How Ukraine Can Manage the Escalation Managers
Ukraine Can Outsmart the Escalation Managers
When I started reading the news yesterday about Ukraine’s long-range drones landing on oil terminals inside Russia, the first thing that crossed my mind was, well, that’s a bit odd.
Why would Ukraine do such a thing, especially on the date when President Biden was supposed to sign off on the Ukraine aid bill? We can debate the rights and wrongs, discuss the policy implications of dictating how Ukraine should conduct the war. However, preaching idealism will forever remain just that — preaching idealism.
For two years, Ukraine has observed the Biden administration’s response to Putin. We’ve closely monitored it. The national security team of the Biden administration actively seeks to manage the escalation ladder with Putin, and they continue to do so.
Yesterday, during a White House Press breifing, United States national security advisor Jake Sullivan said:
I am able to confirm as you’ve heard from others that in February the President directed his team to provide Ukraine with a signficant number of ATACMS missiles for use inside Ukrainian soveriegn territory.
If you watch the attached video clip, you’ll notice that Mr. Sullivan pauses and then slightly raises the volume when he uses the word ‘inside’.
After that part, came the gem. I was actually okay up until that point because of what I had said earlier in the article. We’ve observed this administration for two years, and we know that they want Ukraine to only fight within its borders. So, especially when they are going to provide Ukraine with a high-end weapon such as the ATACMS, you do expect them to ask Ukraine to use it within its territory.
So that part was in line with my expectations. However, the rest of his statement led me to conclude that this team is not going to change its approach.
Mr. Sullivan referred to North Korea supplying missiles to Russia as the reason why the United States gave ATACMS missiles to Ukraine. He said:
This followed Russia’s procurement and use of North Korea’s ballistic missiles against Ukraine as well as Russia’s renewed and escalating attacks against civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.
In essence, the Biden administration has conveyed a very important message to the Russians: that the provision of high-end weapons to Ukraine is contingent upon the Kremlin’s procurement process as well as its destruction doctrine.
The United States is not helping Ukraine win the war; rather, they are managing the war to prevent escalation. They are not going to change their strategy. I am not going to recommend Ukraine to sit and convince the Biden administration to move on from escalation management and stop dictating how Ukraine should conduct the war.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is not too far away from my position that the United States should cease controlling the war from 4,000 miles away. When a reporter asked the minority leader his views on restrictions on the usage of ATACMS, he was very clear about the United States not pushing Ukraine on the back foot. This happened on tuesday before the Senate convened to pass the Ukraine aid bill.
Reporter: If the ATACMS are provided, will you restrict them to fire at targets only inside of Ukraine?
McConnell: Well, I hope not. I wouldn’t try to dictate to Ukranians how to handle a war either.
But that is exactly what Mr. Sullivan said in the press briefing yesterday. Sullivan was only referring to the ATACMS missiles the United States sent in February. I have exactly zero doubts that their conditions for Ukraine would remain the same in the shipments that are going to flow from today.
Now, take a moment and look at all of this from the Kremlin. Do you think Putin will still be out there counting his chances? Yes, that is exactly what he would be doing.
Things are not going great for the dictator. It is extremely dire for him, as all the advances he made since February this year came about only when Ukraine ran out of weapons. That is going to be fixed in short order, when Ukraine gets artillery shells and air-defense missiles. So, the line is going to get stabilized, and we are more likely than not to see a stalemate similar to what we witnessed in 2023 for a brief period.
Ukraine has two problems that it needs to address:
It needs to manage the Biden administration’s escalation ladder. It’s nonsensical, but they will be better off managing the nonsense rather than simply wishing it away. Ukraine needs artillery shells, air-defense missiles, infantry fighting vehicles, and electronic warfare systems that only the United States has enough of a stockpile to provide over the next six months.
So, expectation management is critical.
I think Ukraine understands this part. The attack on the oil terminal yesterday was not the same type of attacks Ukraine mounted on oil refineries. Those were targeted towards taking out Russian refining capacity.
Tuesday’s attack was very different
Drones of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) attacked two oil depots in Russia’s Smolensk Oblast overnight, destroying 26,000 cubic meters of fuel, sources in law enforcement agencies told the Kyiv Independent on April 24. Some 26,000 cubic meters of Russian fuel were purportedly stored there. After the powerful explosions, a large-scale fire and personnel evacuation began at the facilities, the sources said.
“The SBU continues to effectively destroy the military infrastructure and logistics that provide fuel to the Russian army in Ukraine. These objects are and will remain our completely legitimate goals,” the sources said.
On April 9th, U.S Defense Secretary Austin told the Senate Armed Services Committee that “Ukraine is better served in going after tactical and operational targets that can directly influence the current fight.”
So, Ukraine did not step out of bounds from that request by attacking facilities inside Russia yesterday. They are not going after Russia’s production capacity but have kept their attacks focused on Russian military assets or assets that could directly be used by the Russian military, such as oil depots.
The way they have addressed the American requirement is the best they could do under the current circumstances. They are going to continue attacking inside Russia with homemade weapons, but they are going to target military assets.
The second problem they need to address is the Biden administration’s unwillingness to assist Ukraine defeat the enemy. There is only one way to handle this problem. I think Ukraine is doing that as well.
According to a recent New York Times report, the United States sent around 100 ATACMS missiles to Ukraine in February. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has also confirmed that a significant number of ATACMS have already been delivered to Ukraine.
In a major policy shift, President Biden secretly approved the decision to send more than 100 of the longer-range missiles in mid-February, the senior U.S. official said, as well as more of the cluster munition variant. They were part of a $300 million shipment of weapons to Ukraine in March, the first new aid package for the country since funding ran out in late December.
However, we did not see the full deployment of those missiles on the battlefield. The number of long range surface to surface hits using the ATACMS missiles remains in the single digits since February. We are almost at the end of April.
Ukraine is piling its weapons.
They need to keep doing that.
They need to assess how much they require for an extremely strong three-month-long counterattack. Lie low, defend the frontline, and continue destroying Russian combat power for some time. Accumulate ammunition and acquire the F16s. Use the jets sparingly to keep denting the Russian combat power.
Then, shift gears suddenly. Let everything cut loose.
They also need to time the esclation to ensure that French weapons production capacity, as well as Europe’s weapons production capacity, are at a reasonable level. Both numbers are on a steady ramp. My expectation is that both numbers will see a sharp rise in the second half of 2024. This way, they can move the United States to a secondary position in terms of weapons dependency while still adhering to their desire not to attack Russia’s oil production capacity. However, they may need to break the American rules on escalation management after intiating their counter-offensive.
Ukraine can win the war despite the United States being reluctant to defeat the Kremlin’s army. It’s not an impossible task. It’s a circuitous route and it’s unnecessary. But simply wishing that problem to vanish is a huge mistake. Let us accept that we have a problem and move towards containing the boundaries of that problem.
This story is in the public domain, free for everyone to read.
