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Ukraine: Looking back at US assistance and what we can learn from it. [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-12-07
With the latest political debacle in the US congress holding up aid to Ukraine, I wanted to take a step back and assess US aid in general to Ukraine. I’m going to come across harsh and critical of the US and by association the Biden Administration. Before I get into the criticisms I’ll just emphasize my support for the Biden administration and point out that Republican control of the government (in particular Trump) would have been a complete disaster for Ukraine. So do not read this article as suggesting you should remove support for Biden. On the contrary, we need to support him with more Democrats in congress to make voting through essential aid packages easier. So with that support for Biden made clear, it’s still important that we honestly assess US decision making with regards to Ukraine over the past two years.
We first start with a high point for the Biden administrations willingness to break with convention prior to the war and publicly state intelligence findings that Russia was about to invade. It served to prep both Ukraine and NATO publics for potential war as well as signaling to Russia that we would not be staying away from Ukraine. While it didn’t prevent the invasion, it was a good strategy and effort.
With the start of the war and the initial chaos and uncertainty of the outcome, the US continued to do a good job of supporting Ukraine. Shipments of easy to learn anti-tank missiles and other person portable systems which could be used in both a conventional and a guerrilla conflict was the most prudent move. The only other possible big move would be direct US involvement which I will not get into the pros/cons in this article as the Biden administration would never have considered it. We will simply take it off the table as going too far for this administration.
The other good early war moves were preparation for donating both 155mm artillery (primarily the M777s) and HIMARS. While these systems didn’t appear right away, the speed with which they appeared later in the spring meant the Biden administration was being proactive in those early months looking to the next needs of Ukraine. Such deliveries would require advanced training and getting systems in place to donate. The US waiting for Ukraine to completely run out of artillery shells prior to contemplating sending 155mm would have been disastrous for Ukraine. Even as it was, delivery was just in time.
This early proactive approach of anticipating Ukraine’s needs should have continued, but it didn’t. Instead it became policy to unload every weapon system we no longer needed or wanted. Some of which is undoubtably still useful, but simply not ideal. M113s have a long service history and are still used by the US Army and other armies. However, it is extremely old technology and replacements were made for good reasons. Biden’s desire to lead with a consensus of NATO nations where each nation contributed what it could quickly led to a place where Ukraine has assembled the most diverse set of military equipment ever under a single army.
This is not a good way to build an army. For sure, you fight with the army you have and not the army you wish you had so we can not blame Ukraine in this process. However, the United States did have the capacity to outfit Ukraine with a very specific and limited set of equipment meeting Ukraine’s needs while keeping the logistical footprint to a minimum. Instead, most Ukrainian Brigades have vastly different equipment some of which is irreplaceable. One brigade started with 13 Challenger tanks and has lost one already. If it continues to lose Challengers which are irreplaceable at some point it will simply be combat ineffective in that area unless other tank models are brought in, and then this Brigade is fielding two tank models just to keep a small handful of tanks relevant.
This Challenger problem is a result of imbecilic political maneuvering necessitated by US slow walking tanks in the first place. (To be clear, the United Kingdom did the right thing forcing the other countries hands, its a shame they had to do so). I say US here and not Germany, because providing Ukraine Leopard tanks was never going to work due to limited numbers of Leopards being split between so many different countries. Ukraine has ended up with more Leopard 1 tanks instead of Leopard 2 tanks because they are desperate even though the Leopard 1 is 60 year old technology with armor weaker than the T-72s Ukraine already fields.
The only NATO tank that ever made sense due to the quantities needed was the US Abrams M1 export model. The problem being that the export model was in limited availability. But instead of using its vast resources to jump start conversions to export models at the start of the war, we did nothing on the issue. Daily Kos was filled with people saying Ukraine couldn’t handle the logistics of it. Even though Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq all run the tank. Ukraine also has some knowledge of the type of engine as some models of the T-80 run the same engine type. Ukraine has proven it can supply multiple lines of T-72s, multiple lines of T-80s, multiple lines of T-64s, multiple lines of Leopards, and Challenger tanks. Instead of running all of these tank lines they should be running one line of Abrams (plus their legacy tanks until replaced) SIMPLIFYING their logistics train. The US is a country that went from very little plane production pre-WW2 to building 100,000 planes in one year by the end of the war. If we wanted to scale up conversion of Abrams to export models and put the money and will behind it, we could have done that. I’m using the Abrams as the example here, but the same holds true for Bradleys, F-16s and whatever other equipment you want to look at.
