Weekend Update #101: Biden throws in the Towel
Also: Why Harris Must Win, Stoltenberg Admits a Mistake, Ukraine Withdraws from Vuhledar
Hello Everyone,
I hope you enjoyed the discussion session we had on Friday. I tried to get through all the questions—and typed furiously. Will definitely do this again—might even try a voice session (of which I have never thought before—but some of you suggested).
Also, apologies that Mykola and I have not done a podcast for a few weeks. Basically I was travelling for a while and then Mykola was. We will definitely catch up this week and hope to have a podcast out by Friday or Saturday. We have lots to talk about.
OK—now to the update. Big Story—Biden has thrown in the towel, we can only hope that Harris is different.
Biden Throws in the Towel
The Washington Post published a story two days ago which corresponds exactly what I’m hearing with from Washington, and indeed what seems obvious if you look honestly at what is happening. Basically the Biden Administration, and the President in particular, will do nothing more to aid Ukraine until the election. The administration wont approve the heart of the new Ukrainian strategy, which would be to help the Ukrainians with a greater ranged strike campaign.
I think we need to be clear what is happening here. Biden has never wanted Ukraine to have the ability to strike too effectively against Russian power. At first this was shown by his fear about letting Ukraine strike Crimea, and by his constant fear and prevarication about letting Ukraine have even old US systems such as Abrams tanks, F-16s, etc.
Its the same situation that we have had since Feb 2022. The administration believed then that Ukraine had no chance—and was prepared for a swift Russian conquest of at least eastern Ukraine. When the Ukrainians shocked the administration through its effective and powerful resistance, certain fundamentals in their outlook never changed. First, the administration/President remained very worried that Putin might follow through with his nuclear threats against Ukraine. Second, the administration/President remained petrified about a possible Russian collapse—preferring a dictator in control of Moscow to instability.
These worries (and I think people unfairly often blame Jake Sullivan for them—they emit from Biden, and people need to face that squarely) have been the cornerstones of US policy until now. And what the President has now communicated to the Ukrainians is that they will continue to govern the US as long as he is chief executive. So thats it. Ukraine will get no more capabilities and only a little more ammunition.
This has actually been the story of 2024. This chart is maybe the best Ive seen (its from Statista) to show how the Biden administration has basically thrown in the towel on Ukraine.
To show you the yearly disbursements, Ive cut and pasted them.
The amount of aid actually disbursed to Ukraine this year is much lower than 2022 and around 40% of that in 2023. If money talks—the Biden administration is screaming loudly and clearly that Ukrainian victory is not a priority and they will do little more for Ukraine.
I believe that this is a catastrophic decision—but it is the reality. Ukraine can expect nothing more from Biden.
Why Harris Must Win
Now Ukraine can have more hope in Harris. Obviously if Trump wins that will be even worse than Biden. There was an interesting story this week of just how deep his animosity is towards Ukraine (and how much he relies on Putin for advice). Basically he has personalized the relationship with Ukraine (and Putin). He distrusts Ukraine because he believes the Ukrainian government has not supported him personally—and has a number of times asked Putin what he (Trump) should do about US policy towards Ukraine.
So Biden is weak—Trump is worse.
There is actually a silver lining in all this—and that is if Harris wins there is a chance for a reset. People should not make the instant assumption that a VP who becomes President will follow in his/her predecessor’s footsteps on foreign or domestic policies. While VP, it is incumbent that that person remain loyal to the president, indeed that they become as effective a spokesperson as possible for the president.
However as is regularly the case, once VPs become President (or even the administration they were in ends) they often reveal that they had significant differences. Truman was not Franklin Roosevelt, Taft was not Teddy Roosevelt, George H Bush was not Reagan. Indeed, I think we can say that had Mike Pence become President he would not have been just like Trump.
So there is a chance that Harris could be stronger towards Ukraine—and we have some interesting signs that she might. First, her rhetoric about Ukraine since becoming the presumptive nominee in early August has been far more decisive than that of Biden. Second, she will have a new foreign policy team. I wrote about this a while back, but if you go by public writings and statements, her probable choice National Security Adviser, Phil Gordon, was actually quite hawkish for Ukraine. In 2018, as I described in this piece written in early August, he was calling for more advanced weapons for Ukraine than almost anyone else I can find.
I can also say, that I am hearing some decent reports from Washington that he and Harris will be tougher on Russia than the Biden administration.
Finally—Harris will have great impetus not to let Putin control her actions in the way that the Biden administration has. Putin is a bully-misogynist of the type Harris has built her career against. He will undoubtedly act that way against her, were she to win. In this case, the hope is that it backfires.
Is this a guarantee of more support for Ukraine? No. However the reality is this.
Trump would be a disaster, wants to cut Ukraine lose and work with Putin
Biden has thrown in the towel, is reducing aid and doesnt know what to do.
