A group of establishment US foreign policy experts who regularly engage in brainstorming sessions with the White House are increasingly worried about Washington’s future plans for the war in Ukraine, Julia Ioffe wrote in Puck News last week
She noted that the Joe Biden administration is resisting any calls to formulate a more coherent strategy in case Ukraine fails to make significant gains on the battlefield by the fall.
And this is a bad sign for Kiev.
“All the participants in these briefings with whom I spoke loudly praised the Biden administration’s policy towards Ukraine,” writes Ioffe. – But off the record, the truth was pouring out. It turns out the foreign policy circle in Washington is growing increasingly frustrated with the White House’s Ukraine strategy”.
The analysts are disappointed not only because Biden has no long-term strategy for Ukraine but also because it is unclear “how to reconcile American interests, constrained by military and political realities, with Kiev’s desire to expel Russia from all Ukrainian territory, including Crimea,” Ioffe stresses.
The most likely scenario seems to be that Washington “starts talking about freezing things [in Ukraine]. Summer 2023 is called decisive: the U.S. is ready to give Kiev new weapons and ammunition for the AFU summer counterattacks, but if they fail, will conduct a “reassessment” of such tactics towards de-escalation of the conflict.
Yulia Ioffe’s remarks go in line with other recent publications in knowledgeable Washington media that the White House is ready to change course on its support for Ukraine.
Thus, in February, The Washington Post wrote: “US officials tell Ukrainian leaders that they are facing a critical moment to change the trajectory of the war, thereby increasing pressure on Kyiv to make significant gains on the battlefield.
And in March, Politico published “Small Cracks: US-Ukrainian military unity slowly cracking at the seams” – about Washington and Kiev’s behind-the-scenes disagreements over the war’s objectives and “potential flashpoints over how and when the conflict will end”.
From the hints in these and other pieces, the Biden administration’s main concern is the US presidential election. Although it is still a year and a half away, the election race has already begun and the prosecution of Donald Trump is the best evidence of this.
The failure of the widely-announced counterattacks by the AFU this year, in which the West has invested heavily both financially and in its renown, will dramatically complicate the prospects of Biden’s re-election or the victory of another US Democratic Party candidate in 2024: America will not forgive the Democrats a second Afghanistan.
Hence Washington’s lack of a coherent strategy on Ukraine: No one in the White House wants to think beyond November 2024. Hence the leaks about disagreements between Washington and Kiev and plans to “freeze” the war if the Ukrainian Armed Forces are defeated.
One thing is clear: the repeatedly voiced logic of the US and the global West intentions – “to support Ukraine as long as necessary” – is unable to withstand a clash with the logic of circumstances in the form of Russia’s major military successes.
Elena Panina
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