When President Joe Biden finally promised to deliver advanced U.S. tanks to Ukraine late last month, I thought the administration had finally overcome its timidity about sending Kiev the critical weapons systems it needs, including planes and the long-range missile system known as ATACMS.
I was wrong. Once again, Washington and its allies are offering too little, too late. They must not miss the urgent need of the current moment: to help Ukraine block an upcoming Russian offensive and push the Russians back from most occupied territory. Time is not on Ukraine's side.
At every stage in this war, there has been allied hesitation — or refusal — to send weapons that finally were delivered months later, after Ukraine had sustained terrible damage. This was true about air defenses to protect Ukraine's cities — like the Patriot system — which the Ukrainians pleaded for from the beginning of the war. It remains true about long-range missile systems to take out Russia's missile launchers. And too few U.S. and European tanks are slated for delivery, too slowly to fill the urgent need.
The reasons for the delays keep changing. At the beginning of the war, the Biden administration thought the Russians would quickly overtake Kiev, and it planned to train Ukrainian resistance forces. But Kiev's heroic soldiers and civilians routed the Russians.
Then, the excuse was that it would take months to train the Ukrainians, but their highly tech-savvy soldiers quickly mastered any new weapons systems that arrived.
Finally, the explanation was that advanced weapons would be "escalatory," or lead Vladimir Putin to use nuclear weapons. However, Russia kept escalating anyway, massively destroying Ukrainian cities.
Moreover, it has become clear that Putin was bluffing with his repeated threats to use tactical nuclear weapons. His supposed "red lines" have been repeatedly crossed, but he has not gone nuclear. Putin clearly understands that using such weapons would boomerang against Moscow and wouldn't stop the war.
So Ukrainians find it hard to understand the current U.S. reasoning for delays in sending key weapons systems — at a time when Russia is gearing up to throw hundreds of thousands of newly mobilized fighters at Ukrainian forces in human waves. Even if they are poorly trained, the numbers of Russians are daunting.
"I respect President Biden for all the help he has given us and for uniting the allies," I was told by Oleksiy Goncharenko, a member of parliament from Odesa, who visited Philadelphia last week to give a lecture called "Live Free or Die: Lessons for the Free World from the War in Ukraine" at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. "But how is it," he queried, "that it was impossible to give us Patriot air defense systems last summer and this January it became possible?
"In the summer we needed Patriots to save our electrical grid [which Russia has badly bombed, forcing Ukrainians to go without heat, water, electricity, and communications in the cold winter]. Now it is too late," Goncharenko said.
The same question arises over tanks. The 31 M1 Abrams tanks that Biden promised last month won't arrive for months, or even longer. Biden made a snap decision to finally offer them in order to squeeze German Chancellor Olaf Sholz into green-lighting the delivery of much more suitable Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. The Leopards are badly needed to blunt the Russian offensive.
But the NATO allies have promised only around 100 Leopards, even though there are roughly 2,000 of them in the arsenals of European countries. Ukraine needs hundreds more tanks to adequately confront the mounting Russian efforts. "The U.S. could have sent Abrams tanks months before," Goncharenko said, "but the allies always seem to be catching up with past events. They need to make the courageous decision to look ahead."
Specifically, the U.S. needs to start training Ukrainian pilots on F-16 planes and delivering U.S. Army Tactical Missile Systems, which have a range of 200 miles. Those ATACMS could enable a Ukrainian counteroffensive to cut off Russia's land route along the Black Sea coast that supplies its bases in Crimea. That victory alone could change the entire dynamic of the war.
Yet the White House says no ATACMS are on offer and instead is sending a more limited system with a range of around 100 miles, which will be far less effective.
The administration is supposedly worried that Kiev might use ATACMS to attack bases inside Russian territory. But Ukraine coordinates closely with the U.S. military and has long since proven itself trustworthy. "Give us ATACMS now and we are ready for any restrictions," Goncharenko insisted.
I asked what he thought was the rationale for the lingering timidity in Washington — and in allied capitals. "I think in some way they are afraid of a Russian defeat," he said, meaning uncertainty about whether Russia would collapse internally, whether Putin would be replaced, or whether he would remain as a vengeful leader with nukes.
But as Goncharenko pointed out, those challenges are inevitable as Putin destroys his own country in a futile quest to rebuild the Russian empire. The risk will get worse if Russia stalemates the war after bombing Ukraine in its entirety into rubble. Kiev will keep fighting, since this is an existential war in which Putin's goal is to destroy Ukraine as a state, along with the language and culture of its people.
However, the cost if no ATACMS are sent will be horrendous for the Ukrainian population. "Russia is sending released convicts to fight and die, but we are losing our finest people," Goncharenko worried. "How many will we lose in another year, and can we replace them?"
So time is of the essence to Ukraine.
