Robert, Thanks for writing about Ukraine! Your piece on Bloomberg is also very good. We're doing an online event on Ukraine within Harvard OPM Community. Would you be able to join this Saturday? If YES, please connect with me at v (at) berezhniy (dot) com
Well done Robert. It was a serious mistake for Biden to have repeatedly made clear that the U.S. and NATO would not send troops even as he was confident saying to the world that Russia was going to physically invade. Had the US sent a division, most likely the 82nd airborne in December or January, along with one Brit division, one French and one Polish, not to the borders of Russia, but perhaps East and South of Kyiv, the signal would have been clear and the table turned: the next move would be Putin's, as Kennedy turned the tables in the Cuban Missile crisis by daring to stop and search Russian ships...they could acquiesce, or escalate...they chose to stand down aided by very good back channels to swap away threatening missiles close to the USSR and in Cuba, to the US mainland.
Presumably Putin's amazing threat if anyone aids Ukraine means that the arms which we are continuing to send, quietly I'm sure, might be under the bluster...if that's what it is.
I'm afraid that Putin has read the Biden Administration the same way Hitler read Britain, France and the US, 1936-1938...too fearful to act. And when they finally did, September 1939, they had thrown away the ability to head off the worst.
William you're right, and with 20/20 hindsight we should have done this. But no one in either party would have supported such a move at the time, so we as a nation (and the West) blinked.
You are right that it would have gotten almost no support at the time. Two further thoughts: I just heard, on CNN (about 3:45) and interview with a Democratic member of the Intelligence Oversight committee and he was asked about a No-Fly zone and he ignored the question and did not comment...I might interpret that either way.
The other thought was this: we have somewhere around 70,000 special operations special forces units, given a huge impetus after 9/11; why not get 10,000 or so to don Ukrainian uniforms and perform what they do best fighting alongside the Ukrainian army: my understanding from the current analysis is that Russian forces are spread, somewhat disorganized and having troubling with supplies over the border, which sounds like exactly the sort of hit and run missions that these units specialize in...let the Russian yell, since they used this tactic originally in the two eastern enclaves they forcibly took over in 2014-2015.
Good instinct, but here's the problem. No time to get them there realistically given how fast Russians are closing on Kiev, and expectations are that Russians will soon do shock and awe from the air and missiles. Special ops can't resist that. The die was cast, at least for Kiev, when we said we wouldn't intervene.
Fair enough, I can't judge that from here nor from the very fragmented pictures that emerge from multiple media sources. But I did just hear former NATO head, ret. General Wesley Clark say we have to take advantage of the lull just now because the Russians are moving in more heavy armor and various missile systems, so the aid - he was talking ammunition, ground to air missiles and anti-tank missiles have to go in now - but if you can do that you can smuggle in at least small groups of special forces, which includes the British SAS or whatever they're called these days...they're designed to disrupt in small units, 10-25...Clarke also said the Pentagon should be or was it must be considering other options to aid the resistance, including "a No-Fly Zone" with a sense that they have to figure out how to pull that off, couldn't be done at the snap of fingers...maybe we just decide that Belarus is not Russian territory, that would make it easier...risks all around...but I think American reluctance will move if what I think is coming happens: all out fighting on a scale much larger than we've seen so far...and, by the way, what is going on in the eastern provinces where so many Ukrainian soldiers were to be stationed...have they been moved, surrounded or what?
All good points and as to your question at the end, I have been wondering the same thing. Many of them, according to TV reports, have been in intensive fighting in the east. But who knows where all of them are? Fog of war. As to special forces, I hear you, but against 100,000 or more concentrated Russian force who have yet to cross the order, I suspect military knowledgeables would say no. The believe, quite correctly, in my limited view in the Powell doctrine. We may get that doctrine applied as a deterrent, way more than the 100,000 US forces now in Europe but scattered, as events unfold. We just don't know, but my uninformed guess is that DoD has to be planning for that contingency
Great work Robert!
