Dare one encourage President Biden to consider a radical re-think? He and his strategists have so far effectively assisted Ukraine’s courageous resistance to Putin’s calamitous invasion. Washington and its NATO allies have poured large quantities of old and new armaments into the battle, while letting outnumbered Ukrainians do all of the fighting and experience much of the suffering. Thousands have been killed. About 11 million Ukrainians have been displaced from their homes, becoming internal as well as cross-border refugees. Is it time for the U. S. and its partners to make the war harder for Russia?
Putin’s bottling up of Ukrainian exports of wheat and sunflower oil, coupled with a halt to normal trading in Russian wheat and Belarusian fertilizer, has caused major food shortages in the developing world, starvation, and immense hardship. Escalated prices for key commodities on which the Arab world and much of Africa depend hardly helps. The collateral damage of Putin’s war is thus great, and apt to grow exponentially.
Although food shortages are not an immediate issue in Europe, Putin’s attack on Ukraine, rising costs for commodities and petrol, and Russia’s subsequent halt to natural gas shipments, has (as Putin correctly calculated) added to civilian pain in Europe. President Biden and the leaders of Europe worry that Europeans may soon resent sacrificing comforts and life styles just to back Ukraine against Putin. Even American consumers may join the Europeans who chafe at continuing to pay for a war without an end in sight.
Patience is a virtue, but across twenty-eight or more nations, the leaders of the free world may soon be unable to count on unquestioned civilian acceptance of their burdens indefinitely.
For such reasons, as well as because of what the war is doing to prices generally and the availability of, say, bread in the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa, it may shortly be time prudently to think of ways to produce victories and an honorable end to conflict. Otherwise the war will drag on and on, with immense suffering and collateral damage.
Putin is presumably counting on the West’s exhaustion and an eventual default acceptance of his conquest of the Donbas, if not even more of eastern and southern Ukraine. That is, Putin doubtless thinks that the West will sooner or later urge Ukraine to agree to a capitulated peace. Putin’s leverage would gain strength, he reckons, having by that time pulverized Donetsk (as well as Luhansk) into submission — by reducing whole cities to rubble.
To avoid such a result, Biden and our partners will need to do exactly what Biden has been determined to avoid – to engage in the war directly, with American forces and personnel. This is indeed a radical suggestion, but if Biden prepares the American public carefully – forcefully articulating the need to spare Ukraine endless destruction and losses of life -- he can push the Russians back and conclude the war successfully. In the process, he can save his presidency. Very little less is going to keep Congress in Democratic hands in November.
Such a radical departure from the grinding slog of today’s war, with 100 or more Ukrainians dying each day, will not easily be avoided by sending more missile batteries into Ukraine. They are beginning to help, but we do not have sufficient quantities of the modern Big Berthas to turn the tide for Ukraine. Nor is there time to train large numbers of Ukrainians to fire the launchers and then to repair them.
What could bring the war to a positive conclusion would be committing American air power. U. S. and NATO aircraft could destroy Russian fuel and repair depots, logistical bases, and troop headquarters. We need not attack Russia itself, only illicit Russian war power within Ukraine. To repulse Russian armed forces, now weakened, in this manner could conceivably lead to the World War III and a nuclear battle that the West and all of us want desperately to avoid.
But President Biden and his partners could tell Putin either to withdraw from Ukraine or be bombed and destroyed. We could also make evident that any attempt to use nuclear intercontinental missiles in retaliation would lead to the total destruction of all of Russia by our readied and loaded warheads. A prompt withdrawal from Ukrainian soil would not involve harm to Russia itself.
Such a suggestion may be deemed too risky to attempt. Or it may be considered too fanciful, too out of touch with the realities of Putin’s grand design.
But by being decisive in this war, now, Biden could spare future us from future conflagrations caused by Putin and could signal resolve to Xi Jinping and China. To continue to let Putin pummel Ukraine is not a victorious pursuit.
Letting the slog of war continue through the summer, with Russia taking more and more Ukrainian territory, inch by inch, and then having hostilities and shelling continue into the autumn and winter, is bound to discourage consumers everywhere, and risk turning them against such an interminable contest. Civilians may prefer comforts rather than ensuring the freedom of the world.
The object of a radical rethink is at least to deprive Putin of negotiating leverage and to end the war with a clear triumph for Ukraine – and correspondingly for those who support a rule based world order, civility and decency in international affairs, and global stability.
A clear victory against Putin’s anarchism cannot be assured without a massive re-think of our own aims and our methods. There are simply too few Ukrainians to shoulder the burdens of the free world, and to defeat Putin. That is why it is now timely to up our game, and take tough love deep into the heart of a cold Kremlin. The risks are great, but the gains even greater.
Time is of the essence on all fronts. Michael is right about buying off Turkey. There is too much at stake by continuing the current strategy. The Ukraine at some point will run out of soldiers. Bob's perspective is very relevant considering where we stand today.
For starters, we *and the EU* should seriously consider forcing opening the Black Sea to commerce, citing the pressing need to get grain to African and other drought-stricken nations – even if that means buying off Turkey (which controls the outlet from the Black Sea).