But What's The End State?

Yesterday, President Biden gave a press conference at the end of the NATO summit in Madrid where he outlined the Western position on the Ukraine war. There was quite a bit of preening and bloviation, but he did announce a few details of where things might be headed:

Secretary Austin just brought together more than 50 countries — more than 50 countries — pledging new commitments, and this is a global effort to support Ukraine: nearly 140,000 anti-tank systems, more than 600 tanks, nearly 500 artillery systems, more than 600,000 rounds of artillery ammunition, as well as advanced multiple launch rocket systems, anti-ship systems, and air defense systems.

And again, the United States is leading the way. We provided Ukraine with nearly $7 billion in security assistance since I took office. In the next few days, we intend to announce more than $800 million more, including a new advanced Western air defense system for Ukraine, more artillery and ammunition, counter-battery radars, additional ammunition for the HIMARS multiple launch rocket system we’ve already given Ukraine and more HIMARS coming from other countries as well.

But in response to a question later in the press conference, there was little concrete:

But my second question is: G7 leaders this week pledged to support Ukraine, quote, “for as long as it takes.” And I’m wondering if you would explain what that means to the American people — “for as long as it takes.” Does it mean indefinite support from the United States for Ukraine? Or will there come a time when you have to say to President Zelenskyy that the United States cannot support his country any longer? Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: We are going to support Ukraine as long as it takes.

I see a big difference between the high-level conduct of the Western powers in the Ukraine conflict and equivalent conferences during and after World War II. Take the 1943 Casablanca Conference, whose major figures appear at the top of this post.

The conference produced a unified statement of purpose, the Casablanca Declaration. It announced to the world that the Allies would accept nothing less than the "unconditional surrender" of the Axis powers. Roosevelt had borrowed the term from US Army General Ulysses S. Grant (known as "Unconditional Surrender" Grant), who had communicated that stance to the Confederate States Army commander during the American Civil War. So Roosevelt stated at the concluding press conference on 24 January that the Allies were demanding "unconditional surrender" from the Germans, the Italians and the Japanese.

In a February 12, 1943 radio address, Roosevelt explained what he meant by unconditional surrender: "we mean no harm to the common people of the Axis nations. But we do mean to impose punishment and retribution upon their guilty, barbaric leaders".

Biden's remarks, on the other hand, say simply that we're going to spend a lot of money for "as long as it takes". As long as it takes for what? Roosevelt articulated a clear war aim that was accomplished by August 1945 and followed by near-immediate demobilization. Subsequent conferences at Yalta and Potsdam articulated a relatively clear end state for the disposition of German territory and spheres of influence in postwar Europe.

Right now we're still lacking a war aim -- cease fire in place? Russian retreat to 2014 borders? The 1991 borders? Some other disposition? It's fairly plain that none of the previous Minsk agreements that tried to establish a stable separation of Ukraine and Belarus from Russia worked, so a war aim that tries to reestablish any of those won't solve the underlying problem. An unspoken war aim for the Allies in World War II was an end state that rendered Germany and Japan militarily innocuous, and this was effectively achieved in Yalta and Potsdam, especially with the partition of Germany.

We're seeing nothing like this so far with Ukraine, even though a realistic solution to the problem will almost certainly require an equivalent partition of Russia according to new spheres of influence that prevents Russia from building alliances of former constituent states big enough to move against others.

One problem is that President Biden is at best bought, with his domestic and foreign policy positions essentially discrete and controlled by separate factions in thrall to separate puppeteers. Thus his social policies are dominated by the transsexual lobby, his energy policies dominated by extreme environmentalists, and his foreign and military policies are dominated by -- whom?

I recently read that one major factor dominating the Russian agenda, such as it is, is a rapidly declining birth rate. A weakening Russia is clearly a destabilizing factor. I'm in favor of any policy that aims for world stability by rendering Russia militarily innocuous, but it has to be done in a way that restores stability, and this will require a level of both transparency and foresight that we saw in figures like Roosevelt and Churchill but have yet to see now. At minimum, someone needs to bring China and potentially Japan into the discussion with incentives to create a stable postwar balance of power.

And that goes for the Republican front runners for 2024, who need to start articulating the sort of coherent policy goals for Ukraine and Russia that we aren't yet hearing from anyone.