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Slowly But Surely, Biden And The West Are Ramping Up Involvement In Russia-Ukraine War

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9 minute read

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By JAKE SMITH

 

If we said, ‘Yeah, okay, go ahead [and fire into Russian territory],’ then you’re really putting the Russians in a corner to do something to top that, and who knows what that might be.

As Russia’s war against Ukraine drags on, the U.S. and the NATO alliance are increasing their involvement in the conflict, presenting risks for a more direct confrontation with Moscow.

President Joe Biden reportedly gave Ukraine the green light in May to start firing U.S.-provided weapons directly into certain parts of Russian territory, as NATO members consider a similar policy and the possibility of sending trainers to train the Ukrainian military. The new initiatives would represent a shift in NATO’s policy of engagement in the war and could further escalate the proxy conflict with Russia.

The NATO Parliamentary Assembly convened on Monday and urged the alliance to remove a ban currently preventing Ukraine from firing Western weapons directly into Russian territory, echoing calls recently made by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and top officials from Britain, Sweden, Latvia, Poland and Lithuania. Kyiv has long requested that it be allowed to fire Western-provided weapons into Russia, with officials bemoaning that the NATO ban has prevented them from effectively countering Russia’s advances.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken Antony Blinken during a press conference on Wednesday did not signal any immediate policy change plans on how Ukraine is allowed to use U.S. weapons against Russia. But Biden has reportedly already given Kyiv permission to fire into Russian territory, according to the Financial Times, which Blinken failed to mention on Wednesday.

“The president recently directed his team to ensure that Ukraine is able to use U.S. weapons for counter-fire purposes in Kharkiv so Ukraine can hit back at Russian forces hitting them or preparing to hit them,” a U.S. official told Politico on Thursday, adding that the administration’s policy stance against long-range strikes inside Russia “has not changed.”

But Moscow has warned that if NATO allows Ukraine to fire their provided weapons into Russian territory, it will escalate the war and potentially drag alliance member nations further into the conflict. Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that such an action by NATO would represent another escalation that could “lead to serious consequences.”

“Providing Ukraine with the means and the permission to strike deep into Russian territory significantly increases the chances of a direct U.S.-Russian clash, which in turn could lead to the use of nuclear weapons,” George Beebe, former CIA analyst and director of grand strategy at the Quincy Institute, a non-interventionist foreign policy think tank, told the DCNF. Beebe noted that it was unlikely that Russia would utilize tactical nuclear weapons in the interim but instead potentially target American assets such as satellites, creating “a cycle of tit-for-tat retaliation with the United States that proves difficult to manage and contain.”

Even though Ukraine could benefit from using Western weapons to fire against Russia — as its own domestic weapons are not capable of effective, long-range strikes — the West’s hesitation on the matter may have created a “hype” that will invite a Russian retaliatory response, Jim Townsend, an ex-NATO and Pentagon official and senior fellow at the Center for New American Security, a foreign policy think tank led by former Democrat officials, told the DCNF.

“We have made this such a big deal that it will force the Russians to react one way or another. All of a sudden, it has become a red line drawn by the Russians, highlighted by the U.S. not wanting to escalate,” Townsend said. “And now, it has got such a high profile publicly that if we said, ‘Yeah, okay, go ahead [and fire into Russian territory],’ then you’re really putting the Russians in a corner to do something to top that, and who knows what that might be. So I think that certainly does run a risk of escalation, even more so than it did earlier in the war.”

Aside from weapons policy, members of the NATO alliance are also considering the idea of sending troops into Ukraine to help train Ukrainian forces. Ukraine suffers from a worsening manpower shortage and is rapidly recruiting and conscripting new men for the war effort; Kyiv has requested the U.S. and NATO to help train them.

A NATO-backed training presence in Ukraine, which would be the first of its kind since the war began, could bolster the country’s fighting abilities against Russia, whose own military does not suffer from the same manpower problems.

