Gideon Rose
The 21st century has been one long catastrophe for U.S. foreign policy. A series of failed military interventions and other mishaps has squandered the country’s power and reputation, even as old rivals such as Russia revived their fortunes and new rivals such as China have continued to rise. In the blink of an eye, the notion of a post-American world has gone from specter to cliché. Contempt for the United States and the West more generally clearly contributed to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and opponents of even indirect U.S. involvement in the conflict portray it as yet another example of misguided military adventurism.
In fact, the opposite is true. This time, for a change, somebody else is playing the reckless foreign invader while the United States is sensibly counterpunching and enabling the victim to resist. Washington is picking its allies smartly and working with them closely. Instead of repeating recent U.S. strategic mistakes, the Biden administration is avoiding them, pursuing a fundamentally different approach. And it’s working.
After holding on to Kyiv in the spring and fighting a grinding war of attrition over the summer, Ukrainian forces have surged forward this fall, sending Russian forces reeling and retaking large chunks of territory lost earlier in the conflict. Moscow has responded by rushing forward sham referendums to whitewash its claims to the occupied Donbas region and parts of southern Ukraine while frantically mobilizing hundreds of thousands of additional troops, spurring protests across the country. The war has many stages yet to run, and not all of them will be as heartening as recent weeks. Still, September’s developments show that Kyiv is on the right track and Washington is backing the strong horse.
No comments:
Post a Comment