Washington's Glee at Putin's 'Quagmire'

We will pour gasoline into the fires of Ukraine, and warm our hands at the flames

The one-month-old Russian invasion of Ukraine has met stiff resistance, and the Ukrainian president has signaled desperate readiness to negotiate a peace. There won’t be a better opportunity. But it’s not all up to him. He needs the Kremlin to sit down — and most of all, he needs the U.S. White House to support an urgent and sincere diplomatic effort.

Absent this, the immense sacrifices of Ukrainians — who have dealt the Russians some small but real battlefield setbacks — will have been in vain. In coming days Russia will likely hit back ever-harder, and the suffering will only grow for ordinary people — millions of them already homeless or displaced (among them my Ukrainian wife’s own family), thousands of them wounded or dead.

Yet sadly, the U.S. government approach is: Less diplomacy, more fighting.

The weaponry, covert ops and combat support we are shoveling so cheerfully into the mix feels luridly out-of-control.

“Never has the United States rushed so quickly to provide so much high-tech armament to a distant country already enveloped in war,” observes Stephen Kinzer, one of America’s most experienced foreign correspondents. “Rather than sending diplomats in an urgent effort to reach an armistice and stop the bloodshed, the United States is fueling an already raging conflagration.”

Writing in The Boston Globe, Kinzer correctly sees the huge amounts of U.S. weaponry provided as the second of “two terrible afflictions” visited upon Ukraine in recent weeks — the first terrible affliction being the Russian invasion itself:

“[T]he American decision to send that suffering country massive amounts of advanced weaponry … guarantees more suffering and death. … [The weapons] will not only be used to kill Russians, but also provoke Russia to respond by killing more Ukrainians.”

But voices like Kinzer are few and far between, and for now, Washington is uninterested in diplomacy.

Witness the bellicose rhetoric. President Joe Biden landed in Europe this evening, and in recent days laid the groundwork for his trip by calling Vladimir Putin “a murderous dictator,” “a pure thug,” and, in an off-the-cuff reply to a shouted question, agreed he was “a war criminal.”

Moscow has responded by threatening to break off all diplomatic ties with Washington — something that never happened even during the worst days of the Cold War — to which the State Department declared with icy formality that Putin is indeed, in official U.S. eyes, “a war criminal.”

Calling Putin a thug or a murderer is a fair characterization. I and many others believe he had murdered our colleague Anna Politkovskaya, who wrote opinion pieces for me when I was editor of The Moscow Times. She was killed 15 years ago in the elevator of her apartment building, on Putin’s birthday. And I could recall many similar moral outrages and crimes.

But for the U.S. president to employ this sort of visceral, emotive language — at this moment in history — and then, after the Russians threaten to break off all diplomatic ties, for the State Department to defiantly double-down — well, none of this signals support for peace talks. On the contrary, it signals Washington’s intention to draw the conflict out. It probably reflects a growing excitement inside the Beltway for the insane neo-conservative fantasy of trying to topple Putin from power.

To be clear: A price for all of this tough-guy posturing by the White House will be paid — by others.

Instead of diplomacy and peace overtures, Washington is gleefully screwing around with various weapons deliveries and other shenanigans. A major New York Times article this week reviewed all of the back-and-forth within the Biden administration about how much and what kind of weaponry to bring to bear. The article characterized White House policy as nuanced — looking for a sweet spot that will “lock Russia in a quagmire” without causing a major U.S.-Russia war, and also without “cutting off potential paths to de-escalation.”

That is some classic NYTimes-speak: We don’t want to cut off even the potential of a path, someday, maybe, to de-escalation. But for now, we aren’t seeking de-escalation, in fact we aren’t even seeking a path to de-escalation.

Historian Niall Ferguson, writing at Bloomberg, sees the distressing reality lurking between the lines of this important Times article, which he notes is written by well-sourced reporters with obvious Biden Administration access:

Reading this carefully, I conclude that the U.S. intends to keep this war going. The administration will continue to supply the Ukrainians with anti-aircraft Stingers, anti-tank Javelins and explosive Switchblade drones. It will keep trying to persuade other North Atlantic Treaty Organization governments to supply heavier defensive weaponry. …

I have evidence from other sources to corroborate this. “The only end game now,” a senior administration official was heard to say at a private event earlier this month, “is the end of Putin regime.” … I gather that senior British figures are talking in similar terms. There is a belief that “the U.K.’s No. 1 option is for the conflict to be extended and thereby bleed Putin.” Again and again, I hear such language. It helps explain, among other things, the lack of any diplomatic effort by the U.S. to secure a cease-fire.  It also explains the readiness of President Joe Biden to call Putin a war criminal.

