Biden’s Ukraine strategy risks prolonging a violent stalemate

Russian forces are pummeling Ukrainian civilian and military targets in the Donbas with their superior artillery. Ukrainian forces are fighting back valiantly, but they are still not receiving enough of the weapons that might give them the advantage — including long-range air defenses, longer-range artillery, heavy armor and fighter planes. The White House process of trying to parse which weapons would be “escalatory” is a recipe for a stalemate, Risch told me in an interview.

“If you are just giving weapons to fight to a stalemate, that’s not a good situation and that has consequences,” he said. “We need to be in or out. And if we are in, we need to give them what they need to win.”

Privately, several administration officials told me that the delays are not a result of any problem with the actual delivery of weapons. The core problem is the protracted hand-wringing inside the Biden policy team over each weapons decision. Risch said this is caused by a misguided concern that if Putin starts to lose badly, he might escalate further.

“As a result of that [the White House is] taking the middle path. And the middle path is the wrong path here,” he said. “They can win this, but they can’t do it themselves. They will provide the fight if we provide the weapons.”