Weekly Overview Cables - Ukraine war updates, Washington removes targeting restrictions and Biden's dripititis.
Ukraine War Updates.
1) Russia launches missile barrage.
Russian advance in the direction of the Kharkiv axis has now stalled, but in the meantime, Russian forces launched (over the past weekend) one of the largest scale drone and missile strikes - targets were mainly Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Ukraine managed to intercept and down a significant proportion of Shahed drones, Kalibr cruise missiles, and Iskander-K cruise missiles, but crucially, not Iskander-M ballistic missiles.
This suggests a persistent lack of the most advanced missile interceptors (like Patriot SAMs) to deal with fastest ballistic missiles in the Russian arsenal.
2) US ammo production ramps up.
This great NYT report has some interesting insights on the first first new major arms plant built by the Pentagon since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
There are some key impressive details:
“Less than a year ago, the surrounding area here in North Texas was just a dirt field. But with millions of dollars from Congress...General Dynamics was able to open the [shell] factory about 10 months after breaking ground. [emphasis added]"
“To keep Ukraine’s artillery crews supplied, the Pentagon set a production target last year of 100,000 shells per month by the end of 2025. Factories in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, Pa., together make about 36,000 shells per month. The new General Dynamics facility in Mesquite, Texas, will make 30,000 each month once it reaches its full capacity. [emphasis added]”
This is impressive and altogether amounts to a nearly tenfold production increase from a few years ago.
These insights inspire confidence in America’s ability to rapidly ramp up the defense-manufacturing base when needed.
There is also this crucial revelation that the US has indeed transferred manufacturing plans for over 1,000 weapons to Kyiv - translating technical manuals.
This too is monumental.
We discussed previously how a range of European defense companies (like Germany’s Rheinmettal) are investing into joint-manufacturing production of defense ammo in Ukraine.
But Ukraine being able to play a role in ramping up productions and manufacture range of weapons - including most likely air defense missiles - is a great news for the entire NATO alliance just when there are reports of confidential defense plans (published by FT) that reveal extent of vulnerability of NATO states in Eastern and Central Europe: only 5% of needed air defense capacities exist and a lot of the countries in Eastern and Central Europe would be exceptionally vulnerable in a scenario of a full-scale attack.
3) France backs ‘‘troops on the ground’’ rhetoric with concrete action.
We previously discussed how France created a new status quo by breaking the taboo on discussing the possibility of ‘‘NATO troops on the ground’’ in Ukraine.
And for a long time this was just that - but no longer: the French President has now announced that France may soon send military trainers to Ukraine - to help with demining and equipment maintenance.
This is how it starts.
It would not be a stretch to imagine gradual evolution of French troops into active combat units helping with select special ops etc.
(side note: there are also some reports that the UK special ops may already be doing just that.)
Macron didn’t end it there however: whilst displaying a map of Kharkiv, he pointed at Russian bases used in launching the attacks on the Ukrainian city and voiced support for Ukraine’s ability to strike these sites.
Macron had also advocated for these Russian military bases to be ‘‘neutralized’’ - and he curiously skipped the part where he was meant to clarify ‘‘by who’’.
Is this an early signal of things to come?
Or perhaps Macron is finally learning how to really display his favorite strategic ambiguity.
Biden approves Russia strikes in a characteristic drip drip fashion.
For 2.5 years now, the Biden admin has been plagued with an acute case of dripititis - tendency to do the right thing slowly, after dragging its feet and exhausting all other options, and after months of signposting their inevitable decisions.
First there was hesitation around HIMARS in the early months of the war, then Abrams tanks and F-16 fighter jets, and most recently (and perhaps, the most damaging restriction on hardware), around ATACMS.
And last week, the Biden admin seems to have finally given a go ahead for Ukraine to strike across the border from Kharkiv: allowing Ukraine to target staging grounds, logistical nodes, ammo depots, air fields and army bases, and launch sites of Russian missile/bomber attacks.
(side note: and in most cases, it was the UK introducing their own hardware first (eg. with Challenger II tanks and storm shadow missiles) and breaking the taboo for others. And this happened once again in this context as well: once the UK declared a go ahead for Russia strikes, France, and the US followed course.)
