Ukraine is beginning to act like a spoiled brat, and for some, it’s causing their halo to slip.
After securing the most modern, lethal battle tanks on planet earth, Ukraine now wants fourth-generation F-16 fighter jets. Begging your pardon, Mr. President, but what’s next? Nuclear weapons?
“The next big hurdle will now be the fighter jets,” Yuriy Sak, who advises Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, told Reuters.
Just like that. The gift of tanks was nice, but Ukraine is beyond “nice.” They clearly want to win. And there’s no guarantee that they won’t eventually start asking for troops. At that point, why bother to say no to them?
“They didn’t want to give us heavy artillery, then they did. They didn’t want to give us Himars systems, then they did. They didn’t want to give us tanks, now they’re giving us tanks. Apart from nuclear weapons, there is nothing left that we will not get,” Sak said.
Give me more, daddy. More. And about those nukes, daddy…
Moscow reacted furiously on Wednesday after Germany approved the delivery to Ukraine of Leopard 2 tanks, the workhorse of armies across Europe, in a decision that is certain to gird Ukraine’s offensive power.
Justin Bronk, a researcher at the RUSI think tank in London, said Ukraine’s Air Force would benefit greatly from Western fighters in terms of air-to-air and potentially air-to-ground lethality.
But he said on Twitter they would still be at high risk from Russian surface to air missiles, forcing them to fly very low near the front line, something that “would dramatically reduce effective missile range and limit strike options”.
If Moscow reacted “furiously” to tanks going to Ukraine, what do you think they’re going to say if the U.S. starts giving Ukraine a fighter that can outclass almost anything in the Russian air force?
With any mention of peace talks tantamount to treason in both Ukraine and the United States, this war madness could very easily escalate into a worldwide conflagration. At that point, we may very well wish we had those F-16s back.
Deputy White House national security adviser Jon Finer told MSNBC on Thursday that the United States would be discussing the idea of supplying fighter jets “very carefully” with Kyiv and its allies.
“We have not ruled in or out any specific systems. We have tried to tailor our assistance to the phase of the fight the Ukrainians are in,” Finer said.
Sak said he expected the United States could play a key role in getting a decision to supply fighter jets over the line.
This drive to make Ukraine a world power is the gravest of miscalculations. Ukraine may be a budding democracy now, but so was Russia in the 1990s. Putting Abrams and Leopard tanks and now F-16s and other advanced fighters in the hands of a potentially unstable state dominated by oligarchs is unwise.
What happens after the conflict with Russia is over? It’s not like we can ask for the weapons back. Those advanced weapons systems will be sitting in the heart of central Europe in the hands of a weak democracy still plagued by corruption and non-democratic actors. We should demand some assurances that the weapons we’re giving to Ukraine won’t be turned on their neighbors after the war is over.
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