Robert, Thanks for writing about Ukraine! Your piece on Bloomberg is also very good. We're doing an online event on Ukraine within Harvard OPM Community. Would you be able to join this Saturday? If YES, please connect with me at v (at) berezhniy (dot) com
Well done Robert. It was a serious mistake for Biden to have repeatedly made clear that the U.S. and NATO would not send troops even as he was confident saying to the world that Russia was going to physically invade. Had the US sent a division, most likely the 82nd airborne in December or January, along with one Brit division, one French and one Polish, not to the borders of Russia, but perhaps East and South of Kyiv, the signal would have been clear and the table turned: the next move would be Putin's, as Kennedy turned the tables in the Cuban Missile crisis by daring to stop and search Russian ships...they could acquiesce, or escalate...they chose to stand down aided by very good back channels to swap away threatening missiles close to the USSR and in Cuba, to the US mainland.
Presumably Putin's amazing threat if anyone aids Ukraine means that the arms which we are continuing to send, quietly I'm sure, might be under the bluster...if that's what it is.
I'm afraid that Putin has read the Biden Administration the same way Hitler read Britain, France and the US, 1936-1938...too fearful to act. And when they finally did, September 1939, they had thrown away the ability to head off the worst.
William you're right, and with 20/20 hindsight we should have done this. But no one in either party would have supported such a move at the time, so we as a nation (and the West) blinked.
You are right that it would have gotten almost no support at the time. Two further thoughts: I just heard, on CNN (about 3:45) and interview with a Democratic member of the Intelligence Oversight committee and he was asked about a No-Fly zone and he ignored the question and did not comment...I might interpret that either way.
The other thought was this: we have somewhere around 70,000 special operations special forces units, given a huge impetus after 9/11; why not get 10,000 or so to don Ukrainian uniforms and perform what they do best fighting alongside the Ukrainian army: my understanding from the current analysis is that Russian forces are spread, somewhat disorganized and having troubling with supplies over the border, which sounds like exactly the sort of hit and run missions that these units specialize in...let the Russian yell, since they used this tactic originally in the two eastern enclaves they forcibly took over in 2014-2015.
Good instinct, but here's the problem. No time to get them there realistically given how fast Russians are closing on Kiev, and expectations are that Russians will soon do shock and awe from the air and missiles. Special ops can't resist that. The die was cast, at least for Kiev, when we said we wouldn't intervene.
Fair enough, I can't judge that from here nor from the very fragmented pictures that emerge from multiple media sources. But I did just hear former NATO head, ret. General Wesley Clark say we have to take advantage of the lull just now because the Russians are moving in more heavy armor and various missile systems, so the aid - he was talking ammunition, ground to air missiles and anti-tank missiles have to go in now - but if you can do that you can smuggle in at least small groups of special forces, which includes the British SAS or whatever they're called these days...they're designed to disrupt in small units, 10-25...Clarke also said the Pentagon should be or was it must be considering other options to aid the resistance, including "a No-Fly Zone" with a sense that they have to figure out how to pull that off, couldn't be done at the snap of fingers...maybe we just decide that Belarus is not Russian territory, that would make it easier...risks all around...but I think American reluctance will move if what I think is coming happens: all out fighting on a scale much larger than we've seen so far...and, by the way, what is going on in the eastern provinces where so many Ukrainian soldiers were to be stationed...have they been moved, surrounded or what?
All good points and as to your question at the end, I have been wondering the same thing. Many of them, according to TV reports, have been in intensive fighting in the east. But who knows where all of them are? Fog of war. As to special forces, I hear you, but against 100,000 or more concentrated Russian force who have yet to cross the order, I suspect military knowledgeables would say no. The believe, quite correctly, in my limited view in the Powell doctrine. We may get that doctrine applied as a deterrent, way more than the 100,000 US forces now in Europe but scattered, as events unfold. We just don't know, but my uninformed guess is that DoD has to be planning for that contingency