Presidentish Joe Biden on Sunday gave the go-ahead for Ukraine to use U.S.-made missiles against targets inside Russia. France and Great Britain quickly followed suit. That's a dangerous and wrongheaded decision but not for the reason some of my conservative allies believe.
"The key words in the Washington Post headline are 'Limited Use'," defense analyst Trent Telenko posted on Sunday. "AKA all [forces] will require pre-approval from the Biden Administration." In other words, Ukraine's Western missiles — which they have in small numbers — will be constrained by the same Laywers First! rules of engagement that have cost us victory in wars from Vietnam to Afghanistan.
Biden's move wasn't an escalation — it's an invitation every bit as blatant as his ill-considered remark about a "minor incursion" the month before Russian strongman Vladimir Putin gave the go-ahead for full-scale war.
Escalation: On Sunday, Putin ordered one of the biggest attacks on Ukraine's civilian energy infrastructure, violating Moldovan airspace and killing at least 28. The attack involved 120 missiles and 90 Iranian-made Shahed drones. To some, it's an escalation if Ukraine gets permission to maybe use some Western missiles but not an escalation when Moscow uses Iranian missiles or drones.
Despite the Kremlin's strong message about "a qualitatively new round of tension and a qualitatively new situation," Andrei Kartapolov, chairman of the parliamentary defense committee, was almost blasé: “We expected them to escalate before the end of Biden’s office — that was completely obvious,” he said.
Putin's red lines crossed include NATO membership for Sweden and Finland, which he later insisted was only a red line if NATO bolstered their defenses. In September, the U.S. Air Force bolstered their defenses by practicing landing nuclear-capable F-35 stealth fighters on a Finnish highway with nary a peep from Putin. Putin warned that an incursion into Russia could lead to a nuclear response; Ukraine has occupied several hundred square miles of Russia's Kursk region since August. British-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles have been used against Russian targets in Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.
I could go on, but unlike his army, Putin's red lines appear to be highly mobile.
Escalation: Large units of foreign soldiers are already fighting for Russia. An estimated 10,000-12,000 soldiers from the North Korean People's Army (KPA) — about a division's worth — joined the fight in Kursk earlier this month. A study out over the weekend suggests a permanent presence on the front, with as many as 100,000 KPA soldiers cycling through with Russian forces. North Korea is also a nuclear power.
An actual red line is almost certainly NATO membership for Ukraine, but it's also a chimera. Moscow's territorial dispute with Ukraine excludes the smaller country from consideration. As I've written here before, "NATO’s longstanding policy is that the organization does not import wars. That means countries like Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia remain in the limbo land of the Partnership for Peace because they have unsettled boundary disputes (all with Russia) that preclude NATO membership."
Membership for Ukraine was never seriously discussed until after Putin's full-scale invasion almost three years ago — and even then only as an unlikely part of an eventual peace settlement.
Escalation: Russian officials claim to have "evacuated" 700,000 Ukrainian children to Russia, a war crime under international law. Unknown thousands of those are undergoing "Russification" as part of Moscow's effort to erase Ukraine's national identity. If you're looking for attempted genocide, you'll find it there and not in Gaza.
Some on the Right believe that Biden is just trying to leave a bigger mess for Trump to clean up, and maybe there's something to that. If so, the guy who "has been wrong on almost every foreign policy and national security issue for the last four decades" might have finally — and accidentally — gotten one nearly half-right.
But only nearly half-right.
Ukraine should have had launch authority — and so many other things — by the end of 2022, or mid-2023 at the very latest. Giving them launch authority now, with small numbers of missiles and limited target selection, isn't the firm move Biden wants you to believe it is.
Escalation: Moscow in 1994 agreed to recognize Ukraine's borders and national sovereignty in exchange for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons. Putin tore up the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances in 2014 and has been at war with Ukraine ever since.
If this is escalation — a point I vehemently do not concede — it is an escalation of the most tepid, limp-wristed kind, in the face of multiple Kremlin provocations, including terrorist strikes and assassinations in Europe. Moscow will correctly read Biden's latest half-measure as a sign of weakness, not strength, and more likely to convince Putin that continued war is more in his interest than negotiating peace with Trump.
Ronald Reagan taught us that peace comes through strength. That's a lesson that Biden never understood and that some of my friends on the Right might have forgotten.
Recommended: Iran's Nuclear Weapons Program Took a Yuge Hit
UPDATE: I'll leave you with this from retired Navy officer CDR Salamander:
The, "I will expertly shape war through expert signaling by carefully adjusting these nobs as I learned at Model UN and my two weeks at a Harvard seminar..." approach to weapons to Ukraine the last three years, has reminded me all too much of the LBJ/McNamara approach to…
— cdrsalamander (@cdrsalamander) November 18, 2024
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