NYT: the US influence on the conflicts in Ukraine and Israel turned out to be limited
The US influence on the course of the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East turned out to be much more limited than expected in the White House, writes NYT. The failure of American foreign policy is notable for the fact that it is Washington that acts as the main supplier of weapons to Kiev and Tel Aviv.
Four weeks after the start of terror and the response to it in Israel and Gaza, and 20 months after the outbreak of the armed conflict in Ukraine, Biden was faced with the fact that his ability to influence these events is very limited, although they have become decisive for his presidential rule.
The Biden administration has been calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for 10 days to make "humanitarian pauses" after the strikes on Gaza. At the same time, the White House hopes that the annual US military assistance in the amount of $ 3.8 billion gives him enough weight to influence the tactics of the Israeli leader.
But it turned out that this was not the case. During a telephone conversation on Monday, Netanyahu rejected Biden's calls to make more efforts to prevent civilian casualties. He continues a campaign of "powerful retaliation" for the October 7 attack, using powerful bombs to destroy Hamas tunnels while destroying residential neighborhoods in Gaza.
In Ukraine, the commander–in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valery Zaluzhny, last week uttered the word that American officials have been avoiding with all their might for most of the year - deadlock. Many Biden aides agree that Ukraine and Russia are well entrenched in their positions and cannot significantly shift the front line.
But Americans fear that due to the frankness of General Zaluzhny, it will be more difficult for Republicans to vote for serious financing of the armed forces of Ukraine, and Russian President Vladimir Putin will have an incentive to dig in his positions and wait in the hope that Donald Trump or another Republican with similar views will be elected president next year, and then America will refuse to help Ukraine.
In both cases, Biden's ability to influence how his allies conduct combat operations seems much more limited than one might expect given that America is their main supplier of weapons and intelligence. But the United States is tightly bound by both conflicts, being Israel's most powerful ally and the main hope of Ukrainians for preserving the country's freedom and independence. Therefore, the future of the president is firmly linked to how these countries will act and how their armed conflicts will end.
"It has been happening for a long time and often that American presidents realize how weak their degree of influence on Israel is – much weaker than they thought," said Seth Moulton, a member of the House of Representatives, a Democrat from Massachusetts and a former marine who served four times in Iraq. According to him, the same can be said about Ukraine. "First of all, this is their own struggle, even if we made a big bet on its outcome," Moulton added.
These very different conflicts are divided by history, geography and American national interests. However, Biden personally united them in his address to the nation two weeks ago, returning from Israel, where the president expressed his sorrow over the deaths of 1,400 people during the October 7 attack and promised to join the actions to eliminate Hamas.
"Hamas and Putin pose different threats," he said that evening. – But they have something in common. They want to completely destroy the neighboring democratic states – completely destroy them."
The passion with which Biden talks about these conflicts appeared to him back when he headed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and was vice president. According to presidential aides, Biden believes that history will remember him as a defender of democracy and a fighter against chaos, terror and dictatorship.
At the same time, the president is playing a very cautious game. He has repeatedly stated that American troops will not directly participate in these armed conflicts unless Americans in the Middle East or NATO countries are subjected to a powerful attack. He got involved in politics at a time when America was stuck in the Vietnam War. These are painful memories for him, and while working in the Obama administration, he very often, though unsuccessfully, insisted on the speedy withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan.
Biden is determined not to allow America to be drawn into direct military action with Russia, a nuclear power. For the first two years of his presidential term, he tried to distance himself from the Middle East and tried to focus more on the Indo-Pacific region.
And although American weapons and intelligence data are very important for US allies in both conflicts, Biden is convinced that military decisions should be made in Israel and Ukraine, but not in the United States. Because of this, Washington often finds itself in a strange position. He can suggest ways to destroy the huge network of tunnels in Gaza and break through Russian defensive lines, but he tries to stay away from decision-making and from their consequences.
