Joe Biden Just Raised the Risks of the Wrong War, In the Wrong Place, at the Wrong Time

In January, 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson gave a speech outlining the US’s security perimeter–and conspicuously excluded South Korea. Within 5 months, with Stalin’s blessing, North Korea invaded. The opening stages of the Korean War were an absolute military disaster for the US. The rest of it wasn’t great shakes.

Yesterday Biden sent a similarly equivocal signal to Putin on Ukraine, insinuating that Russia had Biden’s blessing to invade Ukraine. As long as the invasion isn’t too big! Whatever that means. The administration then attempted to clean up this shocking statement by saying that any incursion would bring a strong US response. (Cleaning up after Biden is akin to cleaning up after a Barnum and Bailey Circus parade.)

There are war hawks in the US who want to confront Russia militarily if Putin does cross the border, bigly or otherwise–as Biden arguably just invited him to do. This is absolutely insane.

Look at the “correlation of forces.” It decidedly favors Russia. This is especially true in the air, where absent Nato intervention Russia will have not just air superiority but air dominance from the get go.

Yes, the one realistic way that Nato could materially contest a Russian invasion would be by pitting its air forces against Russia’s. (It’s capability on the ground is essentially nil.) It could probably do so decisively. But for what? And assuming it did achieve control of he air, would Nato use air power against Russian ground forces? Logistic resources within Russia? If not, could they change the result on the ground, other than make Russia’s task bloodier and harder? Almost certainly not. When it becomes evident that putative control of the air would not likely change the end result on the ground absent further action, wouldn’t the inexorable logic of conflict push the US/Nato to attack Russian troops and logistics from the air?

Any of these alternatives would bring the US and Nato into direct conflict with Russia where the potential for escalation in many dimensions is high. And again, for what? What American interest (or Nato interest for that matter) is advanced by contesting Russia for Ukraine? Is there any benefit remotely worth the risk of a war, let alone one between nuclear powers that could escalate? I cannot think of any, and those advocating a military response to a Russian invasion have certainly not advanced any.

And it must be emphasized that this would be the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. The main beneficiary of which would be China. A futile attempt to save Ukraine would expose the US and its allies to risks of bigger losses in Asia.

Ukraine’s operational situation is dire, and becoming more so. In particular, as if the overmatch wasn’t already severe enough, recent Russian movements in Belarus pose a severe threat. A movement into Ukraine from Belarus would outflank the country’s one major geographic obstacle–the Dnieper (defending which would already concede loss of a third of the country). Ukraine’s only real chance is to hold the Dnieper–and even that would probably require US/Nato involvement. An attack from Belarus would eliminate even that chance.

A Korea outcome is probably the best the US could gain. And again for what? And at what cost, in blood, treasure, and strategic compromise in other theater?

The latest brilliant idea is for Ukraine to wage a guerrilla war against Russian invaders. There are stories circulating that the CIA is helping train organize such resistance, and Canadian special forces who could also do that are in country.

Yes, it took the USSR a decade to restore full control of Ukraine after WWII. And the Russian Civil War in Ukraine was brutal and multi-sided, with Reds v. Whites v. Greens. So it is possible that a Russian occupation could be bloody and costly. Would Putin be deterred by that? Is it worth running the risk of turning Ukraine into Syria or Libya to find out? Would that be better than Russian domination of Ukraine? Yes, Putin is an autocrat, but he isn’t Hitler or Stalin, and Russia isn’t the USSR.

And again, for what?

This is a completely unforced error. Regardless of whether you think Putin is genuinely fearful of Nato incorporating Ukraine, or whether that is just a convenient excuse for him to advance his imperial project, there was never any reason to bring Ukraine into Nato and thereby increase greatly the risk of confrontation. As I’ve said before, its inclusion raises the risk of conflict and detracts from rather than adds to Nato capability.

By dangling this as a possibility, the US and Nato predictably triggered a reaction that leaves them with the unpalatable choice of fighting a war over a country that is not vital to their interests or looking feckless and duplicitous by dangling the prospect of protection and then shrinking from providing it. It also provides Putin with a pretext to challenge all of Nato’s earlier eastern expansion. This juncture would never had been reached had the US and Nato not made promises that were never in its interest to keep. But they did, and that has put them in this dilemma.

My main fear at present is that Biden (or those who are actually making the decisions) will feel compelled to be butch and commit the US to a conflict involving such a huge asymmetry between gains and losses. Hell, even “winning” would involve more loss than walking away would.

How will it play out? I don’t know. Games of chicken are always hard to predict. Especially when one of the players is politically desperate and mentally compromised. And that, alas, is fair description of the president of the US in 2022.