Gloria McDonald
OPINION:
The Biden administration’s recent decision to provide the Patriot missile system — a surface-to-air guided missile defense system — to Ukraine represents a notable turning point in the conflict.
While many applaud this move as an important sign of America’s commitment to Ukraine, this provision represents a new crossroad in the conflict, in which the Biden administration is now arming Ukraine with military equipment they had previously ruled out for fear that it would curtail a peace treaty, as negotiations between Russia and Ukraine appear unlikely. This move signals that the Biden administration plans to provide increasingly advanced weapons systems to Ukraine, including the possibility of long-range weapons, which could open new fronts to the war. Absent an end-state strategy, this path toward escalation risks prolonging the war.
Throughout this conflict, the Biden administration has avoided arming Ukraine with advanced military equipment, including the Patriot system and long-range missiles, for fear that Ukraine could use these missiles to strike targets in Russia and escalate the conflict. The Biden administration, for example, altered the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System’s range capabilities before giving them to Ukraine to prevent them from being fired into Russia.
This decision was based on the need to arm Ukraine with the defensive capabilities required to thwart Russia’s invasion while ensuring that a path to negotiations remained a viable option.
While the Patriot is a defensive system, the greatest risk of the United States sending the Patriot to Ukraine is not the system itself, but what it represents: The U.S. is now moving in lockstep with Ukrainian requests for advanced weapons systems to use against Russia, as neither Ukraine nor the United States appears to view negotiations as the solution to the conflict.
This matter comes in the wake of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s address to Congress in which continued military engagement with Russia via U.S. military equipment and financial aid was reiterated rather than a path to negotiations.
Had the Patriot system been provided in conjunction with President Biden or Mr. Zelenskyy’s pragmatic steps toward negotiations, the United States would be enabling Ukraine to negotiate with Russia from a position of strength. Yet no feats have been accomplished by either Mr. Biden or Mr. Zelenskyy toward this aim.
While Ukraine has expressed the desire to enter peace talks over the war mediated by the United Nations, they have established that Russia’s participation in these talks is contingent upon war tribunals, a requirement unlikely to achieve any resolution or negotiated settlement.
Moreover, Mr. Zelenskyy has signed into law that Ukraine-Russia negotiations will not include Russian President Vladimir Putin, and senior Ukrainian officials have stated that negotiations with Russia are a “deal with the devil.” These sentiments offer no clarity on steps toward a negotiated settlement to secure Ukrainian sovereignty, merely a prolonged conflict.
Absent negotiations, Ukraine is on a pathway of continued military engagement with Russia. Sending the Patriot system means that this will likely not be the last military equipment that Mr. Biden provides Ukraine, opening the door to long-range weapon shipments.
The provision of long-range weapons would enable Ukraine to achieve ancillary objectives that may not be tied to reaching an end-state, including Ukraine’s desire to commence a campaign to retake Crimea, thereby opening a new front to the war.
Therefore, the decision to arm Ukraine with Patriots without establishing strides toward negotiations risks prolonging the conflict in Ukraine and losing sight of both American and Ukrainian interests. Mr. Biden’s commitment to arm Ukraine “as long as it takes” without stating how it plans to translate the military assistance to Ukraine, however necessary it is, into an overall end to the conflict is a path devoid of strategic thinking.
After his tenure as secretary of defense, Robert McNamara published “In Retrospect,” detailing the flawed thinking of U.S. decision-makers during the Vietnam War that led to the prolongation and, ultimately, the defeat of the United States. His argument can be summarized as we knew our strategy was failing, but we escalated America’s involvement in the war anyway. In this case, the Biden administration has not even established an end-game strategy for Ukraine. If it determines the need to escalate militarily, it is time for the administration to share its vision for how the war ends.
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