This is indeed great news!
And we have previously discussed how not allowing for this to happen, would in effect lead to a de facto blank check for Russia to pummel Ukraine’s second largest city with impunity - safe in the knowledge that it has a ‘‘safe space’’ within Russian territories.
This policy (restricting the use of US weapons being used to hit targets in Russia) was always wrongheaded: first and foremost, international law permits defensive strikes against military targets in the territory of an aggressor - so Ukraine ‘‘crossing the border’’ into Russia was always legally sound.
In addition, for the past 2.5 years, Ukraine has already been using their own weapons to hit a range of Russian targets within Russia.
Finally, it is important to remember that although most of the civil world recognizes Crimea as part of Ukraine - Russia does not, and so from Putin’s perspective, Ukraine has been using US/NATO-provided weapons to hit targets within Russia (Crimea) for years now.
In other words, the “escalation concerns’’ of using NATO-supplied weapons on a Russian territory were always overblown: Ukraine has been hitting Crimea (considered a Russian territory by Putin) non-stop for the past 1+years with American HIMARS or UK/French Storm Shadows/SCALP-EGs.
But back to Biden’s reversal of this long-standing policy: good news but.. and there is always a but with Biden..
The policy reversal is not complete for two reasons: 1) The permission is limited to attacks emanating from Kharkiv axis only - so Ukraine can only strike back bases/targets in the Belgorod (and vicinity) region and nothing more, and 2) ATACMS - the longest-range (190 mile) missiles have been exempted from this restriction lift: Ukraine can use typical HIMARS MLRS missiles but not ATACMS.
And here we have it.. Once again, back to dripititis.
There is no logical reason for why Russian bases not located near Kharkiv should be exempt from Ukrainian strikes: by this reasoning, Russia can simply switch back to launching longer-range missiles from bases further within Russia - or use bombers located in hangars far away from the Belgorod region.
What changes?
It is the same country attacking Ukraine - why should there be any arbitrary restrictions of this nature?
Same applies to restrictions on ATACMS - these can be used on Crimea (considered Russia by Putin) but not on any other military base within Western Russia - why not?
(side note: some analysts have argued that this is the Biden admin trying to ‘‘normalize’’ escalation gradually - not to freak Russians out from the get-go. But this is not a persuasive argument in this particular instance. This is because: 1) Ukraine has been striking these targets using its own weapons/storm shadows etc for some time now, and 2) for Putin it would not matter too much whether the ballistic missile that destroyed his base is of particular vintage.. if his hangars, airfields, and ammo depots are being destroyed, that outcome matters much more than whether this was an ordinary HIMARS missile or an ATACMS)
There is of course no good reason for this - we are back to drip drip drip..
Doing the right thing later than needed.
On every one of these aforementioned occasions, the Biden admin would eventually do the right thing.
Here too, one can see the trajectory: permission to use ATACMS on said bases will most likely be the next thing in the pipeline - and once again, later than it would have been needed for the maximum effect.
This drip drip strategy must stop - we have made arguments to this effect before, and will do so once again.
The main argument against this strategy is obvious: Ukraine receives the necessary tools far too late - much later than when their utilization would have been at their maximum effectiveness.
But there are also additional downstream negative implications as well.
Second-order effects of dripititis.
1) Russia gets more time to prepare in anticipation of likely next steps.
For example: now that the regions bordering Kharkiv are fine to target, Moscow knows that it is only a matter of time that the same logic will apply to a) more regions and b) more powerful weapons.
Knowing that it is only a matter of time before Ukraine uses more powerful weapons like the ATACMS to target other bases, Russians can prepare for this eventuality: and that can mean heavier investment into jamming technology, or targeting Ukrainian logistics nodes that deal with import of western weapons, preemptive sabotage of ammo depots located in NATO states etc.
(side note: Russian sabotage in the NATO states is becoming increasingly brazen; Germany has arrested Russian nationals for planning attacks on military facilities. British prosecutors claim Russian agents set fire to a warehouse with aid for Ukraine. Sweden is currently investigating alleged Russian-sponsored sabotage; and Czech government has recently accused Moscow of sabotaging railways.)
