DYER: Incremental improvements is Biden’s plan for helping Ukraine

pointless, lost foreign wars from Vietnam to Afghanistan, Americans are dubious about the benefits of foreign military adventures. It helps Biden greatly that no Americans are being killed in Ukraine, but the war there is still unpopular with the voters and getting more so.

Biden would be offering an open goal to Donald Trump (or some other Republican rabble-rouser, if Trump is in jail by then) if the war in Ukraine is still raging in November 2024. He has to get it finished before that, so the Ukrainians will soon get their F-16s.

It’s been the same balancing act right from the start. Biden is obviously cutting it very fine, but has he actually miscalculated? We shall find out in the next few months, but he may have a card up his sleeve. It might not really be three to six months before the Ukrainians have operational F-16s.

There is reason to believe that some Ukrainian pilots have already been trained on fourth-generation fighters (not necessarily F-16s) by friendly European countries, though not by the United States. Ukrainian Air Force Command has also quietly called for veteran F-16 pilots and ground crews from other countries to join up and help in the transition.

The actual planes could come sooner than

Washington’s timetable suggests, because the actual donors of the F-16s will be smaller European NATO member like Denmark and the Netherlands. These are countries that have taken a lead in weapons deliveries to Ukraine in the past, and they might do so again.

A decisive Ukrainian military victory, Biden’s third priority, is still far from guaranteed, but Ukrainian air superiority over the front, at least, may be within reach.