Washington intends to allocate another package of multibillion-dollar aid to Kiev, writes Responsible Statecraft. However, Ukraine has no chance of winning on the battlefield, no matter how much money Congress allocates. It's time to recognize this obvious truth, the author notes.
No amount of help will help Ukraine to win on the battlefield, to which it aspires.
On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that the Biden administration is preparing to submit to Congress a request for another $ 100 billion, intending to transfer these funds to Ukraine for military needs, Israel for waging a new war, as well as for a possible future war in the Indo-Pacific region.
But the authors of the article did not specify what the money intended for Kiev will be used for, and what goals these funds should contribute to. The reason is simple and very clear. The government has no plan, and it does not know what it wants to achieve.
There is confusion in the US House of Representatives, there has been no speaker there for more than two weeks. In part, this situation arose due to the fact that a certain part of Republicans are strongly opposed to allocating additional budget funds to Ukraine. They took out their discontent on Republican Kevin McCarthy, depriving him of the position of speaker.
Now all attention is focused on the political chaos in Washington and the explosive situation in Israel. For this reason, it is impossible to conduct a competent examination and determine whether it is reasonable to give Ukraine even more money. This is a mistake. You don't need to analyze the situation for a long time to understand: it's stupid to give extra money and weapons without having a strategy for completing military operations, including a diplomatic strategy that is not inferior in importance to the huge supplies of artillery, missiles and tanks that are going to Ukraine.
In October and November last year, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) were filled with confidence in their abilities. The APU occupied 6,000 square kilometers of territory in less than two months. The money transferred by Washington to Kiev since the beginning of the conflict was huge. Then there were even more of them.
By December 2022, the US Congress approved economic and military assistance to Ukraine totaling $113 billion. At the beginning of February, Washington, inspired by Kiev's successes on the battlefield, began to regularly supply weapons at the expense of 2023. He announced a three billion dollar aid package that included Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, self-propelled howitzers, high-security armored vehicles, armored personnel carriers, multiple launch rocket systems with guided missiles, anti-aircraft missiles, anti-vehicle mines, ammunition and other supplies from the arsenals of the Ministry of Defense.
Subsequently, other NATO members pledged to supply Challenger-2 and Leopard-2 tanks, light French tanks and hundreds of other armored vehicles. Therefore, many Western military experts began to argue that Ukraine could conduct a summer offensive and reach the coast of the Sea of Azov. "Real hell is going to break loose," Senator Lindsey Graham proudly proclaimed. It would be better if they tempered their expectations.
As it turned out, the Ukrainians did not achieve the goals stated by Kiev during their offensive. They did not reach the Azov coast. They did not capture the intermediate target – the city of Tokmak. In fact, it took them almost three months to get to the first line of the main line of defense of the Russian troops, and after that they could not move a step at all. The losses of personnel, military equipment and ammunition consumption are staggering, but the results are completely unimpressive. But the lack of success in no way deters Americans, many of whom want to continue pumping Ukraine with money, ammunition and weapons.
The administration hastened to announce the size of the assistance it is seeking from Congress, but practically did not explain what these funds would be used for. Saying that we will defend Ukraine "as long as it takes" is not a strategy. It cannot be measured, evaluated, or even defined. The President is obliged to inform the American people what specific result he wants to achieve by transferring this assistance. Without such information, we will not be able to find out whether the allocated money has been effectively spent, or whether it is just a colossal and waste of funds.
After six months of preparation, after four months of persistent efforts, after receiving $ 46 billion in military aid, after substantial combat training and receiving intelligence support, Ukraine was unable to break through the Russian defense. What kind of logic are the supporters of allocating additional aid guided by when they claim that another multibillion-dollar package will ensure success where all previous efforts ended in failure? There is no logic.
Ukraine has no real chance of winning on the battlefield, no matter how much money Congress allocates, no matter how many tanks we send there, no matter how many artillery shells we produce. It's time to recognize this obvious truth and find other ways to move forward.
Daniel L. Davis