2) Russia gets to lash out preemptively and threaten escalation.
Time and time again Moscow has warned of an escalation and of crossing ‘‘red lines”.
It turns out, Russia had no choice but to absorb all of these violations of red lines - they are more malleable than it seems.
But for more sabotage, and possible strikes against NATO depots on NATO territories, there is not much Russia can do - it cannot invade a NATO country.
And the risk of sabotage is real - and so is the harm.
But in the grand scheme of things, Russia winning the war is far more costly for NATO: they will have a more confident and more ambitious state with a revitalized military-industrial complex and experienced army right at the doorstep (which will likely be pushed further to the west..)
As such, sabotage costs are accepted and absorbed.
In the meantime however, Russian threats have two major effects:
1) produce hesitancy and delay provision of weapons and next batch of capabilities - recycle the drip drip cycle... and;
2) poison the well of public discourse in the west: ‘‘you are leading us towards a nuclear war with Russia’’ is now a well worn out narrative coming from the isolationist and far right fringe in Europe and the west.
And this latter effect in turn reinforces the former: as the public worry increases, the incentive on the political leaders like Biden is to be even more hesitant about provision of all of the necessary tools that Ukraine needs to win this war.
3) Dripititis has a signaling effect on countries in the Russian periphery.
Right now, Georgia is engulfed in public protests against its ‘‘Russian law’’ that copies Russian legislation and designated any public institution that receives more than 20% of the funds from the Western institutions as ‘‘foreign agents’’.
This means that any civil society institution that promotes European/Western classical liberalism, and institutional reforms are to be branded as foreign agents.
The intent is to prevent Georgia’s move towards EU standards - to become a country free of corruption and one that has a rule of law.
The opposite state is in the interests of Putin - like it was in the case with Ukraine, any state on its doorstep that democratizes and moves towards western values is another step towards Russia becoming isolated in becoming the autocratic pariah.
This is because if other post-soviet states can modernize and develop solid state institutions free from oligarchic corruption, then that is a threat to Putin’s regime - since it is a very close reminder to its people that liberal-democracy is right at their doorstep and is very viable indeed.
In addition, when post-soviet states become liberal-democratic and prosperous, they are by definition becoming more powerful and self-confident: meaning that Russia’s leverage over these states declines significantly.
So Putin’s interest is for the Georgian government to oppose the drift towards the EU.
And to his delight, the Georgian government is currently doing what Putin wants.
Of course, it helps that the members of the ruling government are bankrolled by the Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanashvili - a man with extensive ties to Putin himself.
But it also potentially helps even more that Russia is advancing in the battlefield and the West had spent months hesitating about funding Ukraine for its basic defensive needs - let alone equip it with all the tools that it needs to prevail in this war.
Post-soviet countries are watching the war closely and calculating the ever-changing power dynamics.
When the leaders of these states see Putin on the offensive and Western leaders hesitate, then they adjust their conduct accordingly: hedging their bets, aligning closer with Russia and drifting further away from the influence of the free world.
And all of this serves to strengthen Putin’s influence and power in the entire region.
4) Wrong lessons to allies.
That not only will there be initial hesitance, but that crucially, with enough pressure and repeated advocacy, Biden will at the end always relent and acquiesce to the appeals of these allies.
This is clearly not a great precedent to set - the messaging from Washington must be interpreted as decisive and definitive.
Creating wrong precedents and incentivizing endless advocacy is not in America’s interests.
Although in this particular case, the outcome is great, in future, other allies may continue to appeal for objectives that are not as universally approvable.
This would then overshadow the entire relationship between an ally and Washington: no should mean no and must be definitive enough to allow for both parties to move forward towards other projects of shared interest.
Overall then, the drip drip style of doing what is right hesitantly and slowly has enormous tactical and strategic costs - it must stop.
Thanks for this outstanding "cable". Important factual reporting and sterling, right-on analysis. I will start opposing "drip-drip" more forcefully now. I hope all public Russia/Ukraine experts, especially in media, will read this. Who is the architect of this mistaken policy? Biden himself? Jake Sullivan? Or is it a committee production? Please keep hammering, Bismarck.