But if NATO-allied troops stationed in Ukraine are caught in the crossfire of an attack from Russia, it could prompt the entire alliance to take much more direct action in the conflict. Article Five of the NATO treaty stipulates that “an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all” and the alliance is then obligated to collectively take “action as it deems necessary,” including through armed force.

“Let’s say there are French trainers or German trainers in Ukraine, and they’re killed in a Russian missile strike,” Michael DiMino, a senior fellow at Defense Priorities and former CIA official, told the DCNF. “So now, what do we do? What happens after that? Do we go ahead and avenge those casualties and have the U.S. or France or Germany — again, all NATO members — engaged in some kind of limited strike on Russia? Is Russia not going to view that as an act of war and then not respond?”

If NATO troops are killed in a Russian attack and the alliance chooses not to pursue retaliation, it could come with the risk of undermining the alliance’s promise to defend itself.

“Even relatively small numbers of Western boots on the ground would create an enormous incentive for Russia to target them; failure to do so would only encourage the West to believe that Russia would tolerate greater and greater direct Western involvement over time,” Beebe told the DCNF.

Kyiv officials and Zelenskyy will attend a June peace summit in Sweden “to provide a forum where world leaders discuss paths towards a just and lasting peace in Ukraine; over 160 countries have been invited, including the U.S., although Biden has not signaled that he will be in attendance. Kyiv will also have a presence at the annual NATO summit in July, where, among other issues, existing and new initiatives to bolster Ukraine’s security will be discussed, potentially including sending troops to the region and lifting Western weapons use restrictions.

Featured image: WASHINGTON (May 15, 2024) US President, Joe Biden, delivers remarks during the 42nd Annual National Peace Officers’ Memorial at the US Capitol in Washington, DC. (DHS photo by Tia Dufour)

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Sec Def Austin Unveils $400 Million Arms Package For Ukraine — But One Thing Is Missing

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

 

By Jake Smith

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arrived in Ukraine but isn’t bringing the good news Kyiv wants to hear, as the country continues to struggle to hold the front line amid Russian advances.

Austin has been intimately involved over the last two years in overseeing U.S. military aid to Ukraine, of which there has been approximately $70 billion. The Defense Secretary touched down in Ukraine on Sunday in a show of continued support and announced a new $400 million arms package, but won’t be giving Kyiv what it really wants — the ability to use U.S.-provided long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russian territory, according to multiple reports.

The request to use the missiles for such a purpose has been something Ukraine has asked for for months; as Ukraine can’t produce such weapons, it is looking to the U.S. and Europe for help.

Austin arrived in Ukraine without signaling that the request would be filled, and that’s likely to leave Kyiv unsatisfied. The administration has been hesitant to allow Ukraine to use U.S. or European-provided missiles to conduct long-range attacks against Russia, in part because it could escalate the war and drag the U.S. further into the conflict.

“We think it is wrong that there are such steps,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in early September, according to The Washington Post. “We need to have this long-range capability, not only on the occupied territory of Ukraine but also on the Russian territory, so that Russia is motivated to seek peace.”

The idea has been frequently discussed between U.S. and Ukrainian officials but nothing has come to fruition. Austin has also previously said that he doesn’t think it would significantly improve Ukraine’s odds of victory, noting in an early September press conference that “there’s no one capability that will in and of itself be decisive in this campaign.”

Ukraine is also pressing the administration for NATO membership, but Austin had no new updates to give on that request either, according to reports. The Biden-Harris administration has said that Ukraine’s fate is eventually to join NATO but hasn’t provided a timeline for when.

However, the U.S. is providing Ukraine with $400 million worth of weapons systems, Austin announced on Monday, including munitions, armored vehicles and tanks, according to reports. The aid will certainly meet some of the needs of Ukraine’s military but is not as large as some of the prior multi-billion dollar packages.

“The United States understands the stakes here, Mr. President,” Austin told Ukrainian Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Monday, Reuters reported.

