Author Yuval Levin has written about the trend in recent years of people who work in large institutions treating them as platforms for personal attention and applause rather than as structures that constrain individual behavior and channel it toward the ends the institution serves. I suspect that’s what’s been happening here: People on the inside who know about our covert efforts on Ukraine’s behalf have decided to brag to journalists about it, figuring it will enhance their image in the ruthless status hierarchy of official Washington.
This is nothing new. It had been taking place on a small scale inside the beltway for a long time before Levin took note of its spread through the capital and American culture more broadly. But the Ukraine leaks are much worse than the norm — because of their potential to upset already very fragile relations between Washington and Moscow. It’s one thing for a congressional intern to blab to a reporter about the state of budget negotiations on Capitol Hill. It’s quite another for a Pentagon or NSA official to try to impress a journalist by talking about the U.S. helping to blow up the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet during wartime.
The Biden administration has all kinds of backchannels to communicate our role to Russia in a way that won’t destabilize the situation by announcing it publicly, thereby putting Putin in a situation where he feels the need to avenge Russia’s wounded honor. Whether and how to do that is the president’s call. It’s certainly not something someone should be deciding on his or her own without authorization.
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