One might think that, with more than 3 million refugees having fled Ukraine entirely and 18 million more internally displaced or in need of humanitarian assistance, the only focus would be on a ceasefire — on safe corridors for civilians, on hospitals and food aide, on negotiations. Like Kinzer at The Boston Globe, Ryan Grim at The Intercept is another lonely voice in the press corps asking those sorts of questions (which the White House evades or ignores), and giving a sympathetic platform to people like Hassan El-Tayyab, who lobbies Congress on behalf of a nonpartisan Quaker peace group:

“The United States is in a punishment mindset with regards to Russia, and it needs to quickly transition to a more balanced, diplomacy-based approach [that] includes clear incentives, off-ramps for sanctions, and a realistic pathway to a ceasefire,” El-Tayyab told The Intercept.

“If the Biden administration shows it’s willing to lift sanctions if peace talks are successful, and champions possibilities for compromise as they emerge, it can positively contribute to ending the conflict and the suffering of millions of innocent Ukrainians.”

Meanwhile, Grim’s press colleagues drown him out and bay for war — demanding no-fly zones, deliveries of U.S. fighter jets, and other half-baked schemes. Some of the bad ideas have been nixed, but others are still active, and more come up every day. Implicit in the ongoing White House / corporate press Groupthink is a repeated, reckless brinksmanship — which, until it blows up in our faces, will continue to be self-complacently characterized as nuanced cleverness. We flatter ourselves that we can titrate the pain and public humiliation out for Russia — and that we’ll always be able to stop short before anything blows back on America.

Stingers, Switchbacks & Other Dangerous Toys

Nearly 40 years ago, another White House administration sought to bog down Moscow in another quagmire, in Afghanistan. President Jimmy Carter ordered the C.I.A. to covertly supply the Afghan mujaheedin with Stingers, shoulder-launched missiles that can bring down military or civilian aircraft. They were used liberally for a war in which the Soviet Union lost 15,000 men over 35 years.

Eventually the mujaheedin birthed al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. So that arguably did not work out well for us.

It is debatable what role the C.I.A.’s hundreds of Stingers played in the Afghan war; and when the C.I.A. could not buy them all back, many ended up on black markets. (Did we really only offer $30,000 apiece to try to buy them back?)

But one thing is certain: Having their planes and helicopters downed, and their soldiers killed, by C.I.A.-supplied Stingers — that is something Moscow bitterly remembers.

Fast forward to today, and Washington again wants to supply Stingers to shoot down planes and kill Russians. It’s an emotive issue for Russians, though — go figure. So initially the White House took an approach that The New York Times generously characterizes as somehow being judicious, statesman-like, measured — as a shining example of “the balancing act [that] informs every aspect of American policy about the war:”

“Given Russia’s bloody history with Stinger missiles [in Afghanistan], American officials have been wary of advertising their use in Ukraine. … Even after two senior American officials told the House Armed Services Committee during a public hearing that Stinger missiles were among the munitions being sent to Ukraine, spokespeople avoided using the S-word from the lecterns at the White House and Pentagon.”

So it’s all being handled in a very clever way. Because, you see, if we avoid saying “Stingers” at press briefings, and observe certain other arcane ritual behaviors we’ve dreamt up ourselves, then somehow Russia won’t get excessively upset:

“C.I.A. officers are helping to ensure that crates of weapons are delivered into the hands of vetted Ukrainian military units, according to American officials. But as of now, Mr. Biden and his staff do not see the utility of an expansive covert effort to use the spy agency to ferry in arms as the United States did in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union during the 1980s. They have judged that such a campaign would be an unnecessary provocation, in part because NATO supply lines remain open and there is a functioning government in Kyiv.”

