There are two drastically different accounts of the war in Ukraine, one epitomized by President Biden’s speech in Kyiv and the other by Russian President Putin’s speech. The Ukrainians’ and our account of the war is a year ago Russia made an unprovoked attach on Ukraine and have piled atrocity on atrocity in their prosecution of the aggressive war. Russia’s account is that it was a spoiling attack which disrupted an assault by Ukraine on the Russia-aligned people of the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces. While I suspect that there’s more truth in the Ukrainian account, neither their nor the Russian account is the whole truth. Like so much in this war its obscured by, to use Carl von Clausewitz’s felicitous description, the fog of war.
I’ve read many opinions of the two speeches over the last several days. Here’s the opinion of the editors of the Wall Street Journal:
Mr. Putin’s goal is unchanged: Control most or all of Ukraine, and incorporate it into his greater Russian empire. He still thinks he can outlast the Ukrainian government and its Western supporters. Many in the U.S. and Europe are ready to head to a negotiating table, but Mr. Putin is not. The only settlement he has in mind is Ukraine’s surrender.
The fastest route to peace then is defeating Mr. Putin, which the Biden Administration still seems reluctant to admit. Mr. Biden hasn’t wavered in his rhetorical support for Ukraine, and his Tuesday Speech in Poland struck the right note that autocrats “cannot be appeased†but “must be opposed.â€
Yet his air of triumphalism is premature—Ukraine could still lose—and it is backed by ambivalent action. In the latest example, Mr. Biden is still holding back the Army tactical missile system, long-range weapons that the Ukrainians desperately want so they can strike deeper into Russian positions. The Administration is leaking that the U.S. military doesn’t have any to spare, but allied inventory estimates run in the thousands.
This has been the pattern for a year. The Biden team throws up reasons why a certain weapon—tanks, Patriot missile defenses, Himars—can’t be provided to Ukraine. The system is too complex. The training will take too long. Then these objections suddenly vanish after criticism in public and from Congress, and Ukraine gets the goods. Can we skip ahead and provide F-16 fighter jets now?
Getting Ukraine the weapons they need is increasingly urgent. If Russia receives arms from China, the war will descend into an even bloodier stalemate or a Ukrainian defeat. Political support could fray in European capitals and in Washington, even as Beijing’s involvement raised the global risks of defeat.
I don’t view these things through a prism of right and wrong. That is not to say that I don’t think there is a right and wrong but that I think it’s unproductive to couch matters in those terms. I tend to look at things in terms of interest and distinguish among the achievable, the hard to achieve, and the impossible or nearly impossible to achieve.
Claiming that we’re supporting Ukraine in defense of a rules-based order is sophistry. If we believe in a rules-based order, why do we have troops in Syria? Why do we have troops in Niger? I think we have made it abundantly clear that we consider hurting Russia in our national interest.
Viewed through that prism, what is achievable? I would say that preventing Russia from occupying all of Ukraine is achievable as is admitting Ukraine to NATO and the European Union. Returning to the pre-2022 borders would be hard to achieve; returning to the pre-2014 borders would be impossible or nearly impossible to achieve.
At this point to me is what can be accomplished without a direct involvement of NATO troops, assuming, of course, that NATO regulars are not already fighting in Ukraine, something asserted by the Russians. IMO achieving the hard to achieve or nearly impossible goals would require such involvement.
Blithely asserting the choice is the Ukrainians’ to make is facile. Our supplies and support change the Ukrainians’ calculus. I would not doubt that they will continue to fight even should we reduce or eliminate our support. The question is to what end? I strongly suspect their goals would change.
Americans have an unreasonable faith in their technology, probably due to motion pictures.
Russia has a reasonable faith in their endurance, probably due to their history.
Time after time human ingenuity and determination has overcome American technology, why should Putin give up now?
I’ve been struggling with the nuclear issue and its apparent Americas position is that Putin cannot gain from, or even survive an exchange.
I can only hope he’s not terminally ill.
This war is existential for Russia, but it a war of choice for the US. There is no upper limit to Russian escalation, including nuclear war, and nuclear attacks on military and civilian sites in the US proper. Consequently Russia will occupy as much of Ukraine as it wants, which might be all of it.
The Ukrainians have run out of cannon fodder, and there are several thousand NATO troops, out of uniform, in Ukraine. A few weeks ago, a Polish news outlet claimed that there were 1200 Polish dead from the war. The BBC photographed US or UK SOCOM operating in the Donbas back in 2014, shortly after the rebellion began.
The WSJ (my subscription is finally running out) lies about everything. There is no reliable information in its pages. All of their correspondents and editors are rabid war mongers, if not actual war criminals.
Essentially all of the “information†in the MSM is unfiltered, unchecked propaganda from Kiev. None of it is true. Tonkin Gulf, WMD… please wake up.
There is only one issue in the Ukraine-Russia war, and that is the prevention of WW III, which would of necessity be nuclear, and which would permanently erase Western culture and Western civilization. We won’t care, because we will be dead.
The US has no interest in the outcome of this war. It is entirely the doing of neocons and their pathological hatreds and delusions. A week ago Sen. McConnell admitted that US foreign policy is controlled by special interests. A couple of years ago Lt Col. Vindman (Ret.) testified to he House Foreign Affairs Committee that Presidents did NOT have the authority to determine foreign policy. That was the prerogative of the bureaucracy. This does sense. Elections never change foreign policy.
Crimea is existential for Russia. I’m not convinced that Donetsk and Luhansk are. Certainly occupying Kyiv is not existential for Russia.
In proxy wars, the goals of those doing the fighting are usually different from those doing the supplying and supporting. This case is not any different.
Donetsk and Luhansk may not be existential strategically for Russia, but there are factors that make it extremely dangerous to reassert Ukrainian control over the seperatist held portions since 2014.
The fact is those parts were the most pro-Russian parts of Ukraine after Crimea before 2014. They were the most Russian speaking parts of Ukraine; and they have been out of Kiev/Kyiv’s control for most of decade. If Ukraine gains control, there would be vicious guerilla / partisan warfare and if Ukraine is to maintain control, would need to conduct ethnic cleansing or genocide.
Does the US or NATO really want to be abettors or participants in ethnic cleansing or genocide; or make a mockery of principles by saying both of those things are okay when its done by “friendly nations”. That goes before the Russian reaction. Russia is not a democracy; but the vox popoli in Russia of seeing Russian speakers being ethnically cleansed or genocided and its effect on Russian government actions is completely unpredictable.
wartranslated.com is a useful site for semi-current translations of pertinent Russian and Ukrainian language material.
One recent item of interest that pertains to the topic here is this interview with the head of Ukrainian Intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov:
https://wartranslated.com/forbes-ua-interview-gurs-chief-kyrylo-budanov-interview/
It’s important to note that what he publicly says is sometimes quite different from what other senior wartime Ukrainian leaders say. But they are all quite consistent on the goal of Ukraine retaking everything to the 1991 administrative border.