The ideal force mix for Ukraine would have been running uniform US equipment for all of its top units. NATO countries could still have contributed to shore up secondary forces in non-prioritized sectors, but the US should have stepped up for the main units. And I’m talking to the tune of 20 brigades. Obviously it wouldn’t all happen at once, but that should have been the goal. 100,000 troops decked out in top flight gear. And this should have been the plan starting in March of 2022. It only took a few days to see that Ukraine wasn’t going to fall right away. We got the artillery and HIMARS to them with reasonable speed. Once Ukraine fully stabilized in the north with Russia’s retreat there was an opportunity to pull at least a subsection of experienced troops off the line to train and fit them out with early batches of US equipment by the end of the fall.
Fall of 2022 we saw the Kharkiv offensive succeed and the plan around Kherson succeed. Russia was off balance and reeling. A Ukrainian push into Zaporizhzhia at that time could have been a knockout blow. Russian defense lines were not yet in place and many of the troops from Kherson were without gear and highly disorganized. Unfortunately Ukraine was out gas and needed to wait on vehicle deliveries. Just 2 or 3 fresh brigades might have been enough to spearhead south. Instead, they had to wait, and wait, and wait. This is not entirely hindsight. I was advocating for this from early 2022 and saw the need. And I have a thimble full of knowledge regarding Ukrainian troop deployment compared to US brass. I truly hope there was Army leadership advocating what I am suggesting. If not, something was seriously wrong.
In war, fast decisive operations can win the day. Not reckless or impulsive, but sound tactics performed in a timely manner is way better than taking forever to prepare. Because as we saw, Russia went from being unbalanced and losing, to building up solid defensive lines and stabilizing their position all because the US slow walked equipment any competent general should have seen they were going to need. But there was no master plan put in place and aid came piecemeal, grudgingly, and without using all the tools at our disposal.
Remember all that lend-lease equipment we sent them using the 2022 lend lease act? No? It’s because we didn’t use the act. Not a single item was sent using lend lease. Instead it all came from 3 different funding acts which is fine in terms of Ukraine won’t have to pay back what they received. But I’m pretty sure they would prefer large low interest loans with indefinite payback period and have an additional 10 brigades worth of uniform equipment sent already. Early on I can understand preferring the other routes when events were more unpredictable. But by June of 2022 the course of the war should have been apparent. I know I was predicting a quick war myself, but I was assuming the US was working behind the scenes on the IFVs, Tanks, and all the other needed items and announce them days before usage just as they had done with artillery and HIMARS. It never occurred to me they would drop the ball in this epic fashion. Some delays would be inevitable for such an operation. But a test brigade by October 2022 should have happened with follow up brigades as possible.
But the biggest failure was in September of 2023. Kevin McCarthy was clearly on the ropes politically over the Ukraine funding. Biden had an already approved near limitless funding means through Lend-Lease and not a single item was put on the books to be sent before the act expired at the start of October. The danger of Republican obstructionism is immense and letting all funding avenues for Ukraine expire assuming a few rational Republicans would relent was pure folly. Ukrainian lives have already been lost because we acted slowly, now more will be lost because we failed to act when a means was at hand.
I know the Republicans are callous enough to not care, but I know Biden does care. And if he has learned anything this fall, it hopefully is that Republicans can not be counted on to do anything good. He needs to get into his head that Republicans are now all Russian agents. They are serving no one except Putin and American Oligarchs who have no interest in democracy in Ukraine or the United States. They are willing to let people die for their own gain and have shown this again, and again. And I don’t even mean Trump here. I mean just about every Republican short of Liz Cheney and similar individuals.
While Ukraine aid may eventually pass we are relying on the greed of defense industry CEOs to pressure the republicans into signing on. That is not a good place to be. I personally think it is in the realm of the possible that US aid to Ukraine could be done and over, at least in large ways by normal means. I can only hope that Biden is willing to be more creative (while still legal) in getting supplies over there and realizes that now and not wait until it’s clear the republicans won’t budge.
And I hope that Biden does not pull an Obama when it comes to the 2024 elections. The Obama administration saw the manipulation of the election by Putin in real time and had no effective counter. Biden needs to understand that no principle is sacrosanct for Republicans now. He needs to have effective measures and plans in place before Republicans and Putin do whatever they have in mind for 2024. He needs to combat their tactics proactively. He needs to understand the depravity of his opponents and not overestimate their interest in keeping with traditional norms. The Republicans are willing to abandon a US ally in the middle of a war with our common enemy.
Biden has been reacting instead of proactive with both Ukraine and the Republicans. Please President Biden, please understand that now is the time to get proactive with both. The threat to both countries is immense and waiting for their next move is not good enough. Please learn from what is going down with aid to Ukraine is minor compared to what Republicans will attempt next year. And please prepare for it.
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