Win the War Now

T he newspapers are filled with reports of an extraordinary victory by Ukrainian forces in the Kharkiv region. As of this writing, over 6,000 square kilometers have been recaptured from the Russians, dozens of villages have been liberated, and massive amounts of Russian military equipment have been captured. Ukrainians are literally dancing in the streets of Kyiv, and there likely will be plenty of more dancing soon, when the pocket of Russian forces trapped on the west side of the Dnipro River near Kherson collapses.

Yet while the Ukrainian victories are truly worth celebrating, a sober view of the situation is required. Ukraine has won some important battles. It has not won the war. The Putinites are not about to give up. The Soviet Union did very badly in the early stages of World War II, only to pull itself together later and ultimately prevail. That story is not obscure in Russia. On the contrary, it is the central national myth, taught in all schools and celebrated constantly on TV, film, and in literature. Without question, Russia’s rulers will attempt to replicate it today.

The Red Army performed terribly in 1941 because Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had murdered, imprisoned, or exiled all its best officers. The Russian armed forces are performing horribly today in significant part because they have been looted by the kleptocratic gang infesting the Kremlin. Indeed, as Amy Knight has documented in her book Orders to Kill: The Putin Regime and Political Murder, Putin has arranged for the assassination of Russian military officers who have complained about improper repairs done to their submarines or aircraft by corrupt, Kremlin-allied contractors. But just as the need to win the war ultimately trumped Stalin’s fears of military rivals, so, in the face of possible defeat, the lust of the Kremlin cabal to enrich itself at the expense of Russia’s armed forces will soon be placed on the back burner.

The incompetent Red Army of summer 1941 was virtually annihilated. But Stalin was able to rise to the occasion by creating a new one that, properly equipped and officered, was able to drive the Germans back to Berlin. Now the kleptocracy’s wretched army is being routed by Ukraine. But the example of what to do about it is front and center in every Russian elementary-school reader and, every night, on Russian prime-time TV. Putin must know he needs to create a new army, and given the time, that is exactly what he will do.

So, he must not be given the time. A reasonable estimate is that it would take six months to train up a new army. Ukraine needs to seize the time to achieve victory before that new army can make its appearance on the battlefield.

The timing is favorable. Winter is coming. While “General Winter” has frequently been cited as a key Russian ally, that is an oversimplification. Winter does not have a favorable disposition for Russians, as such. Winter favors the side that is more strongly motivated. In 1812 and 1941 this side was indeed the Russian. In the First World War, it was not. In the current war, it is clearly Ukraine’s. The Ukrainians are fighting for their independence, their lives, and for their kidnapped children. The Russians don’t know why they are fighting. When the brutal cold winter hits, it will be the Ukrainians who will be willing to endure it and come out and fight.

But we need to do our part as well. The Biden administration’s support for Ukraine, while welcome, has been episodic and inadequate. The Ukrainians have shown they can put American high-mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) to good use with great effect. But Biden has sent only 16 units. There is no valid military reason to be so stingy. The U.S. Armed Forces possess over 500 HIMARS units, as well as over 1,500 tracked-vehicle, multiple-launch rocket systems that use the same ammunition as the wheeled HIMARS units, but have twice the firepower, with each mounting twelve rocket tubes in place of the HIMARS unit’s six. Shipping 100 HIMARS units to Ukraine would radically tip the scales of victory, yet amount to only about 3 percent of America’s total rocket-artillery firepower.

Furthermore, the purpose of this artillery is to destroy Russian armed forces. It requires risk to life and limb to put it to that purpose. The Ukrainians are willing to lift that burden and do it for us. They are fighting our fight. So we should send them all the rocket artillery they want.

But we shouldn’t stop there. America has 4,000 F-16s, which are no longer our frontline fighter aircraft, and 350 A-10 ground-attack planes that the Air Force has been trying to get rid of for years. The A-10s were designed to destroy Russian armor. The current war is the perfect place to put them to good use.

PHOTOS: Russian-Ukraine War

America has a lot on the line in the current war. If Ukraine is defeated, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s radical revanchist regime will be massively strengthened, its southwestern-border strategic vulnerability will be eliminated, and its forces will reach the borders of NATO countries that the U.S. has pledged to defend. Ukraine now has 1 million men and women under arms. Properly equipped, they would represent a force that would completely preclude Russian aggression against NATO. But, if they are written off the West’s order of battle, the U.S. will need to station hundreds of thousands of troops in Europe, and Americans are going to need to pay for that deployment with vast amounts of treasure for years and, possibly someday, with many lives as well.

The vital interests of the entire Western world are at stake. Putin needs to be defeated and discredited, and not only to save Ukraine and the Baltic states. Deterrence needs to be reestablished if there is to be any degree of peace in the world. If Ukraine wins, China will be powerfully deterred from any aggression of its own. But if, through half-heartedness or delay, we let Russia recover and triumph, China will learn that aggression pays, and take that lesson as an invitation to take what it wants, too.

It’s costing America a lot to help Ukraine fight this war. But it will cost us far more if we let it lose.

We should put this war to bed by giving Ukraine what it takes to win the war now.