After President Biden gave his speech in Warsaw, I wrote that it was a historic, well-informed tribute to democracy as well as a timely reminder of the essential civil liberties. Biden also showed sincere empathy and offered a ringing affirmation that “the United States stands with Ukraine” — a country whose entire people are being sadistically terrorized on purpose by the world’s second most powerful army.
I praised the speech and wrote that it likely would be remembered as a turning point in world history, but only if it were matched by the acts and policies of the Biden Administration. So far, that has not happened. According to numerous accounts from the European press and now The Wall Street Journal, the United States, France, and Germany have prevented or unreasonably delayed other NATO allies from providing weapons to Ukraine that it could use to defend its suffering population from decimation by Russia’s high-flying planes, long-distance artillery, and cruise missiles.
Only weapons that have this capacity can protect Ukraine from Putin’s terror-bombing and terror-shelling and thus save its people and their country. If despite its overwhelming military prowess NATO cannot summon the courage and decency to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, doing so only to defend an innocent people from unprovoked crimes against humanity, then the least it can do is facilitate the transfer of weapon-systems that the Ukrainians can use to protect themselves.
So far, the Biden Administration has refused to support Poland’s attempt to transfer fighter jets to Ukraine, and it has apparently slow-walked or implicitly opposed Slovakia’s attempt to transfer anti-aircraft systems that work against high-flying bombers and incoming missiles. Biden’s wonderful speech thus begins to seem like so much empty talk, which changed nothing.
In fairness, the US has increased the volume and pace of its delivery of guerrilla-theater weapons, which Ukraine’s armed forces have skillfully used to repel Russia’s army at close quarters and also to take down its helicopters and low-flying planes. But those weapons cannot reach the devastating weapons that Russia launches from afar. Those weapons include cluster bombs, thermobaric bombs, phosphorus bombs, and cruise missiles. Russia has used them to terrorize the civilian population and to transform Ukraine from a modern, democratic country into a ruined, desolate no-man’s land.
Here are two examples of the Biden Administration’s diffidence that highlight the larger trend. A few weeks ago, the Administration trumpeted its decision to send 100 Switchblade drones to Ukraine. These weapons are like smart, remote-controlled hand-grenades, which provide surveillance, explore and loiter, then fly to a target and explode upon reaching it. But their explosions are only as powerful as those of modern hand-grenades, and they cannot pierce an armored tank. Sending 100 of these weapons will not save the Ukrainians.
Most recently, the Administration promised to deliver ten of the new version of the Switchblade drone, which can destroy an army tank. But sending only ten will not save the Ukrainians.
To me, those promised deliveries are emblems of a failed approach. It’s an approach that I would term “a dollar short and a day late.” If, as President Biden promised, we really stand with Ukraine, then we must prove it by our acts and our policies.
So far, the West has trembled in cowardice and offered only its ineffectual partial sanctions, eloquent condemnations, and small arms in abundance, which is better than nothing, but not nearly good enough. President Macron has distinguished himself as arguably the most craven appeaser of his generation. In comparison, Neville Chamberlain was a fearless, swashbuckling avenger. But Biden too, and his advisors even more so, have not risen to the occasion.
By departing from MAD principles that have kept the nuclear peace since 1945, the Biden Administration and NATO have encouraged Putin and other ruthless dictators to embark upon primitive wars of conquest. The dictators will learn from this that NATO will stand down once they have nuclear arms and threaten to use them.
We must learn our history better and teach modern-day dictators a different lesson. Hitler already showed us what happens when you try to appease gangsters: they are emboldened.
We must therefore restore MAD principles as our fixed policy on nuclear weaponry, then decide what to do about the Ukraine War as we would any other confrontation. So many times the US has embarked on misguided military missions, which I have invariably opposed, especially our invasion of Iraq in 2003. But the US doesn’t terrorize civilian populations as a military strategy or seek to deprive them of their democracies and subject them to a brutal, authoritarian kleptocracy. Even so, we have not made things better for anyone by overrunning autocratic societies whose cultures and politics are alien to our own. We have usually made things worse.
But this time is different, and everyone knows it.
As for me, I favor having NATO defend the Ukrainians by accepting their government’s plea that we impose a no-fly zone over their country, and by giving them the weapons that they need to drive the Russian Army from every inch of their country. Now. Enough is enough.
But if not, then for the love of everything decent in the world, and for the sake of our posterity, and especially for the sake of the Ukrainians, we must send them adequate weapons that will allow them to defend themselves from Putin’s terror-campaign. That needs to happen now.
I also recommend that Biden hire Alexander Vindman as his special advisor on the Ukraine War, then give him responsibility and full authority to procure and deliver weapons and humanitarian relief to Ukraine. Above all, it’s time to revive the Lend-Lease Act and ramp up production and deliveries to Ukraine.
Its people are being sadistically slaughtered on purpose, as a military tactic by which Russia aims to win this war. The US is always gearing up to oppose some perceived enemy or other, but this time we have stood down while a historic villain inflicts misery and ruin with impunity on a country to which we gave formal security guarantees in 1994 in exchange for its relinquishment of its nuclear weapons.
The US government has failed the Ukrainian people. Biden’s speech suggested that things would change. They have not, or not nearly enough. It’s time for President Biden to walk the walk.