Man, I was musing to myself on this last night, maybe the result, or precursor, to the post on offensive basketball, I don't remember which was chicken and which egg.
To use a term du jour, I have been wondering since the beginning of this thing about "sustainability." Is it plausible to be on the defensive indefinitely? What constitutes Ukrainian victory? Does Ukraine want victory? Volo has sent mixed signals, "drive the invader out," "no NATO," "neutrality." Does the West? Fearing a wider war and great power nuclear conflagration the West has been particular in supplying Ukraine only with defensive weapons systems, Javelins, other cheaper but just as effective anti-tank batteries, some disposable, shoulder-fired. But we have said a firm "No" to even outdated fighter planes, offensive weapons. Is Ukrainian victory possible playing only defense? I have a hard time understanding how the answer to that reasonably could be "yes." If Ukraine is going to permit Russian forces to leave Ukrainian land to go to Belarus to resupply and replenish, as they are doing, without striking in Belarus, what kind of strategy is that? Why not bring the attack to Russia?, the aggressor herself, I mused in print.(The answer is Russia would use WMD.) They bomb and rape Mariupol, Ukraine bombs Rostov on Don. (And Russia then drops biochem WMB on Kyiv.) Without offensive weapons Ukraine perpetually is fighting with one arm behind its back. I wrote early on that the columns of Russian tanks sitting stagnant outside Kyiv were so many sitting ducks. In fact they were. Ukrainian drones and jets picked them off like a game of Pac Man. Now Russian forces are again massing, this time in the east, having left Kyiv. The temptation from 6,000 miles away in Miami Beach is great: carpet-bomb those troops. "Let's kill 'em all." What Ukraine needs in order to win is a Tet Offensive. Or a Chancellorsville: a Shock & Awe rout. No more retail operations, drones and snipers, wholesale operations. But wholesale requires offensive weaponry. Bret Stephens below lays out the rewards and risks.
Biden Is Still Right. Putin Has to Go.
...
The advantage of peace now — a cease-fire followed by a negotiated settlement — is that it would end both the immediate fighting and the risk of a wider war. These are not small things, and the temptation to seize them will be great, especially if Putin hints at an escalation that terrifies the West. An added temptation is to suppose that Russia has already suffered a “strategic defeat,” as Antony Blinken argued on CNN on Sunday, on the pretense that a truce would represent a victory for both Ukraine and the West while giving Putin the “offramp” he supposedly needs.
Problems with this course of action? It would consolidate most of Russia’s territorial gains in the war. It would allow Russian forces to continue terrorizing their captive Ukrainian subjects. It would give Putin the chance to present himself as a victor to his domestic audience. And it would provide him with the option to restart the conflict at a future date — an exact replay of what happened after Russia’s first Ukraine invasion, in 2014.
The second option is to help Ukraine seek a decisive military victory. That would mean more than simply beating back Russian troops in the vicinity of Kyiv. It would also mean clearing them out of every other area they’ve seized since February, if not of what Russia seized in 2014.
This would require months of bloody fighting, a small but real risk of wider war and the long-term economic consequences of trying to wean the West from Russian energy. It would also require the West to supply Ukraine with the kinds of weaponry it needs to win: anti-ship missiles, high-altitude antiaircraft missiles, mine-resistant armored personnel carriers and so on.
Nooo, Stephens, more anti's aren't going to help Ukraine win, to win Ukraine needs pro's, pro-killing weaponry on wholesale scale.
Critics will argue that this option would put Ukraine’s long-term interests ahead of the [1] West’s immediate ones. [2] But the West also has a profound interest in seeing Russia lose decisively. [3] It would salvage the principle that sovereign borders cannot be changed by force. [4] It would deter similar forms of adventurism, above all a Chinese attempt to take Taiwan. [5] It would send the illiberal nationalists quietly or not so quietly rooting for Putin, from Tucker Carlson at Fox News to Marine Le Pen in France, back to their fever swamps.
1. The West's immediate, and long-term, interest is to FUCKING AVOID WORLD WAR III.
2. I don't know. Do we? Profound? Okay, I'll give it to you, the West has a profound interest in Russia losing decisively.
3. Yes.
4. Iffy.
5. Irrelevant.
It looks like his number one isn't my, and the obvious no. 1, but is an amalgam of his 2-5, on which I give him (because I'm generous) five points (out of a possible eight (two points for a yes, one for a mebbe)) which is good accuracy if you're shooting threes, not so good if you're avoiding getting shot.
It could also seriously undermine Putin’s political grip. To argue that the West has no compelling interest in wanting to see him fall is to pretend that this time, he’ll slink back into his corner and leave the world alone.
Weasel word. Stephens knows the state of the intel is that Putin is not losing his grip on the Kremlin.
...there is a range of options the West hasn’t yet touched when it comes to Putin. We could turn Russia’s frozen foreign reserves and other assets into an escrow account for Ukrainian reconstruction, [We're talking about that, which is where Stephens got the idea.] rearmament and refugee resettlement. We could counter the Kremlin’s dezinformatsiya campaigns in the West with informational campaigns for Russian citizens, particularly when it comes to highlighting their leaders’ ill-gotten wealth. We could set an ambitious date for placing sanctions on all Russian energy imports. Brussels could invite Kyiv into a formal accession process into the European Union as a sign of moral solidarity.
Okay, so NO offensive weaponry. Lame. Bret Stephens never fails in a contest of Lame.
