In November 2022, about a year into the Russo-Ukraine War, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, said publicly that neither side could win a decisive victory. He argued that a negotiated peace offered the best hope for peace.[1]
This was emphatically not the advice that people wanted to hear. The Biden administration chose a different course. In essence, the United States has provided (and has encouraged European allies to provide) arms that could be used in a struggle to recapture the territories lost to Russia since the initial Russia seizure of Ukrainian territory in 2014.
However, for most of the last two years the Biden administration has rejected any measures that would put the United States at risk of a war with Russia. Ukraine would not be admitted to NATO. Biden refused repeated requests from Ukraine for long-range weapons that would allow it to strike Russian forces and military sites within Russia itself.
Now the Russians are driving the Ukrainians back in parts of the front lines. Now they have been joined by 8-10,000 North Korean “volunteers.” Now Ukraine has lost about 57,000 dead and many others wounded. Now the Ukrainian army is finding it hard to replace such losses. Now the danger of a collapse by the exhausted and increasingly demoralized Ukrainian army grows. Essentially, events have proved General Milley correct. A negotiated peace, or at least a cease-fire, is the logical step if Vladimir Putin will settle for half a loaf.
As Biden’s term staggers to a close, some administration defense and foreign policy officials have suggested that the United States do what it has not done so far. Specifically, they have allowed Ukraine to use longer range missiles; they have committed to provide Ukraine with anti-personnel mines[2] to shore up the sagging front; and they are pushing the remaining authorized military aid out the door before President Trump can stop them. The weapons “are unlikely to change much on the battlefield” and “it will be difficult for Ukraine to regain the ground that Russia has steadily seized over the past few months” authorized leakers in the intelligence community told the New York Times.
So why do it? Administration sources offer the rationale that better terms for a cease-fire or peace can be obtained if Ukraine can slow the Russian advance and punish Russia in the final stage of the war. Moreover, any cease-fire or peace will be at risk of violation by Russia. Building up a strong defensive capacity could deter or defeat any new Russian attack.
This seems nonsensical. If Russia is exhausting the Ukrainians now, why not keep going until they totally collapse? NATO membership is the only thing that might deter Russia.
At the same time, the despised Trump administration looms. The Biden administration is hurrying to issue $2.1 billion worth of contracts for arms to be delivered to Ukraine. They have two months to go before the Trump administration takes office, although “normally” it takes four to nine months to issue such contracts.[3]
Is the Biden administration trying to encumber the path of the new administration?
[1] Helene Cooper, Andrew E. Kramer, Eric Schmitt, and Julian Barnes, “Trump’s Vow Leaves Kyiv With Few Options,” New York Times , 22 November 2024.
[2] Neither the United States nor Russia have signed the Ottawa Treaty outlawing landmines, but Ukraine has signed and ratified the treaty. List of parties to the Ottawa Treaty – Wikipedia Who could blame them for breaking it?
[3] It is good news that one can cut all the red tape at the Pentagon if you want to cut it.
waroftheworldblog 
Good for Biden not abandoning Ukraine. The Brits and French abandoned Poland in 1939. Remember what happened?
I’d quibble about “abandoning” Poland. They HAD abandoned Czechoslovakia. They did declare war on Germany when it invaded Poland. There wasn’t much the British and the French could do IMMEDIATELY once they had declared war on Germany. First, neither country had fully mobilized for war before 3 September 1939, while Germany had. They had only a sketchy plan for joint war against Germany. That plan had assumed that Germany would attack through Belgium; that Allied forces would advance into Belgium to stop the Germans at the line of the Meuse in co-operation with the Belgian army; and that they would counter-attack after defeating the German attack. They had no plan to attack into Germany directly from France because the German frontier had become heavily defended. Then the Belgian king upended these long-established plans by abandoning the French alliance and declaring Belgium neutral. In the event, the British had to move the B.E.F. to the Continent, while the French ad to call up all their reservists to join the regular army. Neither army was in-place and ready to go when war was declared. They had no plans–or forces in being–to bomb German cities, etc., because that idea remained contested on moral grounds. Most of all, In the event, the Germans and Soviets had control of virtually all Polish territory be 6 October 1939. The complete inability to act is not the same thing as “abandonment.”
But, yes, good for Biden not abandoning Ukraine. Still, what is the situation now?
Pingback: Ukraine Crisis. | waroftheworldblog