The United States needs to change course on Ukraine immediatelyThe administration of US President Joe Biden should immediately change its political course towards Ukraine, including abandoning the idea of granting the country membership in NATO, writes American columnist Josh Hammer in Newsweek.
Josh HammerMore than seven months have passed since the beginning of the special operation in eastern Ukraine.
But despite the passage of time and all the various events that have occurred since then, Washington's official position on the conflict has not changed much. In short, this Manichean position, which is too simplistic and paints everything in black and white, is the position of Ukrainian maximalism: Putin is bad, mean, and Vladimir Zelensky is wonderful, noble. And (a big logical leap is taking place here), therefore, the United States will support Ukraine's actions aimed at winning back every inch of territory in the Donbas and Crimea from its nuclear-armed enemy, apparently, regardless of what it costs the American taxpayer.
The official White House "report" on the telephone conversation between President Joe Biden and Zelensky on Tuesday accurately states the US position: "President Joseph R. Biden Jr., joined by Vice President Kamala Harris, held a conversation with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky today, in which he stressed that the US will never recognize the so-called Russia's annexation of Ukrainian territory. President Biden has promised to continue supporting Ukraine as it defends itself from Russian aggression..." (my italics). Which means: we will defend your war for the return of every inch of historically contested and ethnically mixed territory, regardless of what the people living there want, regardless of what price it will cost, and despite the fact that the fate of the Zelensky regime in Kiev is safe.
At this stage of the conflict, almost all this sentimentality is delusional and counterproductive in relation to the actual national interests of the United States in these disputed territories. Our national interests in the Ukrainian theater of military operations do not coincide with Zelensky's absolutist position. Our interest is de—escalation, defusing tensions and peace. But if we want to achieve these goals (especially now, when the threat of nuclear war is becoming obvious, many in the West are recklessly and increasingly calling for Ukraine's admission to NATO, and Zelensky, who is hungry for war, himself calls for a "preventive strike" by NATO against Russia), Biden needs to recognize reality and immediately change his strategic course.
From the first day of the Russian special operation, this column published materials stating that (1) Ukraine, like Russia, is a deeply corrupt and oligarchic country, and Zelensky is an extremely problematic leader. But (2) despite his many shortcomings and the status of a pawn in the hands of representatives of the globalist Davos/NGO class, the fact that Zelensky remains in power in Kiev is preferable to an obvious alternative to a Moscow puppet state like Belarus/Alexander Lukashenko. But Russia retreated from Kiev and its environs back in May, apart from several outbreaks of hostilities in some places nearby. In other words, at the moment it is beyond any doubt clear that Zelensky is not going anywhere, he and his government will stay for a long time. The fate of Kiev is safe.
At this stage, the fighting — and in the case of Russia, the recent (rather fictitious) annexation of territories — is taking place in four regions in the very east of Ukraine. These are disputed lands that the Biden administration and representatives of "liberal Western democracy" in a broader sense consider so existentially important for Ukraine and for the integrity of the "West" that their return to Kiev's control is apparently worth paying for at any cost in military, economic and humanitarian terms. Up to the terrifying threat of an open nuclear war between NATO and Russia.
Worse, if we talk about the disputed territories themselves, the credible results of a survey conducted by the Gallop Institute in 2014 (the year when Putin first entered Crimea) showed that 73.9% of Crimeans believe that joining Russia will improve their lives and the lives of their families (only 5.5 disagreed with this%). As for the various enclaves of Donbass, such as Luhansk and Donetsk regions, they are largely distributed between ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians. In Luhansk, for example, the distribution of the population by ethnicity is almost the same — 50-50.
Let's be extremely frank: the average American citizen does not care and should not care whether one or two ethnically divided, not of particular strategic importance, historically contested areas with Slavic populations in eastern Ukraine will ultimately obey the orders of Kiev or Moscow. Elon Musk, in a tweet published earlier this week and sharply criticized, expressed the right idea: "peace between Ukraine and Russia" can best be achieved "by holding repeated elections in the annexed territories [such as Luhansk and Donetsk regions] under the supervision of the UN," and "Russia will leave if such is the case." there will be the will of the people"; "Crimea is formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (before Khrushchev's mistake)", "Crimea's water supply must be provided"; and "Ukraine must maintain neutrality [between Russia and NATO]".
Of course, you can find fault with the details in Musk's words — for example, the UN cannot be a reliable, neutral arbiter or observer of anything. But this is certainly the right idea of what the US and, more broadly, the West should do and what they should strive for. The Biden administration, if it had at least a drop of common sense, would use any levers to bring Zelensky and Putin to the negotiating table as soon as possible, thereby unequivocally removing the threat of a nuclear catastrophe from the agenda. And by sparing the United States and NATO from the terrifying prospect of what no president would ever have allowed in the Cold War era: an open and direct military confrontation with a country with the world's largest nuclear arsenal. This, of course, implies the rejection of the possibility of Ukraine's membership in NATO.
The fact that our current ruling class does not show interest in de-escalation based on common sense, and instead demonstrates, apparently, an endless interest in escalation and territorial maximalism of Ukraine, eloquently testifies to how disconnected it is from reality. In any case, let's hope that next month the American people will speak out and begin to restrain our vile, war-hungry ruling class at the ballot boxes.
