Ukraine, Israel, and Biden: lessons and questions
Some thoughts on recent developments . . .
Elite persuasion and its limits
News reports suggest that President Biden got Speaker Mike Johnson to put a Ukraine aid bill on the floor of the House through good, old-fashioned persuasion: Biden and his team convinced Johnson it was the right thing to do by sharing intelligence with him. Biden didn’t berate Johnson in public. I suspect he flattered Johnson in private.
Knowing how to deal with Congress is a critical skill for any president, and Biden seems to be particularly good at it. Unfortunately, it is doubtful that many voters understand this. And being effective behind the scenes at negotiating and cajoling makes it difficult for Biden to take credit for legislation. To a considerable extent, Biden’s approach gives credit to members of Congress – Johnson now, Manchin earlier. And his quiet, non-partisan approach enables Trump to avoid blame for starving Ukraine of weapons.
Despite Biden’s success with Congress, recent events also highlight the real limits to persuasion, especially when dealing foreign leaders with their own interests and constituent pressures.
Biden’s team was unable – quite understandably – to persuade Ukraine not to target refineries in Russia. Biden has been largely unsuccessful persuading Netanyahu to respond to October 7 in a way that would either avoid civilian casualties or pave the way to a regional peace deal. In addition to his commitment to his ideological goals and his enjoyment of the spotlight, Netanyahu has a strong personal incentive to remain in power – to avoid prosecution – and this means prolonging the war and hoping to eke out something that he can call a victory, no matter how unlikely his tactics are to achieve his goals. And the Israeli public has been largely supportive of Netanyahu’s military response to October 7. It is not clear there is any credible argument about the best interests of the Israeli people that Biden can use to persuade Netanyahu to jeopardize his coalition or to bring the war to a quicker resolution through negotiation with Hamas.
Unintended consequences
The delay in getting aid to Ukraine was, on its face, a humanitarian, military, and diplomatic disaster. But there may have been some unexpected benefits. Watching Russian missiles batter Ukrainian cities while the United States stood by forced European leaders to the belated recognition that Europe must be able to defend itself. Furthermore, there is a growing understanding that Russian imperialism will not end with Ukraine. The prospect of unending Russian revanchism, in turn, helped to persuade people that worrying about Russian escalation will not buy peace or eliminate the risk of nuclear war. Finally, there I a growing realization that the war is increasing military cooperation between Russia and China. As a result, it is possible that the Biden administration will be bolder in arming and aiding Ukraine.
A critical test will be whether the Biden administration gives Ukraine the weapons it needs to destroy the Kerch bridge. It is unclear to me from published reports if ATACMS can do this. But giving Ukraine weapons it needs to blow up the bridge and to stymie the flow of supplies from the north would put the Russian invaders in a very difficult defensive position. Anything less would represent a betrayal of the people of Ukraine and an invitation to further Russian imperialism.
Short term thinking and the future of Ukraine
It is not clear to me why we have been withholding important weapons from Ukraine. The pattern of making up reasons not to aid Ukraine has been with us since the opening days of the war, when people argued that we could not provide more Javelin anti-tank weapons to the Ukrainians because our stocks would be too low, as if we have anything more useful to do with Javelins than destroying Russian tanks. Why has Biden allowed this type of thinking to influence his support for Ukraine? There are various explanations, none of which seem particularly compelling to me – worries about stockpiles, the needs of coalition maintenance and reluctance to overrule subordinates, fear of escalation, etc.
But sometimes Biden seems to me to behave in an overly cautious, temporizing manner, with the result that he fails to get in front of looming problems. I don’t want to overstate this as a criticism: it might not be true at all (he may have had good reasons that are not apparent to me), and often keeping options open is a good strategy (just as “wait and see” is often good medical advice). That said, I hope his administration has a plan for how to help Ukraine in the event of a Trump victory or Republican gains in Congress that strengthen the MAGA / Freedom Caucus wing of the party. Large stockpiles of weapons need to be physically in Ukraine on inauguration day 2024. Long-term contracts for logistical support and maintenance from private companies need to be signed. Financing needs to be put in place that is not subject to presidential discretion.
Short term thinking and Gaza
People rightly ask what Netanyahu’s plan is for Gaza. But we can also ask: what is Biden’s plan? I suspect that he thought the war would be winding down by now, that the domestic political challenges posed by the war would subside (people have short memories), and (hopefully) that his foreign policy team could pull a rabbit out of a hat and get a real peace process started. But without a plan for dealing with Netanyahu this seems like wishful thinking.
