{A} s the Ukrainian military runs low on ammunition, the situation in the country is threatening to become catastrophic. Russian missiles targeting Ukrainian urban infrastructure are starting to get through, and Ukrainian front-line forces have inadequate shells to respond to Russian artillery barrages. According to the Institute for Study of War, the country is becoming increasingly unstable. While Ukraine could clearly win if it were supplied with airpower, it could also collapse quickly if the exhaustion of its anti-tank weaponry allowed Russia to resume mobile warfare.
President Biden is blaming this impending disaster on Republicans, some of whom are stalling his request for more Ukraine arms funding. There is plenty of truth in this; Ukraine-skeptical Republicans are gravely mistaken. Yet the president’s job is not to complain, but to defeat America’s enemies. And Biden still has plenty of options for doing so.
First, bipartisan negotiations have been ongoing for months in the Senate over a deal that would pair tens of billions of dollars in Ukraine aid with increased border-enforcement measures. As someone who favors a more liberal immigration policy, I think Biden should lean more heavily on Senate Democrats to reach such a deal, which makes sense for a variety of reasons. The border is completely out of control, and if Biden leaves it that way, he will be gift-wrapping the White House for anti-immigrant demagogue Donald Trump. If there are problems with the GOP’s proposals, they can be sorted out later. A Ukrainian military collapse cannot.
It’s quite possible that those Republicans who have been beating the border-enforcement drum as a pretext for defunding Ukraine will seek excuses to refuse to take yes for an answer if a deal is reached. But that would leave them looking unreasonable, increasing political pressure on them to act.
Even if Biden doesn’t want to take a bipartisan deal, he still has plenty of other options. Many American intermediate-range ATACM missiles, which would be of enormous utility to Ukraine, have reached their expiration date. As it would be cheaper to send them to Ukraine than to decommission them, sending them is a cost-saving measure, and it requires no congressional appropriation. Yet the Biden administration has dragged its feet, only belatedly sending a small portion of America’s stock of older ATACMs to Kyiv. It could help the Ukrainians immensely by sending more.
Biden could obtain funds for arms without congressional action by attempting to expropriate frozen Russian government bank accounts, a move that is reportedly being discussed by the administration and its allies. There is $300 billion in such cash available right now, enough to fund the Ukrainian war effort for several years. Such a course of action, which until recently was held to be illegal by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, would not be without risks — it could prompt Russia to retaliate by seizing Western assets to fund its own war effort, and it would set a precedent with the potential to threaten the position of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
But under the circumstances, it would be a just and proper course of action. In 1994, Russia agreed with the United States, the U.K., and Ukraine to respect Ukraine’s borders. It has broken that agreement, flagrantly violating international law in the process. As a violator of international law, it has no right to claim protection under international law. Consequently, it should be held liable for all damages caused not only to Ukraine, but to the U.S. and U.K., by its illegal conduct and breach of promise.
Lastly, Biden could send arms to Ukraine by emergency decree, as he did twice in 2022, and as he did for Israel in December 2023.
Yet instead of taking any of these available steps, the administration seems to have returned to the very same appeasement policy that precipitated the invasion of Ukraine in the first place. In the months leading up to the February 2022 invasion, the Biden administration was fully aware that it was coming, and openly said so. The right and necessary policy at that point was to seek to deter the invasion by sending Ukraine arms in advance. Yet the administration not only declined to do any such thing; it even invited the invasion by publicly assuring Putin that the U.S. would not intervene.
One of the architects of that policy was Democratic Party Russia expert Sam Charap, who, in January 2022, published an article in Foreign Policy magazine opposing any arms shipments to Ukraine. One would think that the resulting disaster would have made Charap persona non-grata in the administration. However, a survey of White House logs has shown that Charap has been visiting frequently, including three times in the summer of 2023. Apparently, his counsel of defeat is again being well received.
But why now? After Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky refused the administration’s offer to assist him in deserting his country, the embarrassed White House shifted gears to providing substantial, if still too limited, assistance to Ukraine’s defense. So what has changed? What could be a higher priority for the administration than the defense of the free world?
How about defense of the administration? It appears that Biden is quite willing to incur a geostrategic catastrophe if he can blame it on the Republicans. This is an election year, after all, and many congressional Republicans can and should be faulted for their stance on Ukraine.
Such a plan might seem quite clever to the political hacks running administration national-security policy. Yet it is pure folly. Biden is the president, and the buck stops with him. In 1940, the British had their backs to the wall. The United States was their only hope, so the inaptly named “America First” movement was doing everything it could to cut that lifeline. But rather than allow the Nazis to win the war so he could blame that catastrophe on his election-year political opponents, Franklin Roosevelt did whatever was necessary to outmaneuver them. Imagine the horrific consequences if he had adopted Biden’s current course of action instead.
The analogy is fully apt. Anyone who wants to see what will ensue in Ukraine following Russian victory has only to visit the mass graves in Bucha, created for the multitude murdered during Russia’s brief occupation of that town. Should Russia take the whole country, millions would die.
But it is worse than that. If Russia wins, this war will not stop in Ukraine. Following such a victory, Russia will be greatly strengthened, and its armed forces will be advanced to the borders of NATO allies Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania. Ukraine’s army will be deleted from the West’s order of battle. Russia will then be free to send its army into the Baltic states, whose legitimacy Putin does not acknowledge. These countries are NATO members. The “practical” arguments against sending American troops to save them would then seem a thousand times stronger than those currently being advanced against helping Ukraine.
If the U.S. discredits itself as a reliable ally, Taiwan may also have no choice but to capitulate to China, while Japan and South Korea could be forced to initiate crash programs to develop their own nuclear arsenals. This would turn Asia into a tinder box.
Such a catastrophe is completely unnecessary. While cutting off supplies of existing types of arms can lead to Ukrainian defeat, providing Ukraine with types of arms denied it up till now can lead to victory. In particular, Ukraine needs air power. Claims that Ukraine’s summer offensive “fell short of expectations” are nonsensical. Ukraine was asked to conduct a ground offensive against an entrenched opponent without air superiority — something the U.S. Army has not done since 1898. Were Ukraine provided with F-16s and ATACMS in sufficient quantity, it could cut off Russia’s supply lines to the front, making enemy positions indefensible. The U.S. has over 2,000 F16s, which it no longer uses as combat aircraft, and thousands of ATACMS ready to be decommissioned as well. There is no legitimate reason to continue to deny Ukraine these essential tools for victory.
Biden has a clear choice: He can show some courage and help save Ukraine, or he can continue on his present course and lead the free world toward disaster.
It’s up to him.