President Joe Biden’s options to help Ukraine are starting to run out as he prepares to leave office in January. Even with U.S. and European-provided military aid, it has done little more than help Ukraine maintain a defensive position against Russia, which has shown no signs of stopping its invasion campaign.

Russia launched sweeping missile and drone strikes against targets in Eastern Ukraine over the weekend ahead of Austin’s visit, according to Reuters. Ukrainian forces staged a successful incursion into regions in Western Russia at the end of the summer but Russian forces have started to retake some of the territory in recent weeks, The New York Times reported.

The odds that Biden can secure substantially more funding from Congress to aid Ukraine are slim; it was already difficult for the president to secure the last $60 billion aid package in April, as the sentiment among some lawmakers is that the administration doesn’t seem to have a plan to end the war and move Ukraine toward victory.

It will be either presidential candidates Donald Trump or Kamala Harris who will have to pick up where Biden left off. Harris would likely mirror Biden’s approach to the war and continue strong U.S. support for Ukraine’s military campaign, but some critics fear that she lacks the needed foreign policy wisdom to properly maneuver the conflict.

Trump has vowed to end the war before January if he’s elected in November, touting his ability to negotiate with both Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has also signaled he may end military aid to Ukraine in favor of seeking a peaceful settlement between Kyiv and Moscow.

Austin on Monday dismissed ideas that U.S. support for Ukraine would end if Trump were elected in November.

“I’ve seen bipartisan support for Ukraine over the last 2-1/2 years, and I fully expect that we’ll continue to see the bipartisan support from Congress,” Austin said, according to Reuters.

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Middle East War Shows No Signs Of Stopping One Year After Oct. 7 — And No Clear Path To Exit

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

 

By Jake Smith

The chaos of Hamas’ October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel is still being felt one year later as the broader region grapples with a conflict that has shown no signs of stopping.

Hamas Oct. 7 terrorist attacks caught Israel by surprise and resulted in the murder of approximately 1,200 people and the kidnapping of hundreds of others, including American citizens. Israel retaliated and launched a war against Hamas in Gaza, which a year later has not ended but instead spilled into the broader Middle East and drawn in other bad actors such as Hezbollah and Iran.

“We’re still stuck in Oct. 7, 2023, in one unending day of terror, of fear, of anger, of despair,” Yuval Baron, an Israeli citizen whose father-in-law is still being held by Hamas in Gaza, told Reuters.

Israeli forces have largely occupied Gaza and killed thousands of Hamas operatives, largely crippling the terrorist group’s capabilities, although it has come at great humanitarian cost to the enclave, according to Reuters. The conflict has displaced millions of Palestinians and wreaked havoc across Gaza, leaving many areas uninhabitable, Bloomberg reported.

The effort to build Gaza after the fighting ends — whenever that may be — will likely be an incredibly costly venture that could take years and require joint cooperation between several Arab states, according to Bloomberg. Millions of tons of debris will have to be cleared from the enclave while buildings are repaired or replaced.

“We thought it would be two months [of fighting] — at most,”  Mohammed Shakib Hassan, a Palestinian civil servant who fled his home after Israeli forces entered Gaza last year, told The New York Times. “Twelve months have passed in front of our eyes.”

Israel, with the help of the U.S., has on several occasions made offers for a ceasefire in Gaza conditioned on the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas and the surrender of the terrorist group, but these proposals have been rejectedmultiple times. Yayha Sinwar, the leader of Hamas who has been hiding underground in Gaza, reportedly believes that he is not going to survive the war and has zero intention of reaching a ceasefire deal with Israel at this point in the conflict, according to U.S. intelligence assessments reviewed by The New York Times.

The Biden-Harris administration has spent months brokering negotiations between Israel and Hamas and working with regional mediators to try to reach a deal, but these efforts have largely been fruitless. Though President Biden has on several occasions predicted that a ceasefire could be reached in short order, his own officials now privately believe it will be near impossible to get a deal done between now and January, the end of Biden’s term.