I see. It’s different from when the C.I.A. supplied the Afghan rebels. Because this time, even though the C.I.A. is still delivering “crates” of Stingers “into the hands” of someone else — “vetted” (a.k.a. “not Neo-Nazi”) Ukrainian military units — the C.I.A. isn’t itself having to “ferry in the arms.” If the C.I.A. provided door-to-door delivery, that would be “an unnecessary provocation.” But if “a functioning government in Kyiv” can get together with some cut-out we can hide behind, like Poland — “NATO supply lines remain open” — then the C.I.A. can still deliver crates of Stingers, but the time and place of delivery can be politely vague. In summary, it’s all just much more considerate of everyone’s feelings.

The Kremlin is quite distracted these days, so perhaps that’s why there has not yet been any outcry from Moscow about the Stingers. Maybe they really just didn’t notice, because our press secretaries so cleverly avoided “the S-word.” Who knows. But The New York Times reports that the lack of a Kremlin freakout has left the White House emboldened, and feeling it’s now safer to crow about this. So the administration has gone from avoiding the S-word to putting “800 Stinger antiaircraft systems” as the first item in a long, detailed list cataloging the hundreds of millions of dollars of weaponry we’re providing.

Throughout, as it discusses other weapons systems and sly interventions in the war, Washington never stops with the bizarre, Talmudic distinctions — between this weapon being O.K., and that one a bit much.

Cyber ops are off for now, for example, because the Biden Administration worries that the Kremlin — already pissed off at how we’ve wrecked the Russian economy with sanctions — is itching to unleash a cyberattack of its own to try to crash the entire American financial system. (Whoa. Time to stop by the ATM machine!) “Unless and until (!) that happens,” The New York Times reports, “the administration appears resolved not to launch a significant first [cyber] strike and invite retaliation.”

Reaper drones are also mostly off the menu. They are 36 feet long, weigh 10,000 pounds, carry Hellfire or other missiles, and would be a bit much to send into Ukraine. But somehow it’s been decided that they can fly along the border — just, you know, don’t cross it.

The Reapers and other border patrollers are being used to peer inside Ukraine, gather intelligence, and then share that with Ukrainian forces. But, again, we don’t want to provide “raw” intel like real-time video feeds or communications intercepts, because that would also possibly make us a combatant; we only share “finished” intel, according to C.I.A. and other security officials interviewed by The Intercept, which goes on to note:

“But these distinctions are set on the United States’s own terms. And despite best efforts, there are always risks of accidents in which intelligence operations can run afoul of red lines. On Sunday, a Russian drone briefly crossed into Poland, a NATO member, leading to a warning from the alliance that it could respond with force — an alarming threat of direct confrontation with Russia. The drone was conducting the same kind of surveillance operations as the United States’s [drones] do just along Ukraine’s borders.”

Meanwhile, Switchblade drones are something entirely different. They can fit into a backpack, and are perfectly fine for blowing apart Russian tanks or killing Russian soldiers because, as The New York Times explains, “the portable drones pose no threat to Russian soil.” This makes them different from Reapers or MiG fighters, which the paper observes “could fly from Kyiv to Moscow in a matter of minutes.”

So by this logic, it’s “safe” to pour a bunch of Switchblade drones into the Ukraine conflict.

“This past week, Mr. Biden announced that the United States would ship small Switchblade drones to Ukraine that could be used to blow up Russian armored vehicles. The single-use kamikaze drones have blade-like wings, do not require either a long runway or a complex satellite uplink, and can be controlled to divebomb tanks or troops, self-destructing when they explode.

“Still,” The New York Times continues, “the White House authorized an initial shipment of only 100 of them to Ukraine — a small batch that could be intended to see how Mr. Putin reacts to their deployment on the Ukrainian front lines. Depending on the response, hundreds or thousands more could be on the way.”

A small batch!

To see how Putin reacts!

Depending on the response, hundreds or thousands more (!) could be on the way!

Again, to state what should be obvious: Whether “Mr. Putin reacts” up front to “the small batch”, or only later to the “hundreds or thousands more” batch — that reaction will be to smash a Russian fist down upon Ukraine, just as the Kremlin did when challenged in Chechnya. The suffering will be enormous.

