Escalation: This Week in Ukraine
Escalation: This Week in Ukraine
European posturing, spies (again), $ well spent, and more.
1. Macron Finds Some Couilles
How unlikely it is that France could find itself in the center of another world war? There seems to be no historic precedence. This week French President Emmanuel Macron held an emergency conference with his European compatriots to explain that, if need be, Europe can defend itself from Russia without US assistance. He also happened to quip that he would not rule out sending European troops to fight in Ukraine. Putin responded with saying he would use his nuclear arsenal to melt Paris like a hot croque monsieur. Germany’s Olaf Scholz felt the need to reveal classified operations by chiming in that, hey, we already have European troops in Ukraine (those of UK and France, to assist in the use of Storm Shadow/SCALP cruise missiles). Thanks Olaf.
To the Charlie Brown of Europe’s defense, Ukraine and the West have been clamoring for a reason why Germany has not sent the their Taurus cruise missile, with the presumed capability to reach out and degrade the logistically crucial Kerch Strait Bridge, for example. The reason seems to be that this missile would require German troops to assist in the operation, similar to what the British and French are doing in Ukraine. In Scholz’s eyes this would be a dangerous escalation. Germany’s critics are relentless, “We demand you tell us why you will not send the Taurus to Ukraine!” then, “How dare you tell us why you will not send the Taurus to Ukraine!” Oh, Europe.
To further poke Putin, this week NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Ukraine has the legal right to use Western weapons on military targets inside Russia. Although tacitly prohibited by the West, Ukraine has probably already used Western weapons (e.g. air defense systems) to attack military planes inside Russia. If allowed, Taurus and ATACMs missiles, and F-16s could do serious damage inside Russia. Perhaps more provocative, lifting the prohibition on Western weapons might confound attribution if Ukraine starts attacking targets inside Russia with indigenously produced medium-range ballistic missiles.
Where are the Ukrainians on all this? Ukrainian officials love to portray a possible NATO-Russia conflict as a grinding contest with endless dead and wounded on both sides—much like the war in Ukraine is now. Their logic is that the West should fight the war now in Ukraine, giving equipment, money, and even personnel, in order to avoid the same fate on NATO soil. The problem with that argument is that a war between NATO and Russia would not be anything like the one in Ukraine. It would either be the complete destruction of the Russian military in short order, or nuclear Armageddon. As such, Europe would be better served by strategic ambiguity and continued material support to Ukraine rather than by an empty attempt at deterring Russia (in light of the Kremlin’s recent battlefield success) through aggressive rhetoric. Basically, keep your mouth shut and keep helping Ukraine kill Russians.
2. First Rule, We Do Not Talk About the CIA
After Russia invaded Ukraine the first time in 2014, the CIA began fostering a mutually beneficial relationship with Ukrainian intelligence. The Ukrainians claim they could not have held off Russia without the CIA’s help. Likewise, the Ukrainians have provided valuable intel on the Russians that, 30 years after the Cold War, the CIA no longer has the ability to develop. “’For a Russian, allowing oneself to be recruited by an American is to commit the absolute, ultimate in treachery and treason...But for a Russian to be recruited by a Ukrainian, it’s just friends talking over a beer.’” The New York Time’s Adam Entous and Michael Schwirtz describe the origins and evolution of this clandestine friendship in The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin.
3. Once in a Lifetime Opportunity
As an Army ranger with combat experience in the 82nd Airborne Division and in the elite 75th Ranger Regiment in Iraq and Afghanistan, Congressman Jason Crow (D-CO) knows a little bit about war. This week Crow presented the case for the current bill to support Ukraine in as practical and succinct terms as I have heard since the start of the war: “[the bill] provides that support by spending over half of the money right here in the United States, to US businesses and US workers from places like Texas, in North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, and Colorado all throughout this nation who will be building the equipment and supplies that we’ll be sending to our military. Because that's another part of this. Our military sends our old equipment to Ukraine and Ukraine uses it with great effect on the battlefield. Then the new stuff is kept by our military. So let's break this down. We're supporting our economy. We're protecting our 100,000 troops. We're ensuring a stable and prosperous Europe. We're defeating the Russian military. We're ensuring food supplies. We're updating our own military stocks. We're infusing money into the US defense industrial base, into our own workers and businesses, and we're doing all of this for less than 5% of our annual defense budget.”
At the heart of the argument for funding Ukraine is a broader discussion about our national defense spending. If one of the Republicans’ main reservations against funding Ukraine is that we have more pressing issues in the United States proper to worry about—securing the southern border, fixing our failing infrastructure, producing more corn ethanol, strip-mining clean coal—then the United States needs to examine why we are spending almost a $1 trillion-per-year on defense in the first place. If we abandon Europe, and the greatest opportunity in decades to weaken one of our perennial enemies, then we should simply cut the defense budget in half.
4. [Video] Synchronized Drowning
This week’s video is of two Russian BTR-80s hitting mines at exactly the same time. Beautiful.