“They’re probably not going to get one before the election, or before January either. But that’s not on them, per se. It speaks to the difficulty of how far apart [Israel and Hamas] are,” former State Department official Gabriel Noronha told the Daily Caller News Foundation in September.

There have been various roadblocks to getting a deal done. Specifically, Israel wants to leave troops along the Gaza-Egyptian border, arguing that it would stonewall Hamas from trafficking in weapons, but Hamas has rejected this term.

Though the prospects of a deal are unlikely at this point, Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza has largely come to a close as the terrorist group’s capabilities have been vastly diminished.

“Hamas is a shadow of its former self. Israel is going to continue to try to eradicate them, but it’s sort of a guerilla campaign. Hamas is being starved and smoked out. I suspect that you’re going to see Hamas go underground somewhat — more figuratively than literally at this point,” Noronha told the DCNF last month.

Instead, Israel has shifted much of its forces and focus away from Gaza and toward Lebanon, which houses the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah. Hezbollah is Iran’s largest terrorist group in the Middle East and has engaged in cross-fire skirmishes with Israel since last October out of support for Hamas, displacing thousands of civilians near the Israel-Lebanon border, according to NPR.

Hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah have reached a boiling point in recent weeks, as Israel has launched sweeping airstrikes against the terrorist group in southern Lebanon and killed the group’s leader in an airstrike in late September, according to The Washington Post. Israeli forces have begun ground raids against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, in what could be the prelude to a much larger ground invasion.

The Biden-Harris Administration, along with other allies, also put forward on Sep. 26 a separate ceasefire proposal for Israel and Hezbollah, although it was seemingly ignored by both parties.

“It’s clear that Israel is determined to rid Lebanon of Hezbollah,” senior fellow at the Strauss Center and former Pentagon official Simone Ledeen told the DCNF. “They need Hezbollah to lay down their arms and surrender… the Israelis [are] really focused on getting to that objective.”

The multi-front Middle East conflict extends also to Iran, which — though it has helped orchestrate and fund the various terror attacks against Israel — made an unprecedented move in April and launched a sweeping missile strike against Israel from directly within Iran’s borders, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Iran launched a similar attack against Israel last week in the form of roughly 180 missiles, most of which were intercepted by U.S. and Israeli forces.

Israel is expected to respond with an attack directly against Iran, although the timing and nature of the move is publicly unknown. The Biden-Harris administration is helping coordinate the attack with Israel, though it wants Israel to avoidgoing after the country’s nuclear facilities.

“The launch of over 180 ballistic missiles by Tehran requires a decisive reaction to prevent future attacks,” Israeli intelligence agent Avi Melamed said in a statement on Monday. “Currently, it seems that Israel is finalizing its operational plans while the U.S. prepares munitions to defensively counter any potential Iranian counterstrike.”

The conflict extends even further into Iraq, Syria and Yemen, all hotspots for other various Iranian-backed terrorist groups that have attacked U.S. and Israeli forces in the region since last October, according to Axios. Israeli forces have launched a series in those regions, too, in recent months.

Until the current Middle East conflict comes to an end, the possibility of regional peace may be too far out of reach, even as that remains a goal for other key Arab states and Western nations. Iran’s “axis of resistance” has taken severe blows since last October, according to Axios.

But Israeli forces are stretched across multiple fronts in a conflict with no clear end game, and the Israeli people seem to be growing more and more weary of the conflict; 23% of Israelis considered leaving the country in the last year, according to a recent poll cited by Axios.

“This war won’t end because nobody is willing to blink,” Thomas Nides, former U.S. ambassador to Israel, told the Times. “In the meantime, everyone is losing — hostages and their families, innocent Palestinians, Israelis displaced from northern Israel, Lebanese civilians. And it’s truly tragic.”

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