No Time for Peace Talks — But Plenty for Arms Deal Side Hustles

Perhaps the ultimate insult-to-injury — the Washington Monument of a Middle Finger to Russia and also, frankly, to any efforts towards a ceasefire in Ukraine — has been all of the spirited diplomatic staff work lavished on getting Turkey to give Ukraine its “sophisticated S-400 antiaircraft system.”

“American officials have floated the idea,” The New York Times reports, which “came up when Wendy R. Sherman, the deputy secretary of state, visited Turkey two weeks ago. Ms. Sherman declined to talk about her discussions.”

The S-400 is a Russian system, which is the beauty of it. When Turkey bought it three years ago, the Trump Administration was irate — we had wanted Turkey to buy Raytheon-made Patriot missiles. So as punishment, the White House canceled a sale to Turkey of more than 100 of our F-35 stealth fighter jets. (Turkey was planning both to buy the F-35, and also manufacture some parts for it.)

Suddenly the Ukraine crisis re-opens the door to all kinds of exciting and lucrative horse trades.

“Now American diplomats see a way to pull Turkey away from its dance with Russia — and give the Ukrainians one of the most powerful, long-range antiaircraft systems in existence,” The New York Times continues. “The proposal for Turkey to supply Ukraine with Russian-made S-400 antiaircraft systems would also test what Mr. Putin is willing to accept from NATO — and how far a NATO ally that in recent years often appeared to be building bridges to Moscow is willing to go in reiterating its commitment to the alliance and backing Ukraine.”

The newspaper cites a “senior American official” who says the United States “knew the proposal would anger Mr. Putin;” notes “Turkey is worried” it will become “a target of Russia’s wrath;” observes that “American intelligence about Mr. Putin’s decision making is maddeningly imprecise, and the West does not have a strong track record predicting what he might consider an aggression that cannot be tolerated;” continues by noting, “The Russian threshold could also be changing by the day, or even the hour;” and notes the Russian foreign minister’s recent announcement that any vehicle bringing weapons into Ukraine may now be considered a military target.

From there, America’s newspaper of record blithely continues: “At the same time, the upside for Turkey could be substantial … A deal to send the antiaircraft systems to Ukraine could open the door to re-entry into the F-35 program.”

So it’s worth it then. Pressuring Turkey to give a Russian-made weapons system to Ukraine, purely so it can be turned gleefully against Russia, is intended to infuriate the Kremlin — but the latest guess is, probably not to the point of no return. That’s just a guess — and the consequences of being wrong about it are potentially horrific for Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, the United States and conceivably the entire planet. But on the other hand, this also might revive a briefly stalled arms deal, and help Lockheed-Martin move 100 more war planes out of inventory. The upside could be substantial!

To reiterate: The Ukrainian president wants peace talks. The Russian government has been inconsistent but has also floated trial balloons, engaged in preliminary negotiations, and is probably desperate for a face-saving way out. The U.S. government, meanwhile, is oh-so-not interested. There is no genuine effort underway to broker a ceasefire. Millions of Ukrainians are displaced and 3 million have crossed international borders as refugees. Self-deception about how the Russians will somehow be thrown back by the plucky Ukrainian resistance is providing a false justification to fill the beautiful Ukrainian lands with ever more death and destruction — 17,000 anti-tank missiles delivered in six days, when the entire Russian army fields about 12,000 tanks, far from all of them in Ukraine.

Yes, Vladimir Putin launched this invasion, and yes he will always be rightly hated for doing so. But casually egging the Ukrainians on (from a safe distance) — because we want to play with our new Switchback drones, squeeze a more convincing loyalty oath to NATO out of Turkey, see what happens if we can bog Putin down in a quagmire, and let Joe Biden strike a commander-in-chief pose for the folks back home — this is only a few degrees less contemptible and criminal than the Kremlin’s original invasion. To quote The Boston Globe’s Kinzer one final time:

Those of us who have seen war up close know that it is the worst thing in the world. It destroys innocent lives and shatters families and communities forever, long after political and military conflicts end. Yet for nearly everyone in Washington and for huge numbers of Americans, war is distant and antiseptic, something like a geopolitical video game with added fireworks. It isn’t. It’s about bodies blown apart and entire nations laid waste. The only winners are gleeful arms makers, for whom this war is a bonanza of bloodstained profit.