. Recent reports indicate that the Russian army is gearing up for a major onslaught in eastern Ukraine.
Even though the U.S. and its NATO allies are not parties to the war, it nevertheless is having a substantial detrimental effect on them. They are incurring substantial monetary costs ($2 billion since Biden became President) in supporting the efforts of the Ukrainians. More importantly, the war has caused inflation to rise both here (where it is now 8.5%) and in Europe to levels not experienced in the previous 40 years. This is forcing their central banks to raise interest rates which will slow their economic growth.
There is also reason to suspect that Russia has already begun cyber-attacks which President Biden recently warned would be coming. On April 2nd and 3rd more than 3,500 airline flights were cancelled in the U.S. While the official explanation of the affected airlines (principally Southwest and JetBlue) was that the cancellations were due to adverse weather conditions, the weather all along the east coast where the problem was most acute was not particularly unusual. The official announcement also made a vague, but unexplained, reference to “technical difficulties.” Because so many airlines were affected the problem most likely stemmed from the nation’s flight control system and the fact that the nature of the “technical difficulties” was not explained adds credence to the possibility that the nation’s flight control system may have been hacked. This might be Putin’s way of threatening the Biden administration not to become further involved in the conflict.
Until now, the U.S. and its allies have been primarily relying upon a strategy of exhausting Russia economically. That’s how they eventually won the “Cold War” with the Soviet Union. The problem is that it took 35 years for that victory to be achieved. Even though the economic sanctions which have already been imposed on the Russian economy are far more stringent than any actions taken during the Cold War, it still seems clear that it is going to take many months, if not, a few years, for those sanctions to cause Putin to curtail Russia’s current war efforts, much less to withdraw altogether from Ukraine. That’s because China, India, and Iran all appear to be willing to support Russia economically and many of the sanctions levied upon Russia can be circumvented. In addition, the OPEC countries are refusing to increase their production of crude oil which will keep oil and gas prices high. That will increase Russia’s revenues from its sales of oil and gas. On top of that, western European countries are currently reliant upon fossil fuels supplied by Russia and cannot quickly make alternate arrangements to fulfill their energy needs. This means that the Russian economy will be able to chug along (albeit at a somewhat reduced pace) for quite a while. At the same time, the European NATO countries that rely on Russian fossil fuels will also be facing economic hardships which will likely lessen their resolve to continue the conflict.
Pursuing a military strategy to bring the war to a quick conclusion has its own problems and those problems are likely to have adverse ramifications in the U.S. that go far beyond high and sustained inflation. By becoming an active participant in the war the U.S. could enable Ukraine to achieve a military victory and bring an end to the devastation of its cities and the slaughter of tens of thousands of its citizens. It could also prompt Putin to employ weapons of mass destruction and expand the scope of the war to NATO countries. In any event, it would astronomically raise the costs of the war to the U.S., both in terms of dollars expended and lives lost.
In supporting Ukraine in this war, Biden is figuratively trying to land a 200-pound shark with a 50-pound fishing line, a feat that takes time, patience, and measured action. Should he move too quickly or too vigorously, success might slip out of reach. At this point, his administration seems poised to slowly ratchet up the military pressure on the Russians. The military successes that have already been achieved by the Ukrainians have diminished the fear of having our advanced weaponry fall into the hands of the Russians. The Ukrainians’ successful defense of Kyiv has also demonstrated that they are likely to have the time to learn how to utilize those weapons. Thus, the first step the western allies are likely to take is to increase the volume and caliber of the weapons they are currently supplying to Ukraine. This will likely include anti-aircraft defense systems, tanks, and military aircraft. The hope is that with increased firepower the Ukrainians will be able to hold off Russian advances and possibly drive them out of some of the areas the Russians currently control.
If these steps don’t enable the Ukrainians to turn the tide of the war against Russia, the U.S. and its NATO allies might begin to insert their own military personnel into the fray. That would likely be limited to having these troops train and direct the Ukrainian forces. The problem is that any further successes achieved by the Ukrainians will be met with escalations in the efforts of the Russian army which could include the use of chemical and biological weapons as Putin seems constitutionally incapable of accepting defeat. Indeed, there is a strong possibility that the Russian army is already moving in that direction. This week’s announcement that General Dvornikov has been appointed to oversee the Russian army’s operations in Ukraine seems to support that possibility. General Dvornikov employed these types of weapons while commanding Russia’s forces in the Syrian Civil War.
It now seems that President Biden is likely to face the same dilemma that President Obama faced when he declared that the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Civil War was a “red line” that would prompt a response by the U.S. You will recall that President Obama did not carry through on his threat for which he was widely criticized. The fact that President Biden has not made a similar threat is probably evidence that he is not currently prepared to escalate the U.S.’s involvement if the Russians begin using chemical or biological weapons. And it seems that without a total commitment to the war by the U.S. and its NATO allies the Ukrainians are not going to be able to drive the Russians out of their territory and the war will continue until the Russians come to the realization that they can no longer sustain the costs of occupying Ukraine.
However, a third possible strategy for ending the war was highlighted by a recent interview of William Browder, a money manager who formerly lived in Russia and who was forced out of the country by Putin. In an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin and Vivian Giang, Browder asserted that Putin began the Ukraine war as a means of bolstering his waning support among the Russian people. While that may sound crazy to an American ear as Russia has generally prospered under Putin’s control, Putin’s support within Russia did rise with each of his recent military forays into other countries. Indeed, Putin’s favorability rating has increased from 67.2% to 81.6% since the Ukraine war was begun. This most recent boost to his favorability rating, however, was largely achieved by disseminating false information about the war and by imposing criminal sanctions upon anyone making statements about the war that conflict with reports provided by government news agencies. This would seem to suggest that an effective way of bringing the war to an end would be through an extensive campaign to inform Russians about what has actually been transpiring in Ukraine.
Although the Russian government has closed down independent news organizations and major social media sites, it is still possible for those outside of Russia to transmit emails to Russian citizens. This raises the possibility of conducting a massive email campaign designed to inform Russian citizens of what their government is doing in Ukraine. Such a campaign could destroy the credibility of the Russian government and force it to discontinue its efforts to seize Ukrainian territory. To combat such a campaign the Russian government would have to compel internet service providers within Russia to intercept the transmission which would be a monumental task particularly if the massages were disseminated through networks of controlled computers (a tactic frequently employed by Russian cyber forces). Just trying to stop such messages could effectively shut down all email communications throughout Russia. That, in itself, could incite a civil uprising against the Russian government which might bring the war to an early end.
It’s also worth noting that several thousand tech workers have fled Russia and have settled in Armenia, Georgia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and other countries that accept Russian citizens without visas. There, they are seeking to restart their lives. They would be the ideal people to mount such a campaign as they not only possess the requisite technical skills and knowledge of Russia’s communications system but also are looking for employment and seem disenchanted with the Putin Government.
Whatever strategy he chooses to employ going forward, the one thing President Biden cannot afford to do is to worry about the reaction of the American public to his handling of this conflict. He will be criticized no matter what he does. He therefore would be well-advised to simply do what will achieve the best result for our nation and for other democracies around the world and ignore whatever is said on Fox News Channel.