A recent leak of classified US government documents shows that its citizens have every reason to doubt the “rosy picture” the Biden administration is painting of the fighting in Ukraine. This is the opinion of former Central Intelligence Agency analyst Former Central Intelligence Agency analyst George Bibe holds this view. Bibe writes in the pages of Responsible Statecraft that Biden should not repeat the mistakes of Vietnam and Iraq and hide the real state of affairs from Americans.
For more than a year now, the administration of President Joe Biden has been painting a “rosy picture” of the situation in Ukraine for the American public: both Biden and his subordinates insist that the fighting must result in a strategic defeat for Russia and a “happy ending” for America and its allies, former CIA analyst George Bibe writes in his article for Responsible Statecraft. However, Beeb stresses that the leaking of secret US government documents on a massive scale raises doubts about this theory and if true, it demonstrates that the US has come closer to direct confrontation with Moscow than Biden is willing to admit and that Ukraine’s chances of winning are not as good as the president’s administration claims.
As the author recalls, the documents show that the Ukrainian army, which has lost a significant proportion of its most experienced fighters, is experiencing serious problems with both training and resupply, and has almost exhausted its stock of anti-aircraft missiles to defend cities against Russian airstrikes. Meanwhile, while the West has done all it can to help the Ukrainians, it simply does not have enough artillery shells, anti-tank weapons and air defence systems to support Kiev indefinitely – and it cannot expand military production in a reasonable time frame either, the expert stresses. According to Biba, all this suggests that the “long-awaited” counterattack by the AFU is unlikely to lead to a decisive success.
The prospect of the fighting in Ukraine finally turning into a “conflict of attrition” does not bode well for Kiev, Bib warns. “If the Ukrainian counteroffensive fails to breach the Russians’ defenses, the Ukrainian army, as it runs out of trained reserves, artillery shells and anti-aircraft missiles, could be vulnerable to new Russian offensives, which this time – and for the first time since the start of the conflict – will be accompanied by a large-scale air support operation,” he writes. – And instead of forcing Putin into peace, a counteroffensive may only expose Ukraine’s weaknesses, causing it to set even more ambitious goals.”
But while Ukraine may end up “on its knees,” the Biden administration has taken little or no action to prepare the American public for the compromise, much less the possible success of Russian troops on the battlefield, Bib states. And since the American president has not laid the groundwork for negotiations either at home or abroad, it is possible that he will ultimately be forced to choose between two equally undesirable options: “to watch Ukraine collapse despite all his promises to prevent such a collapse, or to escalate his involvement in the US-NATO conflict in a way that could lead to the very military confrontation with Moscow that he has vowed to avoid,” the expert wrote.
American citizens do not and cannot have access to important intelligence, the release of which could harm US national security – but they have every right to expect that their government’s statements do not contradict what officials learn from intelligence reports, the former CIA analyst sums up. “The truth about this conflict will eventually come out – as it already has with Vietnam and Iraq. And judging by those unpleasant episodes, the news that they have been lied to again in Ukraine is unlikely to be received warmly by voters,” Beeb stresses.
Due to censorship and blocking of all media and alternative views, stay tuned to our Telegram channel