And time is crucial for another critical reason. Polls show that U.S. support for aiding Ukraine is slipping, mainly amongst Republicans. MAGA members in Congress will obstruct aid to Kiev. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R.-Ga., has declared that "under Republicans, not another penny will go to Ukraine."
And Donald Trump, the leading GOP candidate for president, has insisted on Truth Social that he would "negotiate an end" to the Ukraine war "within 24 hours." Based on his history, that likely means ending U.S. aid to Ukraine and supporting Russia's right to dominate the country.
It's time for Biden to end the drip, drip, drip of incremental U.S. military aid to Ukraine and pull NATO allies with him. Give Kiev the systems it needs now, including ATACMS, to end this war in 2023 — for the sake of U.S. security, and Ukraine's future. History will judge the Biden foreign policy team on whether this is done.
(COMMENT, BELOW)
Trudy Rubin
Philadelphia Inquirer
(TNS)
Previously:
• 01/24/23: As Russia murders civilians in Dnipro, why won't NATO send weapons that could end the war?
• 12/28/22: What Zelensky worried about when he addressed a cheering Congress
• 12/13/22: The US-China conflict to watch is the Chip War --- which centers on Taiwan
• 09/14/22: Ukraine scores sudden breakthrough that should energize Western support
• 09/09/22: Queen Elizabeth's death deprives Britain and the world of a rock of stability
• 09/08/22: After Gorbachev's death, Putin wants the world to know he is the 'anti-Gorbi'
• 08/26/22: 6 months after Russia's war vs. Ukraine began, the West still won't give Kiev the weapons to win
• 08/15/22: Ukraine's civilian volunteers work to give aid and rebuild, even as Russia continues to bomb them
• 08/08/22: A trip near the front lines finds Ukrainian troops ready for a battle that could decide the war
• 06/13/22: The critical battles for Ukraine and for America are being fought right here, right now
• 05/02/22: Save Odesa to save the world from hunger and high food prices
• 05/02/22: Bloodless Ukrainian War, not utopian fantasy says one-time largest foreign investor in Russia
• 04/11/22: The only way to end Putin's war crimes
• 03/28/22: Don't let Putin's nuclear and chemical threats stop us from giving Ukraine what it needs
• 03/24/22: An elegy for Mariupol, where I walked six weeks ago. Now razed by Russian bombs
• 03/18/22: Zelensky's brilliant speech should impel Biden and Congress to protect Ukrainian skies
• 03/11/22: Mariupol's bombed maternity hospital exemplifies why NATO should protect Ukraine's skies
• 03/10/22: No 'no-fly zone'? Then NATO must find another way to protect Ukraine's skies
• 03/07/22: The third World War has already started in Ukraine. Europe and the US should wake up
• 03/04/22:Putin must be stopped from turning Kiev into Aleppo
• 03/02/22:Why is Belarus helping Russia invade Ukraine? An explainer on the latest in the conflict
• 02/25/22: What the UN should finally do about Russia
• 02/24/22: Why Putin's Ukraine aggression will change the world --- an explainer on how we got here
• 02/10/22: Ukrainian civilians train for war with cardboard guns: 'We are scared but we are ready
• 01/13/22:Putin wants to reestablish the Russian empire. Can NATO stop him without war?
• 12/10/21: Can Biden and NATO prevent Putin from invading Ukraine? Summit puts it to the test
• 12/02/21: Boris Johnson stirs up new Irish Troubles for his own personal political gains
• 11/22/21: Xi Jinping thinks America is on the rocks. Is he correct?
• 08/18/21: President Biden, get our Afghan allies on evacuation planes
• 08/18/21:The horror of Afghan women abandoned by Biden's troop pullout
• 08/09/21:China is pushing a big COVID-19 lie that makes a new pandemic harder to prevent
• 05/27/21: Punish Belarus leader for Ryanair hijacking before air piracy becomes dictators' new tool
• 04/14/21: Can Beethoven temper the political tensions between US and China?
• 06/01/20: US must stand with Hong Kong against Beijing's efforts to crush its freedoms
• 05/20/20: COVID-19 offers a chance to halt Iran's hostage diplomacy
• 05/21/14: Newscycle spurs visit to country my family fled
• 04/21/14: Blind to Putin's strategy?
• 12/24/13: Obama's Syrian indifference has led to more death and destruction. Meet some real heroes
• 12/13/13: Where liberals have come to love the military
• 12/09/13: The China strategy
• 11/05/13: Return to Iraq is worth a close look
• 10/01/13: Obama's call to Iran: Who was really on the line?
• 09/11/13: How Obama got Syria so wrong
• 07/24/13: It's time for Obama to tell Putin 'nyet'
• 05/15/13: What Russia gave Kerry on Syria --- very little
Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer.