What About Ukraine?

There's general consensus across the spectrum that the planned Ukraine 2023 counteroffensive has "stalled", although that's probably a generous characterization -- it might be more accurate to say it never really got under way. Other than Tucker Carlson's Monday interview with retired Col Douglas MacGregor, which is over-the-top, there's been little other recent discussion. On the other hand, there's a good analysis on Seymour Hersh's Substack, which is mostly behind a paywall, but Gateway Pundit has a summary:

Hersh cites an unnamed intel official who said that SecState Antony Blinken “has figured out that the United States” and Ukraine “will not win the war” against Russia. On Thursday, the Washington Post reported the U.S. intel community realizes the Ukrainian offensive will fail to achieve its key goal of taking the southeastern city of Melitopol, a strategic Russian logistics hub.

“The word was getting to (Blinken) through the Agency that the Ukrainian offense was not going to work. It was a show by Zelensky and there were some in the administration who believed his bullshit,“ Hersh’s source said.

Hersh's implication is that this went against the White House line, although this is probably more accurately characterized as the line of Biden's foreign policy handlers, especially Jake Sullivan:

When war hawk Blinken was “suddenly having doubts,” CIA director Bill Burns “made his move to join the sinking ship,” Hersh writes. Burns may have been jockeying to replace “a disillusioned Blinken,” according to Hersh, but only got “a token promotion: an appointment to Biden’s cabinet.”

At the same time, “ultra-hawkish” Victoria Nuland was promoted by Biden from Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs to Acting Deputy Secretary of State ”over the heated objections of many in the State Department,” Hersh writes. “She has not been formally nominated as the deputy for fear that her nomination would lead to a hellish fight in the Senate. “

“Tony Blinken, who publicly vowed just a few months ago that there would be no immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, is still in office and, if asked, would certainly dispute any notion of discontent with Zelensky or the administration’s murderous and failing war policy in Ukraine,” Hersh writes. The White House’s “wishful approach to the war, when it comes to realistic talk to the American people, will continue apace,” Hersh said. “But the end is nearing, even if the assessments supplied by Biden to the public are out of a comic strip.”

Hersh goes on to imply that there are divisions within the Deep State. He mentions the CIA above, but now he turns to the Pentagon:

In November, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said that a victory by Ukraine may not be achieved militarily and that Kiev should look for a diplomatic solution to the crisis. “We may have missed a window to push for earlier talks,” a US official told Politico, admitting that “Milley had a point.”

A piece from this past Sunday in The Economist gives more perspective:

Having once promised a march to Crimea, occupied and annexed by Russia since 2014, the political leadership in Kyiv now emphasises more realistic expectations.

. . . Ukraine’s leadership is particularly frustrated that Western equipment has not yet arrived in its promised numbers. It is “upsetting…and demotivating,” [presidential spokesman Serhiy] Leshchenko says. Equivocation among allies about the supply of newer weapons, and the prospect of America re-electing Donald Trump next year, have added to Ukrainian anxieties. A source in the general staff says that Ukraine has received just 60 Leopard tanks, despite the promise of hundreds. Demining vehicles are particularly scarce. “We simply don’t have the resources to do the frontal attacks that the West is imploring us to do,” says the source.

. . . Ukraine has since prioritised preserving its army. “We no longer plan operations that presuppose large losses,” says the source. “The emphasis is now on degrading the enemy: artillery, drones, electronic warfare and so on.”

It's hard to avoid thinking there have been flaws in Western Ukraine policy from the start, including Ukraine's early success in resisting the Russian invasion that led to overoptimism about how the war would proceed, along with reluctance, especially from the Biden administration, to supply Ukraine with advanced weapons. Particularly during 2023, Biden's initial hesitation to provide advanced tanks and F-16s, which he eventually approved, has resulted in those weapons not arriving in sufficient numbers until 2024, when it was generally understood that Ukraine needed to make significant progress in its counteroffensive this year before the war becomes an issue in the 2024 election.

On one hand, I've noted throughout that there's been no overall clear allied objective in the war, as opposed to World War II, when there were agreements on a Europe-first policy, as well as an overall policy of unconditional surrender. On the other, so far, there doesn't seem to have been any sort of flexibility on policies that are nevertheless unclear and unstated. In 2006, President Bush lost confidence in the neoconservatives' Iraq war results and fired Donald Rumsefeld as defense secretary. There's been no equivalent move from Joe Biden, while apparent disagreements continue at the State Department, the CIA, and the Defense Department -- and the failed current policies of vacillation and delayed approval of new weapons clearly come from his handlers.

Even at his best, waging a proxy war in Ukraine was probably beyond Biden, and it was certainly beyond his policy handlers Blinken, Sullivan, and Nuland. At this point, Biden has become distracted by his family scandals, and it looks like he's lost interest in the details of being president. Dubya by this point would probably have fired several cabinet-level people. Apparently it was First Lady Laura who told him to fire Rumsfeld.

Now we have Dr Jill.