Ukraine is caught between Biden and victory
Jon Sweet Mark Toth
Ukraine’s long and winding road to victory just got a lot longer and deadlier.
At a multinational summit on Ukraine in Germany last week, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley made it clear that the Biden administration’s real Machiavellian goal is not for Ukraine to win, but for Russia to be continually weakened in a long, drawn-out war. Milley also asserted the war would likely “end in negotiation” and not decisively on the frontlines.
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Is this really the preferred policy of the Pentagon and State Department? Or is this defeatist mentality largely stemming from the White House?
It is more than likely the latter. While visiting Poland last April, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced that it was U.S. policy to weaken Russia and that Washington wanted Ukraine to win. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, traveling separately, concurred, only for President Joe Biden to quickly push back. Biden was apparently angered by their rhetoric. Given Ukraine’s success in Kharkiv, Kherson, and in retaking much of the Donbas, it was hoped this type of defeatist thinking had gone by the wayside. Tragically, for Ukraine, it apparently has not.
Milley is already 0–2 on Afghanistan and Ukraine in his battlefield predictions. Unless he convinces Biden to change course, he will likely extend his losing streak to three. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is committed to winning, even if Biden is not. Anything short of total restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity is a non-starter for Kyiv.
Milley’s bleak assessment could also explain Washington’s continued refusal to equip Ukraine with the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bombs (GLSDB), and M1 Abrams tanks. It would appear that the Biden administration does not want Ukraine to win; rather, to survive and get to the point where they are forced to negotiate a ceasefire and peace deal. But why?
It could be that Washington is increasingly afraid of what a post-Putin Russia will look like. It may be in Biden’s calculus that it is better to keep a weakened Putin in power versus risking the aftermath. Are the Pentagon and CIA watching with alarm the proliferation of private armies in Russia, as noted by Alexander Motyl in The Hill, that could clash in the event of a post-Putin Russian civil war?
If so, France and Germany are likely driving these fears behind closed doors. Civil war in Russia would paralyze Europe’s energy sector and it would likely drive-up costs for oil and liquid natural gas. China, India, and other countries currently benefiting from cheap Russian energy exports, would in that scenario be forced to return to the global market. If so, demand would quickly outpace supply — and wreak havoc on Paris, Berlin and the world’s economies.
Notwithstanding legitimate and exigent concerns as to what a Russian civil war would mean in terms of Russia’s nuclear arsenal, whether Russia loses or is simply weakened over a prolonged state of war in Ukraine is unlikely to be determinative of whether Putin survives or not. Both end states risk Russian civil war. If civil war happens, it would be far better for Kyiv to have decisively won and be a member of NATO than it would to risk Ukraine turning into a failed state and falling back under control of Moscow.
Under no scenario can Putin remain in power. As General George S. Patton said, “when in doubt, attack.”
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Jonathan Sweet, a retired Army colonel, served 30 years as a military intelligence officer. Follow him on Twitter @JESweet2022.
Mark Toth is a retired economist, historian and entrepreneur who has worked in banking, insurance, publishing, and global commerce. Follow him on Twitter @MCTothSTL.