30 - It is Time to Give Ukraine More Potent Weapons: Calling Putin's Bluff
Putin has thrown down the gauntlet. He says that he will no longer negotiate, that he and Russia intend to consume eastern Ukraine, and that he acknowledges no atrocities committed by Russian soldiers anywhere in Ukraine. Indeed, by transferring the command of the assault on eastern Ukraine to General Alexsandr Dvornikov, the butcher of both Grozny and Aleppo, Putin expects that Russian bombers and missile launchers will pound Ukrainian civilians and buildings in the Donbass and Luhansk regions, and in Kharkiv, Kramatorsk, and Makiyivka, until everything and everyone is pulverized to powder and dust. Then, Putin imagines, submission will follow.
Last night’s successful Ukrainian missile strike on Russia’s premier Black Sea warship, the cruiser Moskva, shows of what bold tactics Ukraine is still capable. We must now give its soldiers and airmen even more potent weapons than they now possess.
To prevent Ukrainian soldiers in the east from being encircled and civilians from being slaughtered, it is time that the United States and Europe answer affirmatively President Volodymyr Zelensky’s many calls for help. The West is sending more defensive weapons and other equipment. But to prevent unnecessary continued carnage against civilians and to help Ukraine build on its attack on the Moskva, we need to provide Ukraine with greater offensive capabilities so that its army can engage Russia in a fully fair fight. Moreover, Russia is a recovering intruder, and relatively weak while Ukraine is stronger than expected. Let us capitalize on this moment, which may not persist, to give Ukraine the serious equipment that it needs.
Putin’s belief in the brutal efficacy of unleashed all-out destruction of urban landscapes was pioneered in Chechnya, perfected in Syria, and is the current method of choice to command Ukraine. It works, to the extent that flattened cityscapes reduce opposition numbers (since so many are killed) and local economies collapse. Since an easy walk in the park into Kyiv is now (for the moment?) beyond Russia’s reach, and since the Russian army has showed itself logistically and leadership handicapped, with bad planning and worse execution, this is the moment to pursue the invaders.
We are at an exceedingly dangerous juncture in a vanity war with no real purpose.
But that Putin’s war is purposeless and strategically foolish should give us little comfort. Some analysts assume that Putin’s ego and his personal political objectives within Russia and globally could now be satisfied by a victory in the east, and the forging of a land bridge through Mariupol to Odesa. That would give Putin the industrial and resource rich zone of Ukraine and cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea. But it would not be enough.
He could certainly claim victory before Russian public opinion, possibly even in discussion with China and the former Soviet Republics of Central Asia. But giving him such a short term accomplishment would still leave the rest of Ukraine imperiled, as well as Moldova and the Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. And his appetite would not be sated.
Furthermore, something much more is at stake. If we in Europe and North America allow Russia brutally and without serious provocation to capture even a portion of Ukraine, and get away with enormous abuses of human rights as well as wanton battlefield killings, then the entire underpinning of the world’s international legal system and respect for order is forfeit. The nations of the West, Japan, South Korea, and the rest of the globe’s citizens cannot afford to permit might to conquer right. China is watching.
Because Russia may already have used phosphorus in Mariupol to maim and burn defenders of that enormously beleaguered city, its attackers may next use tactical nuclear weapons. We must be ready with effective responses to save Ukraine from capture and to save the carefully constructed architecture of world security.
President Biden has sought zealously to avoid a World War III and atomic usage. But we are now at the decisive pivot point. We need seriously to give Ukraine the strategic ability to take out Russian missile launching sites on land (in Russia) and once more at sea. That means giving Ukraine offensive capabilities, drawing us closer into the maelstrom of war in order to save the essence as well as the very population of Ukraine.
President Zelensky has rallied his own people; Ukraine would already have been overrun had it not been for his integrity, charisma, and leadership. Persistently, he has implored the free world for help. His people, as he has said over and over, are fighting valiantly not only for their own future as free individuals, but for the freedom of humankind.
Washington and London are supplying anti-tank weapons, Washington is adding specialized attack drones and helicopters to the mix, and Slovakia has sent an anti-aircraft battery. Poland and other European countries have also been helping with the materiel of war. But now those in Ukraine who are fighting valiantly against dictatorship and oppression need to be given the tools to push Putin’s forces farther east, even across the border into Russia. That will mean taking some risks, with a nuclear threat palpable. But it is past time to call Putin’s bluff. Were he to retaliate in a nuclear manner, we should be prepared –unthinkable as it is – with massive responses in kind.
We must also make Russia aware that a crossing of the nuclear Rubicon will result in its annihilation and the end of Russia. Further, once we assist Ukraine in forcefully mitigating as much as possible Russia’s missile and bomber capabilities, millions of lives could be saved, the economies of Western Europe spared further erosion, and the citizens of Russia remain chastened but unharmed.
This is not the time, as Prime Minister Thatcher counseled President George H. W. Bush, to “go wobbly”. Too much is at stake, and not only in Ukraine. To permit Putin to continue the Ukraine war at his discretion, according to his plan and program, would lead ineluctably to the world war that we so want to avoid. With Russia weakened, it is better to act now, and decisively, then to let Ukrainians suffer existentially and the mayhem to play out.