Biden -- and Ukraine -- confront a risky future

During his remaining time in office, Biden is taking steps to mitigate the most dangerous aspect of Trump's impending return to power -- the unpredictability of his policy toward Ukraine.  Aside from speeding up the delivery of weapons and aid already approved by Congress, Biden has approved Ukraine's use of US-made ATACMS missiles on Russian territory.  These missiles have a range of 200 miles, enabling Ukraine to strike at targets far to the rear of the Russian front lines.  Ukraine has already used ATACMS at least once, against an arsenal north of the Kursk salient.  Following Biden's move, France and the UK approved Ukraine's use of their similar SCALP and Storm Shadow missiles on Russian territory.  Biden has also approved the delivery of anti-personnel mines to Ukraine to resist recent Russian advances in eastern Ukraine.

(Ukraine has already attacked targets much further than 200 miles into Russia, using its own home-made drones, but the Western long-range missiles can carry far more powerful warheads.)

These steps should have been taken a long time ago.  The war has now dragged on for almost three years; this Tuesday marked one thousand days since Russia's all-out invasion began in February of 2022.  At every stage, the US and other Western countries have limited their support for Ukraine due to fear of Russian nuclear escalation -- and at every stage those fears have been proven baseless, as Putin fumed and escalated his rhetoric, but no more than that.  His response to the US-France-UK approval of long-range missile usage in Russia was more glowering about treating such attacks as grounds for retaliation against the countries helping Ukraine, but the Pentagon dismisses this as more empty words, having detected no sign of actual Russian preparations to use nuclear weapons.  And a longer war is itself risky -- every day the war continues is another day that some error or accident could trigger direct Russia-NATO combat, almost certainly leading to a real nuclear exchange.

Kyiv Independent is now reporting that Russia's latest missile attack on Ukraine included an ICBM.  If true, this is decidedly odd.  Using an intercontinental-range missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to deliver an ordinary warhead to a target less than five hundred miles away looks like a real waste of capacity.  It seems likely that it's more saber-rattling -- an implicit threat by using a missile that could have carried a nuclear bomb.  If so, the West should not be deterred.  Putin's endless empty threats have lost any claim to being taken seriously.  (Update:  Putin and US officials say it wasn't an ICBM.)

The most dangerous course the West could take would be to back down and allow Putin to conquer Ukraine, or try to "freeze" the front line in place with Russia still holding Ukrainian territory.  This would reward Putin's aggression, virtually guaranteeing further aggression later after Russia has had time to rebuild its strength somewhat.  If Putin decides that the West is weak after all, he might well be emboldened to move against the Baltic states or Finland or even Poland, which would mean an all-out war, even if the US was not involved.  Surely not even Trump is such a fool as to believe Putin would honor any agreement he made.

Ukraine is not being passive toward developments in the US.  It will seek to persuade Trump, an isolationist by instinct, of the disastrous consequences that would follow disengagement.  Trump is notoriously impervious to reason, but other important figures such as secretary of state nominee Marco Rubio and Senate majority leader John Thune are strongly pro-Ukraine, and Congressional Republicans generally have been supportive.  Zelensky won't be alone in making his case.

If the worst happens and the US essentially disengages from the war, Europe would have to pick up the slack, along with other democracies such as South Korea and Taiwan which have already been sending weapons to Ukraine.  France and the UK have powerful militaries and enough nuclear weapons of their own to credibly deter Russia, if it comes to that.  And Poland is resuming its historic role as a dauntless bulwark of the West, rebuking Germany's dithering and appeasement mentality.  The US would effectively have ceded leadership of the West to those countries.  There have also been hints that Ukraine itself might build nuclear weapons, though this would take time.

By electing an isolationist with a shameful track record of coddling and appeasing dictators, the US has placed all of Western civilization in a dangerous position.  But the situation is far from hopeless.  Others -- in Washington and in Paris, London, Warsaw, and Kyiv itself -- will take up the torch Biden is being forced to hand off.

[Image at top:  an ATACMS missile launch]

Truths and inspirations for 19 November 2024

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