Escalation: Following Biden’s decision, the Ukrainians fired the first salvo into Russia proper, hitting an ammunition depot. — Telegram/AP
THE Military Industrial Complex, as represented by incumbent president Joe Biden, “seems to want to make sure they get World War 3 going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives.” So tweeted Donald Trump Jr, son of the eponymous president-elect.
Other Trumpies weighed in too: “No one anticipated that Joe Biden would ESCALATE the war in Ukraine during the transition period. This is as if he is launching a whole new war.”
Their indignation, real or feigned, is over outgoing US President Joe Biden’s green light to the Ukrainians to shoot American-made missiles much deeper into Russia than they were hitherto allowed, as part of their self-defence against the de facto war of annihilation waged by Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin.
Specifically, Biden is letting the Ukrainians use Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, which have ranges of up to 190 miles. Last week, the Ukrainians fired the first salvo into Russia proper (as opposed to Russian-occupied Ukraine), hitting an ammunition depot. The French and British, who have supplied the Ukrainians with their versions of such weapons, can now follow Biden’s lead and let Kyiv have at it.
(On Wednesday, British media reported that Ukraine has fired long-range British/French Storm Shadow missiles into Russian territory for the first time, a day after launching US made long-range missiles into the country.)
Biden’s permission was long overdue but by itself won’t make a decisive military difference. (Giving Ukraine other weapons piecemeal, from Western tanks to F-16s, didn’t turn the war in its favour either.) But does it amount to “escalation,” or an attempt to spoil Trump’s chances to settle a war that he has, implausibly, promised to end in one day?
The ostensible reason for Biden’s shift is that Putin escalated first, by inviting his new brothers-in-arms from North Korea to join the fight on Russia’s side. Russians and North Koreans are massing for a counterattack to retake the Russian region of Kursk. The Russians have also stepped up their bombing of Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure to make the Ukrainian winter cold, dark and deadly.
It’s a moot question whether Biden in the past could have put the Ukrainians in a better strategic position by being quicker to let them fire the ATACMS, or indeed by providing all American aid more swiftly and decisively. The reason for his reticence, though, has always been clear: Biden’s highest objective is to avoid stumbling over Putin’s “red lines” and triggering a direct confrontation between American and Russian forces, or even, heaven forbid, a Russian attack on Ukraine or the West with tactical nuclear weapons.
For a thousand days (that is, since the invasion), Washington and other Nato capitals have debated whether Putin’s nuclear threats are credible. (I’ve argued that they certainly can’t be ignored.) In any case, it’s a fact that Putin has in recent years tweaked Russia’s nuclear doctrine to make it more aggressive and more pertinent to this particular situation.
In September he said that Moscow might respond with nukes to “aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear state,” if that aggressor has “the participation or support of a nuclear state.” That language clearly refers to Ukraine and its nuclear-armed supporters in the United States, United Kingdom and France. This week, Putin signed off on the new doctrine.
What Biden understands, however, is that timing matters. Right now, Putin is trying to be as aggressive and strong in Ukraine as possible to prepare for the new and unpredictable era of geopolitics that starts on inauguration day in the US, Jan 20. The more territory and other levers Putin holds, the better his bargaining position not so much vis-a-vis Kyiv but across the table from Trump.
At the same time, Putin would never choose the next two months to go nuclear. That would forfeit the support of China that he has so diligently cultivated – and also that of the Global South, from India to Africa, and indeed most of the world. He would also wreck the relationship with Trump that both strongmen consider so quintessential.
Trump’s entire national-security shtick, woolly as it is, rests on the phrase “peace through strength.” So he would have to respond to even a limited Russian nuke with demonstrative, if non-nuclear, military might. (That has also been Biden’s Plan B since 2022.) Putin doesn’t want to up the ante that much. If he retaliates for the ATACMS before inauguration day, he’ll likely do so with more “grey-zone” operations. (This week, somebody cut two undersea data cables connecting Nato countries in the Baltic.)
What Trump Jr and other members of the transition team seem not to grasp is that Biden has, with the ATACMS decision, done his successor a tactical favour. He has matched Putin’s escalation in a measured way and made the Ukrainians somewhat stronger against the imminent Russian onslaught. This step saves Trump from having to escalate later and instead gives him chips to bargain away again next year.
An alternative theory about the ATACMS permission is that it’s part of an attempt by Biden to “Trump-proof” US policy. For instance, the administration is accelerating the remaining US$6bil worth of aid to Ukraine that Congress has appropriated, lest Trump cut it off on a whim. But Biden knows that you can’t proof anything against an incoming president who prides himself on unpredictability.
The more plausible explanation is that Biden is being responsible, as one president passing the baton to another, even one he loathes. As part of that handover, Biden is giving Trump options, in the form of Ukrainian advantages that will become part of future peace negotiations.
Putin surely understands that too and doesn’t like it. He’s hoping that Trump will sacrifice a weakened Ukraine so that Washington, Moscow and other capitals can carve up the world into spheres of influence. Any fillip to the Ukrainians makes this harder.
The only people who don’t grok the finesse hiding in the ATACMS gesture – or are pretending not to grok it, because they’re still in campaign mode – are Trump Jr. and his minions. By making the Ukrainians stronger, Biden is helping Trump to compel Putin to negotiate for real, rather than for show. Trump, who fancies himself a dealmaker, should be grateful. — Bloomberg/TNS
Andreas Kluth is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering US diplomacy, national security and geopolitics.
