Russia can’t win in Ukraine, but Biden has no victory strategy
Marc Thiessen says the White House should give Kyiv what it needs to push out Putin’s forces.
WASHINGTON — Washington has been focused on controversy surrounding the “nine words” in President Joe Biden’s Warsaw speech about Russian President Vladimir Putin: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.” But the real problem was the words that were missing: “For God’s sake, Russia cannot remain in Ukraine.”
Biden talks about helping Ukraine defend itself. But five weeks into this war, he has yet to declare that our objective is to help Ukraine defeat Russia. “I have yet to hear anybody in the U.S. or anywhere in Europe use those words, ‘Defeat Russia,’ ” says Kurt Volker, former U.S. special representative for Ukraine and onetime ambassador to NATO. “No one’s talking about defeating Russia. No one’s talking about victory.”
They should be. Russia is losing. Putin wanted to quickly reach Kyiv, decapitate the government and install a puppet regime. He has utterly failed in that objective. He has failed not only to take Kyiv but Kharkiv or any other major cities controlled by Ukraine before the invasion. It is now clear that not only can Ukraine survive, but also it can prevail.
Unfortunately, our strategy has not caught up with Russia’s failure. We are not giving
Ukraine the weapons it needs not just to stop the Russians from taking more territory but to drive Russian forces out of the territory that they have already taken.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s frustration boiled over in a speech Saturday. “What is NATO doing? Is it being run by Russia? What are they waiting for?” he asked. Ukraine, he said, needs “tanks, planes, anti-aircraft-defense and antiship missiles. Our allies have these resources, but they prefer to allow them collect dust in their warehouses.”
The Biden administration has been behind the curve in Ukraine every step of the way. Why didn’t Biden arm Ukraine to the teeth before Russia’s invasion? Because he did not believe that Putin would actually invade and that doing so might provoke Moscow. Why did he slow roll weapons deliveries in the weeks after Putin invaded? Because he didn’t believe that Ukrainians could hold out against overwhelming Russian forces.
Now that they are holding out, Biden has announced a new $800 million arms package for Ukraine. Every element could have been delivered to Ukraine weeks ago. And what Biden announced is woefully insufficient. He touted delivering 800 additional Stinger antiaircraft missiles and 2,000 Javelin antitank missiles. But Ukraine says it needs 500 Stingers and 500 Javelins per day. They have also requested planes — including MiG-29 fighter jets and Russianmade aircraft designed to provide close air support for troops on the ground — as well as attack helicopters and antiaircraft systems such as the S-300.
None of that appears to be forthcoming — because our armand-equip program is not on a victory footing. Why? Biden seems more concerned with not provoking Russia than he is with winning the war.
“I think that there is this boogeyman out there, ‘If we do X, it’ll create World War III.’ ” Volker says. “And I think we have to get over that and say, ‘No, it won’t create World War III … (because) the Russians don’t want us to join this fight. So, they’re going to do everything possible to avoid World War III as well.’” He’s right. If Putin can’t even defeat Ukraine, the last thing he wants is to fight NATO.
The fact is, victory is achievable. It is now clear that Russia cannot win. “There is no way that Putin can take the territory of Ukraine and hold it,” Volker says. So, if Ukraine is going to win, “then we should not be holding back any support for them whatsoever. … We should be helping Ukrainians early and often, so that we minimize the casualties and increase their chances of greater success and less destruction.”
Former deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger agrees. We don’t want “an outcome similar to the outcome that we saw on the Korean Peninsula, where the place just gets torn down and ends with a stalemate,” he tells me. It’s time, he says, for the Biden team to ask itself, “Why not victory?”
What would a decisive Ukrainian victory look like? “We should not be satisfied with Russia regrouping in the Eastern part of Ukraine and then just sitting there,” Volker says. “They need to get out of Ukraine.” At the end of the war, he tells me, “I would like to be able to go to Donetsk and sit in a coffee shop and talk with people who suffered … and say that I’m glad to see that they’re part of Ukraine again.”
A few weeks ago, that seemed like an impossible dream. Today, it is an achievable goal. But it will take a major shift in thinking — and infusion of spinal fortitude — in the White House.
In 1977, Ronald Reagan met with Richard Allen, who would later become his first national security adviser, to discuss Reagan’s foreign policy vision. Allen would later recount that in their hours of conversation, one quote from the future president stood out: “My idea of American policy toward the Soviet Union is simple, and some would say simplistic. It is this: We win and they lose.” That should be our strategy in Ukraine.