Harris has a chance for a reset towards Ukraine and there are signs she will be more supportive.
In such a world—3 is by far the best choice.
Stoltenberg—We Were Wrong Not to Aid Ukraine More
The recently retired and long-serving Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, gave an interview this week to the FT, and admitted something that is being owned up to more and more. Basically, because high level policy makers believed Ukraine had no chance against the Russian in the full-scale invasion in 2022, and even after, aid was far too slow in reaching Ukraine.
Stoltenberg also goes on in the interview to say that Putin’s red lines have proven to be fraudulent since Feb 2022. NATO has crossed red line after red line and he has not reacted.
This kind of realization is one of the things that helped give relevance to the report just released by Eliot Cohen and I: The Russian-Ukraine War: A Study in Analytic Failure.
The impact of the failed analysis about how strong Russia and Ukraine were had (and arguably continues to have) real policy impact. Aid to Ukraine was severely restricted because of it—and as head of NATO he would know the reality as much as anyone else. Indeed, as the report shows, much of the public analytical community was making strong arguments against supporting Ukraine for years before Feb 2022.
The ultimate irony of this, is that even though as Stoltenberg admits Putin’s red lines have been weak, and Ukraine should have received much more aid earlier, we are witnessing once again the repeat of the same arguments. The argument against giving Ukraine ranged weapons right now is basically the same against giving them heavy weapons before Feb 24, 2022, against giving them Abrams, ATACMS, F-16s, etc etc.
So a lesson has been learned in analyzing past behavior, and yet stunningly the implications of that learned lesson are not being applied now. Its a cycle of policy failure endlessly repeated.
Hopefully Harris wins and can end this cycle.
Ukraine Pulls Out of Vuhledar
This week Ukrainian forces pulled out of their last part of the small town of Vuhledar. It was, once again, portrayed as a strategic victory for Russia.
A few things on Vuhledar. It was, before the war, a small town of about 15,000 people. Of course almost all those people had left a while ago, and there was no war industry in the town. Moreover, unlike Pokrovsk for instance, it was not a rail center and strategic roads did not run through it to anywhere.
Vuhledar’s sole importance in the war was as point in a defensive line. That it did well for two years. Recently, however, the Russians started their micro advances around it. By early September they had started surrounding the town. Here was the map on September 8.
And here it was exactly 3 weeks later.
The Russians had pushed forward at an incredibly slow rate—at just over a kilometer a week. However they put Ukrainian forces in too risky a position to hold the defensive fortification in the ruins of the town. This week Ukrainian forces left.
What has Russia gained? They have captured a Ukrainian defensive position—and at great cost. They have advanced a few miles. There is also no follow up breakthrough and exploitation. Its the same story we have seen all summer.
And actually, though stories are again circulating of Ukraine on the verge of collapse—Russian advances have actually slowed over the last 3 weeks. Here is the map of the area of most intense fighting (which stretches from Chasiv Yar in the North to Vuhledar) 6 weeks ago (August 24).
Here it is 3 weeks ago (September 14)
Here is the map today.
The advances over the last 3 weeks have been very small indeed. I put in a ruler at what is arguably the largest area of Russian advance—and its 5 kilometres long (just about 3 miles).
This is what is strange. For all the discussion, the story of the summer and now fall was monotonously the same throughout the Donbas—as I wrote about in June.
Slow, incremental and bloody micro-advances by the Russian army. Putin still seems determined to take whatever territory he can before the US election, probably in the hope that Trump wins and that the war is frozen at that point and he gets to keep it (though the Ukrainian offensive in Kursk has complicated things in this analysis). However the specific case of Vuhledar changes little in that equation. It seems that advancing on Pokrovsk proved too difficult (remember that was about to fall in the first half of August, so the Russians turned to an area that was closer.
Have a good rest of the weekend everyone.
Many thanks for this sobering update. The Emperor has no clothes, as the saying goes, and the whole of Biden’s reputedly robust foreign policy will now be reviewed in the light of his failure to help Ukraine beat Putin. For fear, as is now clear, of seeing Russia collapse on his watch. His attitude may delay that inevitable outcome but it’s only a matter of time. Hopefully the foreign policy establishment in Washington is preparing for it and running through the different scenarios.
Ukrainian front-line soldiers are clearly exhausted and taking more casualties than before, as the FT and The Economist have (helpfully?) been reminding us of late. On the Russian side, the situation is undoubtedly worse but no journalist can give us a fair picture. An excellent article by Ben Connable in « War on the Rocks » quoted by Ben Hall in the FT yesterday, gives some cause for hope.
We live in that hope, and in eager expectation of a Harris victory in a month’s time.
With apologies to the mostly Democrat readers here, Biden is a selfish old man. He has left his successor in a pickle by not stepping back and letting them have a proper primary last year. Then holding on cfor nearly a month after the debacle of the debate! His successor could be further ahead in the polls if they had had more time to prepare.