Persuading the people
In dealing with Congress, appealing to the public can be counterproductive, a fact that Biden understands well. But in Gaza private persuasion is unlikely to work. Instead, we need to persuade Israelis and their American supporters that they cannot achieve security through armed force alone, and we need to persuade Palestinians that they have no future unless they give up armed struggle. Who is pointing out to the Israeli people that their continued military dominance is far from assured? That they are losing allies and may not be able to count on American support indefinitely? That continued normalization with Arab nations cannot be taken for granted if the current violence rages on? And who is making the case to the Palestinians that they need to move past the violence and rejectionism of Hamas and negotiate an acceptable peace deal with Israel, or their great-grandchildren may well be living in the same horrid conditions they are enduring?
Conditioning aid to Israel
Critics of Biden argue that he needs to condition aid to Israel. Maybe, but conditioning aid is tricky (because there is a constant temptation to move the goal posts, which undermines the incentive effect) and Biden needs to be cognizant of American public opinion. The destruction in Gaza is shifting public opinion, but it mostly just makes people angry about the war, rather than laying out an affirmative case for the peace he and his advisors want both sides to embrace, however cautiously.
I suggest that a possible reason it looks like the US has withheld important weapons systems from Ukraine is fear of unpredictable Russian response to a situation where the weapons turned out to be successful in seriously disrupting Russian operations. That we seem to have gradually worked up the “chain” feels to me more a realization that the weapons do not actually change to overall situation that much. HIMAR, Russia can cope with. Abrams tanks, not at all decisive. ATACAMS with range limits, still not moving the needle much. F16…just a personal opinion, but I expect these to hardly get used. Air-to-air is not a factor and air-to-ground requires lots and lots of complementary military capabilities requiring lots of highly trained personnel to make an impact. Put 4 top- line US Army assault brigades, plus their logistics plus USAF capabilities and logistics into action and F16 probably could find a useful role. Otherwise it feels like ‘we have to do something, and F16s are something’. We don’t want to risk Russia feeling desperate and perhaps we should have thought that through more deeply in late 2021 and early 2022. A truly neutral Ukraine would have been a pretty good result for both Russia and NATO if military stability in Europe was a top consideration.
Sunk cost fallacy.
We sent X it did not work maybe X+y will work, rinse repeat as long as the Lockheed coupon clippers smile.
My thoughts would be a Desert Storm sized ground element; 10 assorted brigade combat teams, an iron mountain of munitions, and make sure every soldier has radiologic protection.
Ukraine offensive last year lacked any offensive air systems, which would have been far more than 60 EU class F 16! Again see Desert Storm.
BTW US is a shadow of its 1990 military.
Ten seems a bit high for US contribution as UK, France, Germany, Poland and the rest need to be in this. Look, not really advocating this, but if we really don’t want Ukraine to “lose” (ironic term when their country is already ravaged) then NATO actually needs to move in and do the fighting. The complexity of what needed to have been added to last summer’s offensive – that utterly failed – is that quite literally many tens of thousands of troops with hundreds of specialties and giant amounts of logistics were necessary to stress the Russians to breaking. And all that assumes training well beyond the NATO rush jobs for the unlucky Ukrainian brigades. The “big picture” for me is simply that the US and NATO won’t do what is needed for Ukraine to militarily prevail. Milley was right – for one time at least – to float ‘it’s time to negotiate’ in late 2022. It continues to be time to do so because the cavalry ain’t coming over the hill even if some cartridge boxes make it.
Blowing the Kerch bridge!
On the land north of the Azov sea there are roads, and new rail lines. There are also marine links; barge and coastal vessels.
Blowing the bridge is headline material. No more!
Blowing Russia up with ATACMS is like the Kaiser spending good steel on ships when the army needed gun tubes! Bombing w/o putting boots on the craters is suboptimum, especially when there are quantity limits to resources.
A lot of the advertised dollars in Ukraine aid is for back orders that have long leads but encouraged good dividends.
As to the tragedy in Palestine, no moral person would continue to arm and defend the perps.
This is delusional. Ukraine was losing when it had 100% US funding.. ie, during the counter offensive. And the “growing realization” that Russia is imperialistic is just delusion. There IS a growing realization that the US instigated this war to weaken Russia and rejected any attempts at diplomacy. This realization was confirmed publicly by the head of NATO. Yet some folks are still stuck on February 2022 bumper stickers. And Trump’s “starvation of Ukraine’s weapons” consisted of Trump giving Johnson a green light to pursue this latest $61bn giveaway. Stunning… just a stunning article.
