Biden don’t embolden Putin with your timidity
The on-going debate about giving Ukraine permission to use long range missiles against Russia shows that the Biden administration seems to have learned nothing about how to play Putin in the now more that 2.5 years since the full scale invasion of Ukraine. For that matter the same can be said of the German government - albeit it has a much longer track record of misreading and appeasing Putin.
First things first, Ukraine as an independent sovereign state for more than 33 years now has the right in international law - using all means - to defend itself. It has suffered an illegal invasion by Russia and is allowed to deploy all resources, legally by international law, to defend itself. It should be the state making the decision here - and I think Ukrainians are better able to read Putin than those in the White House.
Russia, the invader and coloniser, is using the same long range missiles against Ukraine, and illegally given it is in breach of international law with its invasion, so how come Ukraine is being so constrained by the U.S. and Germany. In effect the U.S. and Germany are tying Ukraine’s hands behind its back and blindfolding it, allowing execution from afar by Russia.
Second, Russia argues that in supplying long range weapons to Ukraine, for use against Russian territory, NATO would then be directly engaged in the war against Russia and subject to retaliation by Russia. Then by the same logic, North Korea and Iran, both of whom appear to have supplied long range missiles to Russia, are also direct combatants. North Korea and Iran should perhaps be warned of their position in this war and potential for retaliation from Ukraine.
Third, Moscow is trying to create another red line in this conflict. Trying to deter NATO from green lighting the use of supplied long range missiles for fear then of retaliation by Russia and the risks of an escalation to an all out Russia - NATO war. The question here then is Putin serious?
Several points herein:
a) Russia has set numerous red lines around the supply of weapons by NATO to Ukraine. In the very early days after the invasion Putin threatened almost an apocalyptic response should NATO help Ukraine in almost any way. NATO continued to supply relatively low level arms and munitions - Javelins, anti tank weapons, et al. But there was no Russian military response against NATO. As Ukraine then went thru the gears of asking for Mig29s, then T72s, M177s, HIMARS, Leopards, Abrams, Storm Shadows, ATACMs, F16s, et al, Russia each time set red lines but never responded as NATO green lighted the supply of all these weapons.
b) In mid 2022 Moscow even hinted at the use of tactical nuclear weapons if Ukraine attacked the Russian motherland - taken here to include freshly annexed territory in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia as well as Crimea and that held in Donbas. Russia’s nuclear doctrine even included the first use of tactical battlefield nuclear weapons should the motherland be under threat. And yet despite Ukraine taking territory back in Kherson, Zaporizhiya and the Donbas, there has been no such use of WMD by Russia. Indeed, even Ukraine’s capture of territory in Russia proper - in Kursk - has failed to see Russia follow thru with its threat and to hold to red lines set.
c) On the threat of first use of tactical nuclear weapons it is thought that NATO warned that such use would provoke actual NATO involvement to defend Ukraine and to take out any Russian equipment launching such attacks. China also appears to have impressed on Russia its disdain for such escalation which likely would have had seismic impacts on global markets to the disadvantage of China.
What we learnt from the above is that Russia is afraid of a direct conventional war with NATO - a war which it knows it would lose in a matter of weeks as that has to be the conclusion from its 2.5 years of failing to subdue Ukraine. NATO has overwhelming conventional superiority over Russia and Putin would risk a catastrophic defeat for the Russian military if he goes down this route - which he will not. He also knows that by pursuing such a strategy he would risk the loss of Chinese backing - and while China has provided limited military support China provides the essential backstop to Russia as the main market for its commodity exports.
So in conclusion Putin is bluffing again - he will not risk a conventional war with NATO as that would risk the destruction of his regime. But Biden and Germany appear to be terrible at reading Putin and their timidity is empowering Putin at the cost of lives in Ukraine. Ukraine should be given all the conventional weapons it needs to win this war and the sooner that happens the quicker this war will end.