Cables From The Diplomatic Frontlines

The US openly articulates its grand strategic objectives in the Ukraine war - a new milestone, and a Biden doctrine?

• To date, the Biden administration refrained from articulating its own political objectives in the Ukraine war.

• Sure, there is the defense of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and the aim of preventing the success of Russia’s unjustified aggression - but these goals of upholding the international law, are narrower in scope - that can be supported by any country (albeit without the intensity of military support/economic sanctions that accompanied the US/NATO leadership).

• In other words, to date, we were aware of Russia’s political objectives: compelling Ukraine into giving up its NATO membership aspirations; creating a permanently weakened and militarily crippled Ukraine as a buffer state; and ideally, establishing a sphere of influence zone - with Ukraine being the first, but possibly not the last post-Soviet country to face Russia’s military force in the establishment of such a sphere.

• But when it came to the US, and with the exception of a few ‘‘regime change’’ gaffes that would then never be turned into actual policy, no similar political objectives were ever articulated.

• Naturally, this partially reflects the status of the US - enjoying the network of global military alliances, it cannot define the war in Ukraine in narrower security grounds - defense of NATO member states, was thus also a given - and so, declarations that the US would protect “every inch” of this allied territory, were nothing new or unexpected.

• In addition, the US was most probably, genuinely unclear on what its longer-term political objectives would be - there was always hope that Russia could be dissuaded from an invasion, or that a quick ceasefire could emerge after the initial fiasco - but Putin doubling down, the sheer extent of Russia’s aggression, and commission of war crimes, have all ruled out such possibility of normalization.

• But then again, further foreign policy restrictions always remained due to America’s global status: and as the leader of the free world, the US could not announce and pursue political objectives that served exclusively (or even mainly) its own interests in the great power competition.

• The US cannot openly admit that Russia’s embarrassment on the Ukrainian battlefield, and economic/military incapacity serves its own interests: Washington cannot acknowledge that it is designing circumstances where Russia becomes either too weak or too volatile to remain of any further value (instead of a mere burden) for China.

• (side note: and so far, all is going according to the plan on the burden side of things. Chinese drone manufacturer DJI’s refusal to sell drones to Russia (even if also to Ukraine), is a major political blow to the Kremlin)

• The US needed to frame its political objectives in an idealistic fashion - where the current policy against Russia can be seen to benefit the global rules-based order as a whole - going beyond narrower US interests.

• And his post-Kyiv visit statement, the US Secretary Of Defense, Lloyd Austin did just that:

• “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine…So it has already lost a lot of military capability, and a lot of its troops, quite frankly. And we want to see them not have the capability to very quickly reproduce that capability. We want to see the international community more united, especially NATO, and we’re seeing that.’’

• The Secretary of Defense openly admitted that weakening Russia is a policy objective.

• But importantly, he also laid the seeds for the overarching narrative: that the US wants to punish gross violators of the internal rule-based order, and that such offenders must be incapacitated to such an extent, that they are then unable to repeat the original offense against the same victim/elsewhere.

• And this very principle might as well become the Biden doctrine: punishing gross violators of the US-led world order, and preventing repeat offenses to this very order.

• The beauty of this doctrine would be in its ability to cloak the US interests in an idealistic frame - around which most countries can come around.

• Indeed, such framing would be essential in creating a future coalition against China.

• And speaking of: both in respect to China, Iran, and other US adversaries, the announced willingness to punish and prevent reoffending, is a significant boost to America’s “threat display” prestige/hard power - reminding the rule-breakers that they shouldn’t read too much into last year’s Afghanistan debacle, and that Washington is still willing and able to wield its big stick and form grand coalitions to inflict pain & punishment.

• And going back to the present crisis: Austin’s comments were delivered in the context of America’s leadership to fund Ukraine on a larger scale, and with more serious weapons: marking a new stage of commitment to the war.

• In other words, America’s actions added a crucial credibility to these highly-consequential remarks.

• The US held a 40-country conference (in Germany - which going forward, will now be a monthly “contact group’’ meeting) to generate a higher level of coordination and importantly, a buy-in from the participants in arming Ukraine at this new phase of war.

• America is now demonstratively leading from the front (as opposed to Obama’s ‘‘leading from behind’’ - a wrongheaded doctrine that has had a significant role in the revival of America’s adversaries), and Austin confidently declared that Ukraine “can win” this war - implying the support needed to accomplish this.

• Such confidence and leadership always leads to positive ripple effects - the UK’s Foreign Secretary then promptly followed - declaring that limiting the military aid to Ukraine to only “defensive weapons’’ can no longer be viewed as an acceptable level of support.

• And this leadership and positive peer pressure is already having effects even on the most timid participants of the NATO alliance - Germany has declared that it is shipping 50 Gepard anti-aircraft/air-defense systems - sooner or later, Berlin will have to escalate and provide ‘‘offensive’’ heavy weaponry on par with other NATO leaders - or face definitive loss of prestige and power both within the alliance and the European continent as a whole.

• Risks.

• Naturally, such assertiveness doesn’t come risk-free.

• There are a number of risks associated with Austin’s outright articulation of the US political objectives in this war - we shall go over the four most immediate and consequential risks arising from America’s new rhetorical frame: