Alexander Topchy13:05, 08/14/236 min.173

Paralyzed by fear of an escalation from Russia, the Biden administration sought only to avert Ukraine’s defeat.

Ukraine’s counteroffensive is not going the way some supporters predicted. Ukrainians do not lack courage and perseverance, and they have achieved notable successes. 

However, it should be a wake-up call for Washington that its strategy needs to be revisited.

The former national security adviser to the President of the United States (2018-2019) and the former ambassador to the UN (2005-2006) writes about this in a column for The Wall Street Journal .

The solution, he said, is not a ceasefire and negotiations, as advocated by some in the West.

“If Vladimir Putin had agreed to this, he would have done it at a time convenient to him, not ours.

He would likely offer a truce if Moscow contained Kiev’s attacks by early autumn, with the aim of trying to win by negotiation what the Russian armed forces failed to take on the battlefield,” Bolton writes and notes that the adoption of this proposal would lead to the actual division of Ukraine.

The former presidential adviser believes that “Ukrainians’ inability to achieve major successes” is a natural outcome of the US strategy aimed only at preventing Russian conquest. Instead, President Biden needs to start actively working towards a Ukrainian victory.

“Ukraine’s offensive failures and Russia’s defensive successes share a common cause: the slow, intermittent, non-strategic provision of military assistance by the West. The constant debate about whether to deliver this or that weapon system, the eternal fear that Russia will start a war against NATO, and the occasional The Kremlin’s nuclear rattling has inspired Western capitals with paralyzing caution.

According to him, such indecision is the result of “successful containment by the Kremlin, and not the strategic necessity of America.” 

At the same time, Bolton emphasizes that there is no evidence that Russia has the desire to launch a nuclear strike or that it has the military capability to threaten NATO.

“Despite repeated nuclear threats from Moscow, the intelligence community has confirmed in Congressional testimony that Russia’s nuclear capability has never been placed on operational alert. Putin is bluffing.

That may change, but bluffing gives him exactly what he wants, for free.” , says the Republican politician.Bolton also notes that the Biden administration’s timid, haphazard approach to providing military assistance to Ukraine has undermined public support in the US.

“Biden exacerbated this problem by insisting that the war is being waged around Wilsonian abstractions of democracy and authoritarianism. Wilsonian principles have never motivated most Americans.

There is a compelling case that helping Ukraine is in our strategic interest, but the president doesn’t bring it up.

And he and Donald Trump are undermining Republican support for aid,” Bolton said.

He is convinced that the West, especially Washington, must also radically rethink the sanctions policy. As theories to cap the price of Russian oil have failed, and Western sanctions tend to remain patchy and seriously unenforced.

“These shortcomings are not limited to the Ukraine conflict and should prompt NATO to institutionally reconsider how it enforces.

Sanctions are great PR, but their enforcement is difficult, tedious and, if possible, necessarily done covertly.

The US and its allies need a major overhaul and upgrade our tools, procedures and personnel to enforce the sanctions,” said the former presidential adviser.Bolton also urges the White House and NATO to take China’s role in Ukraine more seriously and impose sanctions directly on Beijing, given its huge support for Moscow. 

Among other things, we are talking about the purchase of hydrocarbons, the laundering of Russian financial transactions and the supply of dual-use and non-lethal military equipment.”

It’s also important that the West see through any Chinese ploy to ‘settle’ the conflict. Such a proposal by Beijing will no doubt sound positive to those who are not yet aware of the long-term threat posed by China.

And since the White House is obsessed with reaching agreements with Beijing on climate change, he will find EU blandishments to appease China dangerously attractive.He sees it as vital that the Biden administration begin to formulate a new strategy.”

The White House must make interim corrections to its strategic mistakes made over the past 18 months if it wants to bolster support for Ukraine within the United States and revitalize and expand the anti-Russian coalition. It’s time to move,” Bolton said.

(C)THE WALL STREET JOURNAL 2023