April 6, 2023
On April 3, the Polish government confirmed that it had delivered MiG-29 fighters to Ukraine, just 11 days after the first Slovakian MiG-29s arrived in that beleaguered country. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov criticized the provision of the aircraft and suggested they would be destroyed, but he voiced no threat of escalation. Likewise, the arrival of the first German Leopard and British Challenger tanks in Ukraine in late March drew a relatively mild reaction from the Kremlin.
The Kremlin’s red lines — never clearly articulated — appear less stringent than some in the West evidently believe. There remains space for expanded U.S. and Western military assistance to Kyiv that would not cross the lines that appear to have emerged over the past year.
Since the beginning of Russia’s massive invasion of Ukraine 13 months ago, Biden administration officials have voiced two primary goals for U.S. policy regarding the war: first, help Ukraine prevail and defeat Russia militarily; and second, avoid a direct military clash between NATO and Russia. These are the right goals. However, in balancing the two, the administration has taken an unnecessarily cautious approach.
President Joe Biden reiterated his support for Ukraine in a February 21 speech in Warsaw, the day after he had made a quick visit to Kyiv. The degree of U.S. and Western support has increased as the Ukrainian military demonstrated its ability to stand up to the Russian army. He has also made clear his second goal in another speech on March 11: “We will not fight a war against Russia in Ukraine. Direct confrontation between NATO and Russia is World War III, something we must strive to prevent.”
The trick for Washington and other NATO members providing military aid to Ukraine has been to calculate how far they can go without crossing a red line that would trigger a direct NATO-Russia clash. One factor complicating that calculation: The Kremlin has provided no clear specifics as to what it regards as unacceptable. In the early weeks of the war, tacit rules appeared to have developed between the West and Russia regarding military assistance to Ukraine.
In a February 2023 interview, Russian foreign and security policy expert Alexei Arbatov addressed the question of Moscow’s red lines, which he also qualified as tacit. He described the first as “NATO countries are not directly involved in the conflict, although they supply weapons, and Russia does not strike at NATO countries.”
Biden, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, and other NATO leaders have repeatedly said that they would not send U.S. or NATO forces to defend Ukraine. That explains why the idea of a no-fly zone over Ukraine encountered such resistance one year ago. It would have required that NATO pilots be prepared to shoot down Russian aircraft and to attack Russian surface-to-air missile sites, perhaps in Russia itself.
Nothing suggests the West’s position on this has changed, even as the war drags on and the list of Russian war crimes grows. Indeed, Ukraine has not asked for Western troops, just weapons. U.S. and NATO policy remains well short of the first red line described by Arbatov.
His second red line was that “NATO countries do not supply long-range missiles for strikes deep into the territory of the Russian Federation.” This question also does not arise. As Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on February 5, “We always emphasize to our Western partners that we will not use Western weapons [to launch strikes] on the territory of the Russian Federation.”
It is an absurd war in which the Russian military can hit targets, military or civilian, throughout Ukraine while seeking to somehow bar Ukraine from striking targets in Russia. However, Kyiv has indicated that it will play by those rules, at least when it uses Western-provided weapons. The Ukrainians would like to get the 200-mile range Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, which would allow them to strike Russian targets anywhere in occupied Ukraine.
The Ukrainian military has had the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, known as HIMARS, since last June and resisted the temptation to launch its 50-mile-range rockets against targets in Russia. The missiles reportedly were modified so they cannot target sites inside Russia. Was that necessary? Ukrainian leaders are too smart to do something that would endanger the continuing supply of needed U.S. arms.
Arbatov’s red lines sound right and seem consistent with Kremlin reactions to date. The lack of a harsher response to the West’s provision of arms suggests his assessment is on the mark.
The United States and other partners of Ukraine thus can provide more arms while not crossing these red lines: additional tanks and infantry fighting vehicles for counteroffensives to drive back the occupying Russian army; the ATACMS missile, limited to use against targets in occupied Ukraine; and even fighter aircraft, which Ukraine could use for air defense and close air support of its counteroffensives without flying against targets in Russia. Giving Ukraine the capabilities to break out of a debilitating war of attrition and engage in maneuver warfare would provide Kyiv the chance to prevail on the battlefield. That offers the best way to foreshorten the war.
To be sure, Moscow will not like this. But if the Kremlin has solid red lines, they appear to focus on effects, e.g., do they lead to strikes on Russian territory? As for the weapons themselves, Russian officials grumble but do not make extravagant threats. In any case, to the extent that the Russians react militarily, that reaction, as it has over the past year, would focus on Ukraine.
The Ukrainians have repeatedly made clear they will accept that risk; they want the weapons. The West should provide them.
“…Biden administration officials have voiced two primary goals for U.S. policy regarding the war: first, help Ukraine prevail and defeat Russia militarily; and second, avoid a direct military clash between NATO and Russia. These are the right goals. However, in balancing the two, the administration has taken an unnecessarily cautious approach.”
That’s because Biden is still too much a coward.
“It is an absurd war in which the Russian military can hit targets, military or civilian, throughout Ukraine while seeking to somehow bar Ukraine from striking targets in Russia.”
