The Winds of Change: This Week in Ukraine
Biden and the NATO summit, the West’s fake friends, and more.
1. A Lion in Winter
NATO held its 75th-anniversary summit this week in Washington, DC. Amidst the perfunctory announcements of weapons donations, cooperation agreements, and empty promises of a “clear pathway” for “eventual” membership for Ukraine, the world was carefully watching for any sign of cognitive ineptitude in Biden’s performance. The President did not disappoint. At perhaps one of the most anticipated moments of the summit, Biden introduced Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin.” For me, this was the moment Joe Biden solidified his legacy as a one-term president.
At this point, the world needs to anticipate the ramifications of a Trump victory. Unless the Democrats quit gaslighting themselves and put forth at least a somewhat viable candidate, NATO, Ukraine, and the free world need to prepare for Trump’s foreign policy, whatever that may be. Currently, the most popular speculation on the war is that Trump will coerce both sides to sit at the table. As I understand the leaked snippets of his plan, he will force Zelensky to relinquish Crimea and parts of the Donbas, a seemingly political impossibility for Zelensky even if Trump threatens to withhold support. In regards to Putin, Trump is either going to give Putin whatever he wants (which is possible) or threaten him with massive military might. Therein lies the paradox. Trump can’t simultaneously threaten increased and decreased military support to Ukraine. Neither side will take him seriously, and this war will continue until both parties are prepared to negotiate.
Ukraine has little margin for error or delay. Any new US aid to Ukraine will not materialize until after the November elections, probably much later. This year, we’ve seen the impact of the six-month delay that the US $60 billion supplemental had on the battlefield. Russia took, and still has, the momentum, keeping Ukraine on its heels, reactive, and shifting reserves throughout the 600-mile front, continuing to exhaust already exhausted brigades. Russia’s current strategy seems to be to keep pressure on the Armed Forces of Ukraine by continuing to attack in places like Vovchans'k (northeast of Kharkiv), Chasiv Yar (west of Bakhmut), and near Avdiivka (north of Donetsk city). Additionally, Russia is attempting to open a new offensive push in Torestk (between Chasiv Yar and Avdiivka) and possibly a renewed offensive as far west as Sumy. Ukraine will be lucky to utilize the current US aid package to prevent a minor Russian breakthrough, let alone any thought of offensive operations.
Europe needs to be prepared to step into the breach now. It needs to prepare a substantial military aid package for delivery immediately after all the US aid is delivered. It needs to authorize deep strikes inside Russia with European weapons like Scalp and Storm Shadow missiles (and Germany needs to give Ukraine the Taurus missile). These are all obvious steps Europe needs to expedite to prevent Russia from taking more Ukrainian territory this winter. Less obvious is the need for Europe to play hardball with China.
Europe needs to make it clear that it will not tolerate direct (or indirect) Chinese military assistance to Russia. At this point in the war for Russia, success is simply a math equation based on the ability to regenerate forces. It needs more vehicles, shells, missiles, and soon, probably manpower. The West cannot allow China to start directly supplying any of this to Russia (coincidently, this week, China conducted joint military exercises in Belarus). I find it hard to believe China would fall on its economic sword for Russia if the EU presented it with a credible level of deterrence.
Putin can feel the changing winds surrounding an impending Trump victory. He is going to continue to press any advantages. Ukraine’s defenses are going to continue to heave from the weight of mindless Russian meat assaults, and its cities will slowly crumble under Russian bombs. If Europe doesn’t act now, Ukraine is facing a long winter.
2. The Enemy of My Friend
It is clear that enemies of the West like China, North Korea, Iran, Senator J.D. Vance, and Belarus are directly helping Russia in its perverse endeavor to conquer Ukraine. But what of states that are considered friendly to the US and Europe? Is it possible to see a major realignment of loyalties regarding those external to the liberal world order? Recently, countries like the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Hungary have shown an annoyingly inconvenient ambiguity toward supporting Ukraine or outright overt support for Russia.
Should we expect this adversarial behavior from China or parts of the Global South, like Syria and Mali, but not India? This week, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his first visit to Russia in five years. He warmly embraced Putin and later said, “India is ready to support you in every possible way to achieve peace. I assure you and the world that we are in favor of peace and, after talking to my friend Putin yesterday, I have hope.” His friend Putin also just happens to be supplying oil to India at a discounted rate since the start of the full-scale invasion, making India the second-largest importer of Russian oil, behind China. India is also selling this cheap Russian oil back to Western markets, helping to keep gas prices low. There’s a long-standing theory that democracies don’t go to war with other democracies, but India looks out for India, not democracy.
And what of the US’s “friend of convenience,” Saudi Arabia? This week, Bloomberg reported that the repulsive Sultan of Shitholes, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (commonly referred to by his finance-bro sobriquet “MBS”), threatened to sell some European debt holdings if the G7 decided to seize Russia’s $300 billion in frozen assets. The question is, why would he threaten this? Yes, seizing assets of total shit stains like those of rich Russian oligarchs sets a dangerous precedent for other rich shit stains like MBS, but there must be other reasons. He cannot value his ambiguously close relationship with Russia that he would threaten to back Putin to such a degree. No. It must be his desire to exert his influence over world geopolitics. He wants to be noticed. I guess killing Western journalists isn’t enough notoriety. He has to align himself with a regime that enjoys bombing children’s hospitals.
The newly anointed President of the EU, Victor Orbán went on a peace bender during the last two weeks. In an unofficial capacity, he took it upon himself to visit Kyiv, Moscow, Azerbaijan, Beijing, and Washington. This week, Orbán left the NATO summit and headed straight to kiss the ring of exalted great unclean heir apparent in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. He said that Trump has a peace plan for Ukraine. Ok. We all have a plan until Mike Tyson punches us in the face. Of his magical mystery tour, Orbán was quoted as saying, "I am not negotiating on behalf of anyone." You got that right, Vic.
The political tides in the US are about to shift, and some world leaders are already gloating. Those who spent the Biden administration on the outside are about to be welcomed back into the White House. None of these unsavory characters have ever cared about Ukraine. They care about influence and positioning themselves for a new Trump world order. It’s about power. And what better way to do it than by conducting your own third-order, shadow proxy-war against the West by supporting Putin? If anything, this war has shown us who our friends are, and India, Saudi, and Hungary are not them.
3. [Podcast] Squaring the Circle
This week I sat down with US Army Major Matt Bigelow on his podcast Squaring the Circle to discuss the how the war has changed in the last two-and-a-half years, how Ukraine (or Russia) could win the war, combined-arms maneuver warfare and the death of the tank, drones, and more. Take a listen here.
4. [Video] Putin’s NATO Temper Tantrum
Whenever Putin wants to make a statement about his discontent, he has a temper tantrum. This week’s outburst was over the NATO summit. He showed that he wouldn’t be intimidated by the overwhelming military power of NATO by intimidating helpless civilians. This week’s videos are two different views of the missile attacks on Kyiv. The first (here), is a view of the missiles entering the city, the second (here) is of the resulting explosions. Apocalyptic stuff.