Mr.Bob @ vila.com. Don’t you have some dresses to be shipping somewhere?
How Much Aid Has the U.S. Sent Ukraine? Here Are Six Charts.
I am disposed to agree with Kramer. The advice from the military experts commenting here seem to miss the big point. Allowing Russia to get away with this is dangerous to or own future security. At some point we will have to risk the Russian insane threat to use atomic weapons.
I am sorry to have to have recourse to the threat to our own security. Abandoning Ukraine would be immoral. But who cares about that?
As to Gaza, the peaceniks are no doubt right about the immorality of the Israeli “collateral damage” in Gaza. But they lose all credibility with me when they 1) assume their own moral superiority, 2) forget this is the way wars have always been, 3) the Israelis believe…rightly, I think…that they are at risk of their own complete destruction if they do not extinguish the threat from Hamas and other people determined to destroy Israel even at great cost to the people they claim to represent.
as for the “immorality” of Israel/Netanyahu: morality was the invention of a Palestinian Jew, and so far there is no evidence that any country has adopted it as part of their military strategy or imperial policy. (I take morality to mean something like “love your neighbor,” not “worry about your neighbor’s sex life.”)
USA would box Russian Federation into using their nukes by our adventures in proxy war 6000 miles from NYC?
The impact of not having NATO in Donbas upon your “security” is very slim.
As to morality of lawful government executed mass murder.. I suppose religion is an option.
Please flesh out your apology for Netanyahu’s genocide.
Hamas has no more chance to ruin Israel than Putin could roll a column of T 90 tanks through the Arc d’triump on Bastille day 2024.
paddy
morality has nothing to do with religion. i think this was part of what Jesus was trying to tell the people.
otherwise your reply to me was colorful but did not seem to have much to do with reality,
I certainly did not apologize for Netanyahu’s “genocide” though I think the term is a little overwrought. i suggested there might be a problem with your assuming you are more moral than he is.
morality has nothing to do with war. never has. Hamas is not alone in its desire to exterminate Israel, but their constant attacks might have eroded the Israeli desire to appear moral in defending itself.
your understanding of the threat of Putins (plural) is short sighted.
How could Putin threaten the EU west of the Dniepro?
My view of Russian military assets is their offensive and logistics capacity is stretched in clearing the Donetz.
Morals w/o religion, oh maybe philosophers?
paddy
as for morality v religion, there is not a chance in hell you would know what i am talking about. not your fault really, except maybe that you never felt a need to think about it. it certainly wasn’t part of your education.
i did suggest that my idea of morality was more along the lines of “love your neighbor” than “worry about your neighbors sex life.” it never even occured to me to ask what the “philosophers” were thinking.
maybe it’s like the line in Butch Cssidy: Butch and Sundance having been robbed by the bandidos, ambush said bandidos to get their money back. “Es necessario…” Butch says, looking at his english-spanish dictionary. The bandidos laugh at him (there are ten of them and only two of butch etc): “Hay otra necesidades.” says the chief bandido.
Or maybe Hamlet to Horatio “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy…”
You only know the things you think you know; you can’t even imagine there might be things you don’t know.
I think the danger of escalation to nukes is the cause of Biden’s slow walk of weapons to Ukraine. I also think we should accept Putin’s statements of his reasons for the war: he is trying to revive the Russian empire (or the USSR, if you prefer; they are the same thing.) a “neutral” Ukraine was not going to satisfy Putin.
Persuading the Palestinians to give up is an empty plan. Palestinians are not conducting the war in Gaza; Hamas is and Hamas is not going to pay any attention to Palestinian “public opinion” even if it can be influenced.
It has been reported that the possibility of arrest warrants being issued by the International Criminal Court has Netanyahu and his government concerned. Good. He only understands leverage and it appears that President Biden is unwilling to use it. One way or another, there are going to be two states in the region and whatever we can do to encouraging negotiations towards that result will be useful.
Jack:
What about the beach front property Jared Kushner is eyeballing once the population has been moved elsewhere? You are right . . .
Netanyahu has to go. They have slaughtered enough people to avenge the 1200. Maybe the next time they should watch their border more rather than leave it open for an invasion by hostiles.
