Alexander Vindman wants more war in Ukraine
Retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel Alexander Vindman, who gained fame for helping Democrats impeach President Donald Trump, is urging the Biden administration and its Western allies to swiftly and dramatically increase military aid to Ukraine.
Writing on the Foreign Affairs journal’s website, Vindman urges Washington and NATO to “give Ukraine the weapons and assistance it needs to win quickly and decisively in all occupied territories north of Crimea — and to credibly threaten to take the peninsula militarily.” That includes hundreds of tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, advanced fighter aircraft, long and short-range missiles, and thousands of rocket systems.
He suggests that a credible threat to retake Crimea will bring Putin to the negotiating table and end the war on terms favorable to Ukraine. Not doing so increases the risk of widening the war and embroiling NATO in the conflict.
Alexander Vindman is reminiscent of those European statesmen and generals before and during World War I who thought that mobilizing for war would somehow prevent it and, if not, would produce a swift victory. Remember how well that worked out.
Vindman has been one of the most vociferous war hawks when it comes to American involvement in the Russia-Ukraine War. Back in the summer of 2022, he traveled to Ukraine to help the country wage successful war against Russia. He called the Ukraine war “the most important geopolitical event of the last 20 years & maybe the next 20 years.”
Politico reports that Vindman is organizing a group of experienced American military contractors to travel to Ukraine and “embed themselves with small units near the front lines,” providing Ukrainian forces with “military logistics support.”
He has not shied away from partisan politics in his “geopolitical” analysis. He has blamed former President Trump, Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the Republican Party, and Fox News for “emboldening Russia to invade Ukraine,” even though Russia’s invaded Ukraine during the Obama and Biden administrations. “There is blood on the Republican Party’s hands,” he said. “They were partially responsible for what is happening in Ukraine.”
Vindman even knows how to do it: Tie down Russian forces in the Luhansk, Kherson, and northern Donetsk regions, sever Russia’s land route to Ukraine by pushing through to the Sea of Azov, and interfere with Russia’s military resupply route by destroying the Kerch Strait Bridge that connects Russia to the Crimea. Followed this with “weeks of strikes” on Russian armed forces. Then launch “land and amphibious attacks to gain a foothold in Crimea,” and move on to seize Russia’s naval installation at Sevastopol.
Unless, that is, what the great strategist Clausewitz called the “friction” of war — “the force that makes the apparently easy so difficult” — intervenes. As it usually does.
A lot of questionable assumptions underlie Vindman’s plan. One is his claim that “Western officials are less worried about Russian nuclear saber rattling than they once were.” He does not identify who those officials are or why they are less worried about nuclear escalation.
Another assumption is that a dramatic increase in Western military supplies — giving Ukraine everything it needs to defeat Russia — is less dangerous than what he calls “incremental escalation.” A third is that “Putin has no interest in a fight with NATO.” Presumably, that includes a NATO that supplies Ukraine with everything it needs to defeat Russia.
Perhaps Vindman’s most questionable assumption, which he voiced after his trip to Ukraine last summer, is that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is “the most important geopolitical event of the last 20 years.”
Others would argue that China’s rise — militarily as well as economically — and its expanded influence throughout Eurasia and beyond is a more important geopolitical event, especially when it is coupled with the growing strategic partnership between China and Russia.
In the past, American statesmen recognized the importance of maintaining the geopolitical pluralism of Eurasia. It is why we sided with Stalin against Hitler. It is why we sided with Mao against the Soviet regime. But all the Vindman approach does is to push Russia even closer to China. And as tensions increase in the western Pacific over Taiwan, Vindman’s counsel may get us into a two-front war that nobody should want.