This war is absurd because the leaders in the West have an absurd fear of mafia land. It’s this absurd fear that encouraged mafia land to engage in the full-scale invasion in the first place. It’s this absurd fear that’s preventing this absurd war to end asap.
“Biden administration officials have voiced two primary goals for U.S. policy regarding the war: first, help Ukraine prevail and defeat Russia militarily; and second, avoid a direct military clash between NATO and Russia. These are the right goals.”
The second one is not right. The hallmarks of moral bankruptcy are on display. It’s a doctrine that states in effect that it’s ok for eg: Albania and North Macedonia to join Nato ahead of Ukraine and then, even during a terrible war, another new country; Finland, can leapfrog itself over Ukraine into Nato.
Avoiding putinazi red lines apparently means that the obligations of Budapest can also be ignored without censure.
Two divisions of US troops and one division of U.K. troops could have been ordered into Kyiv, Odesa and Zaporizhzhya oblasts in the summer of 2021. That would have put an end to the tiny poisoner’s plan immediately.
Their orders should have been to engage with the enemy only if attacked. Similarly, a NFZ need not have been formally declared. The allies could simply have stated that they reserve the right to assist the Ukrainian Air Force if required.
Instead we have this abomination; a horror unleashed by a cauldron of devilry with no end in sight, thanks to an indecisive and incoherent strategy from the allies.
Alas, cowardice has never been a good element in foreign policy.
Text of the Budapest memorandum will show that the US is meeting its obligations. You can imagine that Ukraine giving up some nuclear weapons that couldn’t actually be used without the Russian launch codes somehow entitles you to complete US protection, but the US never agreed to that.
Feel free to cite the actual text if you believe that to be wrong.
People are dying and it’s tragic and Russia is the only one to blame I think. But people are also dying in Africa and other places from war, disease and famine. And people are dying in the US from many things that could be avoided with more funding.
Tell me, in the African famine of 2011/12, how much did Ukraine contribute to relief? You are asking America to risk more than a zero percent chance of a nuclear war? How much did Ukraine risk in 2011/12?
I reject your claim of ‘moral bankruptcy’.
17% of Ukraine’s grain is exported to Africa.
Ukraine had their own nuclear codes, that’s how these things work. duh.
Also the text from Budapest is “security guarantees for sovereignty and territorial integrity”. I shouldn’t have to explain that to you but I will if RT has really destroyed you to that extent.
Ukraine didn’t need ruskie launch codes. Ukraine is perfectly capable to circumvent and create its own codes. Furthermore, Ukraine could create its own nuclear weapons program.
The Budapest Memorandum is a security assurance, which the United States did not fulfill. Legally, this is okay. Morally, it is deplorable. One direct consequence is that this destroys any future chance of convincing another country to surrender nukes, no matter what the formulation of any proposed document may have. Nukes are here to stay. Moreover, other nations without nukes will strive more than ever to get nukes, seeing that they are the ONLY guarantee to security.
In effect, Ukraine was pressured to agree to this worthless deal, fearing dire consequences not only from mafia land but from the West.
We gave a vague security assurance to Ukraine for its total surrender of its entire nuclear stockpile. Thus, leaving Ukraine to fend on its own against a most evil aggressor is a declaration of moral bankruptcy.
Your argument about Africa and other places where people are dying is wholly irrelevant. Ukraine provides a substantial part of the world’s food crops. Go and tell the Africans to stop reproducing like rats and to stop cutting each other’s throats. This would be two good steps to alleviate that continent’s self-imposed problems.
To underline the importance of helping Ukraine, and not only rudimentary, as we have been, but fully, as it should be, is the fact that this war is being waged in Europe, where our most important allies and economic interests lie. We’re also indirectly destroying a dangerous foe without risking a single American life. Where else can we achieve this?
If you honestly believe that Ukraine signed that document without expecting to be fully and unconditionally protected, then you are a halfwit.
As for Africa, what the fucking fuck has that got to do with anything?
The simple fact is that the US didn’t give NATO style security assurances and you can see it in the text.
The simple fact is that the US didn’t give those security assurances because Russia had already declared Crimea to be Russia at that point already.
Ukraine couldn’t even manage to fund a build non-nuclear tactical missile system. There was no way it could have reverse engineered the launch system and paid to maintain the weapons. Everyone knew it and that is what the agreement is based on.
The US never said we will risk nuclear war with Russia for paying you take the burden of non-functioning missiles off your hands. Christ, Ukraine had already given some back to Russia and the US arranged compensation.
Just read the memorandum and then read the NATO memorandum and you will see the clear difference. Get some courage to face the truth that neither Biden nor the West is to blame for the current problem.
The US has been avoiding nuclear war with Russia for decades before Ukraine even became and independent country and stopped helping them build nukes. I get you don’t like that the US is worried about red lines, but that concern is what kept all those Ukrainian nukes from being fired at us in the first place.
Democracy and the rule of international law in Africa morally deserves support as it does in Ukraine. US resources are far from unlimited.
Biden is doing far more already than many think he should and all commenters says is he is a cowards, stupid and slow for not ignoring the fact that the US never said we would risk nuclear war to secure Crimea for the Ukraine.
“The simple fact is that the US didn’t give those security assurances because Russia had already declared Crimea to be Russia at that point already.”
Drivel. Again.