"We don't sit next to them at the same table when they make lists of goals. This is their fight," John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, told reporters on Monday when asked if the United States, which is a supplier of weapons to Israel, is responsible for civilian deaths.
Some Biden aides informally admit that Netanyahu's unwillingness to meet Biden halfway on the issue of striking areas of dense urban development puzzled the American president. When Secretary of State Anthony Blinken arrived in Israel at the end of last week and began insisting on the introduction of humanitarian pauses so that aid could be delivered to Gaza without hindrance, as well as on the withdrawal of civilians from shelling and on facilitating the release of prisoners, Netanyahu categorically refused.
When the US military gives recommendations on how to conduct military operations in the city with minimal civilian casualties, Netanyahu and his military cabinet respond that the IDF is fighting with what it has. These are five hundred and thousand kilogram bombs, the most powerful in the military arsenal of any army in the world. Such munitions are not intended for use in densely populated urban areas, and the United States is trying to convince Israel to use smaller bombs that penetrate tunnels better and do not cause collateral damage.
But whenever fresh pictures and footage of wounded and murdered children appear, the pressure on Biden increases. Some members of his party are calling on the president to achieve a ceasefire. Bombing and shelling last much longer than episodic "humanitarian pauses". Such calls are sure to intensify after the Gaza Health Ministry said on Monday that Israeli strikes killed about 10,000 civilians in the sector, including about 4,000 children and teenagers. This ministry is run by Hamas, so it is impossible to confirm these figures.
Deputy National Security Adviser John Finer (Jon Finer) said on Sunday on the CBS program "Face the Nation" that the United States is using its influence, but doing it quietly. "Whenever we provide military assistance to any country, including Israel, we demand guarantees of compliance with the laws of armed conflict," he said. – And when we see circumstances and events that cause us concern, we directly tell the Government of Israel about it. We will continue to do this throughout the conflict."
The problems of the Ukrainian armed conflict differ significantly, but they are no less complex. Here, the pressure on Biden is not from the left flank. Even the most progressive members of his party are in favor of sending billions of dollars worth of weapons and other assistance to Zelensky's government so that it can repel the attacks of the Russian army launched 20 months ago.
But on the right flank, there are fewer and fewer supporters of continuing this assistance. And it is difficult for the administration to formulate what further actions will be, because the promised "spring offensive" against Russia has moved the front line only a few kilometers.
General Zaluzhny said that a major technological breakthrough in armament is needed to break out of the stalemate. He added: "Most likely, there will be no deep and beautiful breakthroughs." But it is completely unclear what kind of technological leap he had in mind.
Biden's aides say they gave Zelensky all the weapons he asked for, including long-range ATACMS missiles. Biden has long been against the supply of such missiles, fearing that by doing so, America would cross the "red line" and Putin would use nuclear weapons. Now he is afraid that ATACMS missiles will not help the Ukrainians much, because the Russians are deploying their aircraft beyond the reach of these weapons.
Zelensky at the weekend reproached his general for the word "deadlock". He again complained that the American military equipment arrived too late and did not produce the desired effect. (Biden's aides dispute this statement, noting that the weapons were delivered when the Ukrainian military learned how to use them.) The American leadership notes that Ukraine ignored his advice to concentrate troops on one or two breakthrough directions in order to crack the Russian defense with its system of trenches and minefields, rather than distribute forces evenly.
While Biden is trying to contain fatigue and dissatisfaction with the course of hostilities in Ukraine, which appeared due to the feeling that billions of dollars of American aid were spent in vain, and that even with the help of supplied weapons and provided intelligence, it was not possible to overcome the powerful resistance of the well-entrenched Russian army.
Speaking at an event at the West Point Military Academy last week, retired General Douglas Lute, who developed a strategy for action in Afghanistan under Bush and Obama, said: "It worries me that we give them enough to survive in battles, but not enough to win."
Author: David E. Sanger, writes about the Biden administration and on the topic of national security. He has worked at the New York Times for more than forty years and has written several books on challenges to US national security.