Bill
I don’t think it’s about revenge. It’s a very understandable, to me, desire to eliminate a persistence source of the murder of their own citizens. It’s not a matter of numbers. Nor, I think, is it at bottom a matter of racism..although racism is a certain result of conflict between people of different “races” [such as Irish Catholics v Irish Protestants, or between Huthis and Tutsis, which seems to have been fomented by Belgium when they were the colonial rulers in order to divide the people and keep them from organizing to expel the Belgians…which is similar, in my opinion, to what the Hamas et al are doing to the poor Palestinians}
at bottom racism is a result of war more than the cause of it. The Israelis just want to get rid of the source of the killing of Israelis. Frankly, I think, they don’t give a damn about the innocent Palestinians. Just as we did not care about innocent Germans or Japanese or Vietnamese or Granadians, or Panamanians, of Iraqis, or Afghanis or…
coberly:
By your standard, we (Israel) can nuke them then? Nuke them to get them to submit.
not by my standard. i’m just talking about the moral superiority of bystanders not at risk themselves.
Yes, the conflict is still directed at the destruction of Hamas. Hamas operates with no concern for non-combatants, but they otherwise are substantially defenseless once a conflict escalated past small arms combat. Guys who talk a lot about the glory of martyrdom essential do their utmost to have women and kids intercept the munitions sent their way. It’s tragic. Nonetheless Israel needs to weigh carefully how much carnage they are willing to inflict to destroy this enemy.
Eric
no doubt. they also need to weigh carefully how much damage they are willing to take by not destroying this enemy.
Jackd
I think I agree with you, but as to Biden’s willingness to use his leverage…ultimately Biden may see the danger of a Hamas “victory” and certainly has no moral right to second guess Netanyahu’s assesment of the risks of genocide of Palestinians vs the genocide of Israelis. Moreover, there is not much percentage in worrying about the opinion of Arabs or the American far Left as compared to maintaining Israel as our most important ally in the Middle East
The opinion of the arab world will not change. They have been trying to eliminate Israel since 1948, or at least use Israel as a “cause” to unite their own populations under their current rulers. The rest of the global South, the American and European Left just enjoy the opportunity to feel , and appear, morally superior to America.
I used to be part of that pacifist Left, but in the case of Vietnam (thru Afganistan) WE were the aggressor. In the case of Ukraine and at least the most recent horror in Gaza the agressor is, respectively, Russia and Hamas. Which to the current crop of peaceniks seems not to matter.
Coberly; the problem for the U.S. in the Gaza conflict is that we re providing Israel with the weapons they are using in their offensive. The defense weapons successfully deployed against the missiles and drones are fine by me but the destruction of Gaza, starvation and bombing of its population, allegedly to wipe out Hamas is repulsive. From the river to the sea is Likud policy as well as Hamas’ slogan and the actions in Gaza and the West Bank are not just to “destroy Hamas”; they are to expel the Palestinians. Netanyahu will do whatever he can to avoid the establishment of a Palestinian state and I don’t think we should help him.
Jackd
everything you say is true. but we were not attacked. what did we do after 911?
meanwhile we need Israel. the Israelis are probably thinking of a Roman peace. Sort of thing has been going on for a long time. Seems to work well enough that people keep trying it.
I think it’s repulsive too. I just can’t see where it gives me the right to feel holier than thou..that thou.
oh, i heard…israeli propaganda no doubt…that Palestinians will do whatever they can to avoid a two-state solution.
Actually it’s Netanyahu that avoids the two state solution. He supported Hamas in Gaza to keep the PLO and the two state solution out.
I’m not justifying what we did after 9/11. Our stupidity doesn’t justify Netanyahu’s.
Jack
I am not justifying anything. “our stupidity” and “their stupidity” has been going on for twenty thousand years, probably a lot longer.
I have no doubt that Netanyahu avoids the two state solution. But your “actually” seems to mean that you doubt that Hamas , and Palestinians in general, avoid a two state solution. Since “the death of truth” I can not prove that they are and do, but I have heard…
I once tried to stop two dogs from fighting. They both bit me. Long before that, but I didn’t learn, I tried to stop a man from abusing a woman. She told me to butt out.
I do not support genocide. … or even “a little genocide.” But neither do I support cheap self regard for taking the side of “the victim” while ignoring ‘oo killed ‘oo first. this round.
By the way, I did not shoot the dogs.
or even yell at them.”
Who killed who is of some importance here. Hamas, not “Palestinians”, killed and raped those Israelis. Previously I likened the situation to a kidnapping writ large and the problem of dealing with it to the behavior of police. Mayor Rizzo of Philadelphia to the contrary notwithstanding, Americans generally reject bombing the ghetto within which the kidnappers are hiding and attempting to avoid endangering hostages is usually considered a priority. If the Israelis disagree with those policies, I object to our assisting them in their brutality.
