If we are to avoid a war, we must show that we are willing to fight.
If we are to avoid a war, we must show that we are willing to fight.
R ussian dictator Vladimir Putin has responded to the recent Ukrainian victories in two ways. First, he has called for a “partial” mobilization to create new and larger forces drawn more broadly from Russia to replace the routed dregs of society composing his original invasion force. This mobilization could pose a serious threat to Ukraine in the long run. But, as it will take some time to adequately train and equip this new army, it is unlikely to be of much use in stanching the current Ukrainian advances. He is therefore floating a second, more potent threat: to use tactical nuclear weapons to “defend” whatever Ukrainian territory he chooses to redefine as Russian through a process of fraudulent referendums and annexations.
In short, Putin has announced that unless the West allows him to take whatever he wants, he will unleash nuclear war. This demand is unacceptable.
Biden administration officials reportedly have responded to this threat by informing Putin privately that there would be severe consequences if he chose to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine. But why should Putin believe them?
Biden has supplied Ukraine with some very useful weaponry but denied it other essentials, including tanks, aircraft, and long-range missiles, on the absurd grounds that providing these items might annoy Putin excessively. However, a direct American military response would annoy him even more. Furthermore, the fact that the Biden administration is keeping such warnings private must indicate to Putin that it does not wish to be publicly committed to take any action.
The Biden administration knew about Putin’s plan for invading Ukraine well in advance but refused to take appropriate action to deter it. In consequence, over 100,000 people are dead, hundreds of billions of dollars of property has been destroyed, and close to $3 trillion worth of damage has been inflicted on the world economy. The consequences of refusing to deter the outbreak of nuclear war would be even more — vastly more — catastrophic.
There is not much time to lose. Putin must be deterred, and at this point, even a strong public statement of consequences might not be enough to do the job. Putin must be convinced that if he does the unthinkable, he will not just have Ukraine, but the United States of America, to contend with.
If we are to avoid a war, we must be willing to show that we are willing to fight.
From a military point of view, the best way to both deter Putin and end the war quickly is to deploy U.S. air power to provide air cover and close air support to the Ukrainian army so it can quickly drive the invaders out. However, short of a Russian attack on American forces, President Biden would need to go to Congress for a declaration of war to undertake such action. The ensuing political games would paralyze action for far longer than the urgency of a nuclear-war threat requires.
But Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has already invited the U.S. to set up a no-fly zone in his country, and we have every right to accept his invitation without a declaration of war. Russia has no more sovereign right to bomb Kyiv, Odesa, and Kharkiv than it does Warsaw, Paris, or London. We have every right — and moral justification — to use our air power to interdict such terroristic attacks. Let the Russians interfere with us if they dare. Should one American plane be shot down while protecting the skies over Ukrainian cities, our gloves can come off. Given how badly the Russian military has performed against Ukraine, the outcome of a direct encounter with our much better equipped forces can hardly be in doubt.
PHOTOS: Russian-Ukraine War
Fears that establishing a no-fly zone early on would escalate the conflict were understandable, though I considered them unfounded at the time. But now, Putin has escalated even though fears prevailed, and the U.S. did not establish one. It is now clear that only force can make him back down.
At the same time that we provide this defensive air cover, we should radically increase our weapons supplies to Ukraine, including more HIMARS rocket artillery units, long-range ATACMS missiles, tanks, F-16 fighters, and A-10 ground-attack aircraft, so the Ukrainian armed forces can escort the invaders out of their country before Putin’s new army can become a reality.
By delivering such a decisive defeat to Putin, we will not just save Ukraine and our NATO allies from further Russian aggression, but we will also send China a message that will cancel any plans it might have to unleash war in the East.
Some will say that advocating the taking of such a strong stand is warmongering. It isn’t. It is drawing the line. Good fences make good neighbors. When he ordered U.S. forces to cut and run from Afghanistan, and then announced that U.S. forces would not engage in Ukraine no matter what Putin did, Biden took down the deterrent fence that had prevented general war for more than seven decades. It needs to be put up again immediately.