Weekly Overview
Ukraine War Updates:
Donbas battlefield & outlook.
Ukraine has suffered some significant losses.
Nothing major has yet happened to alter the overall fundamentals of the conflict - that still currently favor Ukraine: more manpower availability (Russia is yet to mobilize), increasing volume of higher quality firepower (US/NATO aid), being in defense, and overall balance of public willpower (there is a mismatch in intensity of morale: this war means significantly more to an average Ukrainian defending his homeland, than to an average Russian tacitly supporting Putin’s adventurism whilst reeling from economic sanctions).
But a wider gulf is nonetheless emerging between the overall trend, and a particular theater of battle in Donbas: Russia is making gains: the town of Lyman - a key regional railway hub was seized on Friday.
(side note: yet in spite of these gains, Ukrainians are counter-attacking across the entire contact line - preventing Russia from focusing all of its resources on few major towns in Donbas)
Only Ukrainian leaders know the true and precise casualties - but the situation is bad enough for the usually optimistic Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba to openly and publicly admit this.
In addition, President Zelensky’s military adviser Oleksiy Arestovych, openly admitted to observing an ‘‘increased level of operational management and tactical skills of the Russian army’’.
Given that the risks of these admissions are very high (loss of public morale), such pronouncements were presumably taken with an intent to highlight the urgency of the situation, and to spur the West into action.
In the meantime, Putin continued his Russification policy by easing procedures for those in the occupied territories to obtain passports, and by switching the currency used for the government employees’ salary payments (in occupied Kherson) from Ukrainian Hryvnia into Rubles.
Whilst all of this was happening, the Ukrainian President doubled down on Ukraine’s line in the sand, and attacked those pressuring Ukraine into territorial concessions, drawing parallels from 1938 - when appeasing Hitler was a popular argument for avoidance of further bloodshed.
Given Ukraine’s (correct) stance and given Putin’s tactics on the ground, possibility of a long-term peace is nowhere near.
But it is important to remember that Putin has still not mobilized more troops - this indicates that the wider military/political objectives of renewing the assault on Kyiv, and/or capturing the entirety of the Black Sea coast, is not currently in the picture either.
It is therefore likely that Putin wants to crystallize his gains in the east, and declare victory after capturing Severodonetsk.
With that accomplished, Putin can blackmail the West into pressuring Ukraine into a ceasefire - which would then grant him time to recoup and reevaluate his options.
This is a dangerous scenario that would only solidify Russian gains, freeze the status of the occupied territories, and allow Putin to re-launch another invasion down the line.
What to do
1) No normalizations of Putin
Macron and Scholz must stop this nonsense of frequent lengthy phone calls with Putin - the West needs to stop rewarding Russia’s war crimes and blatant invasion by granting prestige and prime airtime to Putin.
Especially given how he uses these opportunities to further blackmail the West - by warning that additional military aid to Ukraine will risk destabilizing the situation.
No, the only thing ‘‘destabilizing” the situation is his unjust and brazen invasion.
And these normalizations are not always this obvious - sometimes they are far more subtle - like Italian Prime Minister Draghi’s implicit treatment of Putin as a party interested in solving the problem of the world grain shortage crisis.
Putin is blockading Ukraine and causing a food shortage crisis - to exercise further leverage over the West.
He is not the responsible party interested in genuine solutions - Putin will not end the crisis before he is assured of something in return: all of this is blackmail and must be called out as such.
(side note: and credit where it is due - the UK’s Foreign Minister did exactly that - in a complete contrast to the Italian rhetoric on the matter).
A cynic might even speculate that Italian statesmen were deliberately normalizing Putin - to justify the possibility of high level discussions around their (utterly inadequate and politically unachievable) 4 point peace plan.
Call it a diplomatic version of shaping operations used in the military: just like cruise missiles take out the anti-aircraft systems and soften up the defenses to full-on bomber sorties, these gestures of normalizations grant a tacit legitimacy on Putin - making a “peace deal” (or, in these current conditions - surrender of Ukraine) more palpable to the West.
In other words, the European leaders don’t want to be seen as sacrificing Ukraine in front of a bloodthirsty tyrant - no no… this is going to be a “peace deal” where all parties are legitimate actors with their own national security interests.
Having said that, and for the sake of exploring alternative angles, it is also worth noting that not all arguments in favor of normalization have this cynical goal in mind.
Some strategists believe that as long as Putin is talking, he is not using the tactical nuclear weapons.
On the face of it, this is not a terrible logic - in fact, the analysis is quite simple (and instinctively persuasive).
However, this too is a misguided idea, and for following reasons:
1) There are more effective ways of deterring Russia from the use of nuclear weapons (discussed previously in these cables here) - tactics that don’t involve acquiescence to Russian blackmail - which will only incentivize further bluffs and demands.
2) There are levels of escalation before that of resorting to the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
Putin is several steps away from the use of such drastic measures.
He would most probably first try to double down on the size of the attacking force (more generous sign up contracts, and possibly, even a mass mobilization of the army).
In other words, even if talking to him was a good tactic, it would still be premature to do so.
3) Putin is currently achieving his more limited and updated military objectives without resorting to any drastic measures.
He is not facing any huge embarrassments anymore.
And in fact, he could stop and freeze the conflict and declare a victory: pointing to the a) land bridge with Crimea; b) Invasion of Mariupol - which he could use to argue that he accomplished the ‘‘de-nazification’’ of Ukraine (given that Mariupol was the HQ for the Azov Battalion); c) He could point to military success in the east, highlighting the destroyed industrial sites in the West, and argue that he also accomplished the ‘‘demilitarization’’ of Ukraine; d) He could argue that he successfully protected the DNR and LNR republics, and prevented a further “genocide” of Russian speakers in the East.
None of these successes would stand a closer scrutiny - but with a tight grip over Russian media and news, the Kremlin propagandists could successfully spin this as a major victory in the face of a “united NATO effort to hurt Russia”.
All this is to say that the policy of normalization has no legs to stand on.
This must stop - and only the US and UK leadership could accomplish this.
And if the backchannel pressure produces little results, the US must be confident in calling out the European allies for their shameful lack of will to stand with Ukraine.
2) Further military aid
The US is to supply Ukraine with long-range “HIMARS” MLRS systems - this specific weapon can shift the balance of firepower in the Donbas region: exactly why these cables have advocated for the provision of precisely this weapon back in March - better late than never..
But the question now is how soon will this delivery be made - will Putin wrap up the key Donbas battles by then?
In addition, there has been a lull in the military aid from the European allies.
The UK is still leading (followed by Turkey, Poland, and Baltic states), but what about Germany and France - they are still lagging in comparison to their overall heft.
Italy and Spain have also turned into passive spectators.
And both Sweden and Finland can step it up as well - especially now that they are to become full-on NATO members.
Swedish Archer artillery systems are world-class, and could significantly alter the correlation of forces in Donbas.
Finland is in the possession of the largest stock of artillery guns and ammo in the entire Europe - even a small percentage (and this cannot be more than that - given their 810 mile border with Russia, and thus, their own urgent security needs) of this stock could be monumental in Ukraine.
(side note: there has been some progress in the area of Turkish opposition to the Swedish/Finnish membership. There are talks that the two Scandinavian countries are to lift their own arms embargoes on Turkey. In addition, President Erdogan’s decision to renew a Turkish military operation in Syria - to extend the anti-terrorist “safe zone’’ within the country, is an excellent opportunity for both Sweden and Finland to align rhetorically with Turkey. In fact, Turkey will gauge their response as a test. And there is no good reason why not all NATO members (including the US) should support Turkish operations in Syria: these only harm the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, and weaken the control and leverage of both Russia and Iran)
3) Concessions must be replaced with threats of even tougher sanctions
There are talks of Russia seeking (via Turkish intermediaries) sanctions relief in return for their cooperation over easing the Black Sea blockade, and allowing for the export of Ukrainian grain.
This is an outright blackmail that the West must decisively reject.
Playing along will reward Putin for the (shrewd from his perspective) strategy of creating crises - gaining leverage - blackmailing the West into Russia-friendly policies.
But it is also obvious that mere public advocacy and the threat of reputational damage isn’t going to move Putin (what remaining standing is there to lose anyways?).
Moral arguments will not cut it - Putin needs a concrete and compelling reason to act in the way that we desire.
But instead of concessions, these must be threats of ever tougher sanctions and restrictions.
The reason for Putin to act is clear - lift the blockade or we will choke you further.
We have (in the previous cables) thoroughly unpacked all the potential policies that are available to the West.
(side note: and certainly, these are to do with additional measures to that of oil & gas sanctions - those must implemented in any case)
But here is a quick overview: Russia is yet to have full blocking sanctions imposed on all of its major banks, state-owned corporations, and crucial industry supporting institutions (e.g. major shipping companies like Sovcomflot).
Putin must be warned that his blackmails will not work - that his two options are bad or even worse: that all of Russia’s critical industries could follow the fate of their airline industry - and end up becoming effectively defunct.
That it is in his best interests to back down and ease the Black Sea blockade that is affecting the entire global community.
Biden’s Taiwan statement and levels of strategic ambiguity
At a joint-press conference with the Japanese PM Kishida, and in response to a journalist’s question on whether or not the US President was willing to “get involved militarily to defend Taiwan”, President Biden affirmed this willingness unequivocally, saying that ‘‘yes, that’s the commitment we made”.
First off, this can no longer be written off as a gaff - for this is now the third time that President Biden ‘‘contradicted’’ the official policy of “strategic ambiguity” on the possibility of America’s military defense of Taiwan.
And even though the White House then released an official statement claiming that there has not been a change in the long-established Taiwan policy, President Biden already accomplished what was clearly intended as a policy change.
Now, there are some analysts that claim that this promise didn’t technically amount to anything new - that one could argue that Ukraine is also defended militarily via US weapons - just not with American troops on the ground.
But this is not a credible interpretation of Biden’s statement.
Of course the US was always going to offer Taiwan the minimum help that it has also offered to Ukraine - did anyone ever doubt this?
Did Xi Jinping ever seriously think that the US commitment to Taiwan could only ever amount to that offered to Ukraine?
So this argument that technically, Biden didn’t define what ‘‘militarily’’ means will not fly - whatever the US President meant, at the very minimum it has to be more than merely providing weapons for self-defense.
So then, the strategic ambiguity around the involvement of the US military is now virtually gone.
And the result is that Xi Jinping can now be sure of the US military involvement in a potential conflict with Taiwan.
And this is not in itself a bad thing either: the cost of invading Taiwan is now definitively higher.
One could argue that the policy of strategic ambiguity has served well up to this point.
And there were certainly many good reasons to have this policy in place.
We have previously delved deep into a range of scenarios, but one of the prime concerns was always the risk that the Taiwanese leadership could (feeling sure of the US backing) escalate things on their own.
For example: force China’s hand and prompt a military response from Beijing via a decision to declare official independence.
But such concerns were now balanced against more serious risks: increasingly tempted and agitated Xi Jinping.
Even though the invasion of Taiwan is not happening anytime soon (for such an endeavor would necessitate an accumulation of large amount of military personnel and firepower - clearly visible from commercial satellites, let alone advanced US intel -that did a great job with Russia), who is to say that Xi Jinping will not change his mind in the upcoming years?
Especially once he solidifies his political power and grip after securing his third term at the October’s Congress of the CCP?
And in many ways, time is unfortunately on Beijing’s side: if China continues to accelerate with advanced military tech, and grows economically at somewhat similar (even if lower) pace, and the US fails to form a strong & credible regional coalition and catch up militarily, then the correlation of forces will switch definitively in favor of Beijing.
In other words, when it comes to evaluating what caused a higher risk of escalation, it was a reasonable decision for Washington to weigh risks from tempted and overconfident Xi Jinping, as higher than that from a potentially reckless Taiwan (certain of US military involvement & support).
So then, the strategic ambiguity on the grand strategic level is gone - but then again, there are multiple levels to the concept ambiguity, and this ambiguity still remains on a tactical/operational level.
One major question is this: what actually constitutes an attack on Taiwan that would trigger a US military involvement & response?
What would amount to a triggering event that would necessitate defense of Taiwan?
How about a major cyber attack that cripples most of the military and crucial civilian infrastructure?
If China was to engage in a cyber attack against the Pentagon, that would most likely be seen and interpreted as a military attack.
So then, what if that happens to Taiwan?
There are other difficult scenarios as well.
Indeed, prior to a full-scale invasion, China may be tempted to push the boundaries and determine the approximate threshold where the US is forced to retaliate with a military force.
The PLA’s Navy could, for example, impose a blockade of Taiwan - and enforce it with multiple warships.
Would this amount to an attack on Taiwan? Will the US warn of retaliation? Or even strike without a warning?
All of these questions remain unanswered - and for a good reason.
There is very little value to spelling out precise US responses to all of the potential scenarios - and one could argue that this tactical ambiguity could very well lead to self-deterrence from Beijing: China will have an incentive not to discover the precise threshold that triggers a US military response.
Finally, it is also important to note that the White House’s official statement denying any change of policy can no longer be read as ‘‘cleaning up the gaff’’.
It was instead a subtle and shrewd diplomatic move: a way out for China.
For if there has been no official change to a US policy, the burden of response is then removed: given that there has been no official change in policy, there is also no need for an official response from Beijing.
China need not escalate.
Contrast this with the alternative: White House officially declaring change of (hitherto ambiguous) policy on the military defense of Taiwan, would surely necessitate an escalatory response from China: Beijing could not sit idly to this and accept a significant loss of face and credibility.
In other words: Washington delivered the message, and still removed the burden to respond.
This was some deft diplomacy.
And even though the burden of response was removed, China did still send a message: with a joint bomber patrol mission with Russia near the Japanese and South Korean air defense zones.
(side note: and now that the Foreign Minister Lavrov openly declared that Russia will be moving closer towards China, Moscow will have to play along and try its best to please Beijing with such frequent joint shows of force. You can use your own imagination to attach a label describing such a relationship.. For a long time these cables have proposed that Beijing and Moscow are not natural allies, and that China was interested in a very specific configuration - Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine moved Russia closer towards this reality. The question now is whether Chinese statesmen will be skilled enough to crystallize this configuration and tighten their grip over Russia)
To which the US responded with its own joint-fighter jet patrol with Japan.
And that was that for now - further escalation is now on hold.
But in the long term, and in order to deter China over Taiwan, the US will need to sharpen its on the ground capability and threat display.
Deterrence= capability x will to act on that capability, and President Biden certainly decided to drastically reduce (if not wholly remove), the ambiguity around the second part of this equation.
But the first part of the equation remains contested - geographic proximity (and the ability to rapidly employ force over shorter distances) already favors China, so the US needs to overcompensate.
In addition to its own increased presence, both Taiwan and Japan must be armed to the max.
(side note: this is why as discussed in previous cables, the US diplomats’ rebuke of Taiwanese leaders’ military procurement requests (no matter how well intended) was a bad policy)
And in this regard, it was encouraging that following a meeting with President Biden, the Japanese PM Kishida promised to ‘‘drastically’’ increase Japan’s military capabilities - this is indeed welcome news, and will go beyond the mere signaling effect and actually (if implemented as promised) impact the correlation of forces on the ground.
It is important to also note that all of this is also happening within a wider context of recently intensified US-China regional competition for geopolitical/diplomatic influence - this and State Secretary Antony Blinken’s speech outlining the frame/narrative of this struggle will be unpacked in the upcoming cables.