Hamas does reject a two state solution and I never argued otherwise. The PLO does not. Netanyahu’s government assisted Hamas in its establishing political control of Gaza precisely to discourage a two state solution. Unlike you, he didn’t try to separate the dogs; he encouraged them to fight and when he got bitten, he lashed out at both dogs, not just the one that bit him. We haven’t discussed the settlers on the West Bank yet. From the river to the sea, indeed. Apparently they’ve decided to overthrow the Canaanites once again. As you say, it’s an old historical process. I don’t care to participate.
Jack:
Being X-Military like I am. Knowing Israeli security to be better than most and on or higher level than the US. Don’t you ever wonder how Hamas was able to trash the border unknowingly? Where were their reactionary forces? They should have been able to deploy rapidly. This is not like Cuba where I was based for 9 months and is far more advanced. We had fences and fields of land mines behind the road and the 20 guard posts. Sitting back was a bunch of 155s which could reach out past that border fence.
This was a failure of security. The question to be asked, is why?
Bill Haskell
yes, always worthwhile to ask why about failures of security, reminds me of story i read about people asking General Pickett why the South lost the war: well, he said,” i think the Yankees had something to do with it.” the story was in the context of an article responding to “Why did America lose Vietnam?” The author advanced that perhaps the Vietnamese had something to do with it? So why did we fail to prevent 9/11? Why did the Maginot line not stop the the Germans?
The simple answer is that our enemies are not stupid (about everything) and they study ways to defeat our “security.” Like war itself, this has been going on for at least twenty thousand years.
Feeding ourselves simple answers doesn’t seem to stop wars..or security failures. Calling Biden “genocidal” and electing Trump won’t help us here.
What I see here is everyone, including me, offering “explanations” that reach a simple answer and stop there. It is as useless for me to offer my simple answers as it is for everybody else to offer theirs. But that is inevitable too. It’s all we can do, and maybe once in a while it leads someone to a new thought. But not ofte enough to change anything.
Dale:
Are you going to explain perimeters to me? After my explanation? For some reason the Israelis did not guard their border enough against a dangerous enemy they were fully aware of then, previously, and into the future. Ask BiBi Netanyahu why he did not guard the perimeter more. Maybe he was just too busy trying to stay out of trouble?
“Netanyahu once again refused to listen to the warnings coming from the security establishment—not only of anger within the IDF, but also Israel’s enemies were planning to take advantage of the country’s disunity to launch an attack.”
The warning were there. Why heed them when you need a way to change the perspective on you to something else. You do not get to cause the deaths of 1150 citizens and then murder 30,000 people because you purposely screwed up and display revenge.
Bill; apparently our intelligence agencies also warned them.
Jackd
fair enough. i don’t really have a dog in this fight. just annoyed by some of the rhetoric from my nominal friends on the left, i thought i’d try to inject some realism into the debate
the difference between Mayor Rizzo and Netanyahu is the size of the problem and the difference in the threat level between Hamas and whoever Rizzo bombed.
As far as I know the term genocide came into use following the Nazi’s extermination of 6 million jews. Several orders of magnitude different from Israel’s disregard of human life in Gaza. and I think I have noted that those who support Putin also support Hamas.
It all makes me think of the lack of proportion in the thinking of those who will risk losing Social Security in order to avoid having an extra dollar a week being set aside in case they need it after they can no longer work.
Well, not to put too fine point on it, but most of those in our country supporting Putin are following some guy named Trump.
@Jackd,
Yes, I’ve noticed that, too.
Jack:
Aren’t they brothers?
Jackd
you may be right about that. but my first impression was that the Peace in Ukraine faction was the usual suspects..including Bernie Sanders?
since then, it does look like it’s the Republican Party, who deny it at the same time they are denying Ukraine the means to fight back. Whether they are in Putin’s pocket or just screaming stupid I can’t say. But I’d bet on screaming stupid.
Coberly,
Trump had offered his peace plan early on: give the Russians what they want. While I have no direct proof, I have a lot of circumstantial evidence that Trump is a Russian agent. I’m betting on Putin’s pocket. We’ll probably never know until Trump becomes dictator and starts to brag at Putin’s victory party.
Bill
I know noting about perimeters. Are you saying that Roosevelt ignored warnings abou Pearl Harbor because he wanted to stay in office? Or Bush ignored warnings about 911… or France’s “perimeter” Maginot line would have prevented the German attack if France had not ignored Hitler’s warnings
or that Biden ignored Putin’s “warning”…hmmm…