The Biden Administration’s Unexplored Failures in Ukraine

T he Washington Post recently reported that by October 2021, the Biden administration had concluded an all-out Russian attack on Ukraine was inevitable. The Post described in detail how U.S. diplomacy was then mobilized to send the Kremlin clear signals about the consequences of such an attack, to convince Ukraine’s leadership that an invasion was imminent, and to develop with allies a plan for a unified response.

In essence, the Post article depicted a major success for U.S. intelligence. What it did not examine was the concomitant failures of U.S. intelligence-gathering and analysis: the overestimation of the capabilities of Russia’s forces and the underestimation of Ukraine’s willingness and ability to resist them.

These mistaken assessments raise a flood of questions. Why did U.S. estimates conclude that a rapid Ukrainian defeat was the baseline scenario? Did the U.S. intelligence community’s analysis properly assess the morale and quality of Ukraine’s fighting forces? Was there a proper understanding of the unity of Ukrainian society, which had led to a huge surge of volunteers ready to do battle? Did the U.S. properly assess the configuration of Ukraine’s military forces? Was there a correct assessment of the progress Ukraine had made in building up its military arsenal and weapons systems since 2014? How accurate were U.S. and allied assessments of the array of Russian forces and weapons systems deployed on Ukraine’s border? And were the intelligence estimates colored by political judgments?

Over the eight years of the Russian-fueled conflict in the Donbas, the U.S. armed forces had engaged in numerous training programs with Ukrainians. These encounters with Ukrainian soldiers and officers surely conveyed a detailed image of a well-motivated, highly resourceful, and intelligent fighting force that would effectively resist rather than crumble at the first sign of adversity. Was that detailed image properly accounted for in the United States’ preparations for the coming invasion?

All these questions deserve to be asked and answered, because what seems like a clear failure to accurately assess Ukraine’s strength unquestionably contributed to the Biden administration’s fateful decision to deny the Ukrainians the heavy weapons they would have needed to mount a decisive response to the invasion, or perhaps even to deter Russia from invading in the first place.

Throughout the period from October 2021 to the start of Russia’s invasion on February 24, the U.S. and Western allies had a crucial window in which to provide Ukraine significant weaponry and the training needed to use it. But instead of howitzers, multiple-launch rocket systems such as the HIMARs, and heavy ordnance, the U.S. doled out much more modest assistance.

In the months after the administration learned of Russian intentions, it sent Ukraine a meager $60 million allotment of small arms and ammunition.  It was only in December 2021 that President Biden approved a $200 million shipment of weaponry conducive to a partisan resistance, including 300 Javelin anti-tank missiles that arrived in January — a full three months after the intel assessment that an invasion was certain, and mere weeks before Russian forces began their assault.

The paltry array of weapons was a direct outcome of the administration’s assessment that Ukraine would rapidly lose its war with Russia, and that the priority was to plan for a partisan insurgency.

In addition to intelligence failures, the Post documents a major policy failure: Although key figures in the U.S. military, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, believed it was essential to “empower Ukraine and give them the means to fight,” the U.S. did not use the four months it had to dramatically increase military assistance to Kyiv. Indeed, U.S. policy-makers rejected the argument that such weapons deliveries might change the Russian calculus or, in the event of an invasion, might lead to heavy Russian losses that could erode support for Putin within Russia. “I make no apologies for the fact that one of our objectives here is to avoid direct conflict with Russia,” Jake Sullivan told the Post in reference to the pre-war period. Another unnamed senior U.S. official quoted in the article said the administration found the notion that properly arming the Ukrainians could have defeated or deterred an invasion “incredible.”

Perhaps it may have been “incredible.” But then, again, perhaps not. Had Ukraine been far better equipped, might it have forestalled Russia’s rapid takeover of the Kherson and Zaporizhya regions in the South? Might the blocking of that advance in turn have increased the chances Mariupol could successfully resist the Russian-led onslaught? Might more firepower deployed against Russia’s march on Kyiv have stalled the advance at an earlier point, and thus prevented the horrors in Bucha and Irpin?

These are questions that may never be definitively answered, but they must be asked.

It is equally important to understand that, to this day, the U.S. and its allies are still playing catch-up in the supply of weapons and ordnance to Ukraine’s military. The aid thus far provided, while extremely effective, is still far short of what Ukraine’s highly effective military leadership and many U.S. national-security experts say is needed to claw back ground in the fight against Russia.

If anything, the failure of the U.S. and its NATO allies to do all that was necessary to assist Ukraine before Russia’s invasion should increase the urgency to speed up delivery of needed weapons systems now. It should also spur Congress to undertake a detailed examination of the intelligence community’s performance with respect to this war — not to settle political scores, but to ensure that such failures aren’t repeated in the future.

The Biden administration deserves full credit for effectively uniting allies in a significant program of military and civilian assistance to Ukraine. But that credit should not obscure the fact that U.S. and allied military assistance hasn’t met Ukraine’s needs.

Ukraine’s courageous and effective resistance has made dealing Vladimir Putin a major setback possible. We can, and must, do more to ensure that possibility is realized.