Using gun-lobby logic, arms sales remain centerpiece of US foreign diplomacy
(Originally published Sept. 12 in “What in the World“) The White House continues to stage-manage its imminent approval for Ukraine to start firing long-range, American missiles deep into Russia.
After accusing Iran of adding missiles to its drone exports to Russia, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has popped up in Kyiv saying that U.S. policy in Ukraine has always been to adapt to changing situations. Iran’s missile exports, he said, represent a dangerous escalation of the war. They would also add to the missiles Moscow already gets from North Korea.
Rather than make clear from the outset (i.e. when it was still warning Russia not to invade a country Moscow feared was about to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and benefit from its mutual defense obligation) that it would “do whatever it takes” to support Ukraine’s full territorial integrity, Washington has instead given Ukraine just enough to prevent defeat, slow-walking U.S. weapons support in a way that seems almost deliberately calculated to ensure the maximum expenditure in giving Ukraine just short of what it might need to win.
The result: both sides are bogged down in more than two years of trench-style warfare that has cost the U.S. $55.6 billion in aid and killed at least 61,000 Ukrainians and an estimated 150,000 Russians. Washington’s proxy war policy has always been to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian. The strategy on both sides now appears to be to slowly exhaust the other’s ability to manufacture enough shells and missiles to defend the line ahead of ceasefire negotiations.
Blinken’s latest hint follows a similar one Tuesday by his boss, lame duck U.S. President Joe Biden, and a string of anonymous leaks that a reversal is nigh. A new reversal would follow about-faces on a long string of previous restrictions aimed at easing Moscow—and the American public—into war with Russia: first Stingers, then howitzers, then Himars rocket launchers complete with a Biden mea culpa in The New York Times, then Patriot missiles, then Abrams battle tanks, a long and carefully stage-managed reversal on F-16s, then long-range Atacms, and most recently longer-range Atacms. In May, Biden agreed to let Ukraine use U.S. weapons against Russians amassing in Kursk province to attack Ukraine’s Sumy province, then in June expanded that to anywhere in Russia attackers might be.
But Biden has still left long-range MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems, or Atacms, off the list of permitted weapons for cross-border counterattacks. That has frustrated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who wants to use them to hit Russian air bases launching fighters, bombers, and missiles from well behind the border. The White House is reportedly considering not only letting Ukraine fire its Atacms across the border, but also giving Kyiv Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles, or Jassms. Jassms are air-launched cruise missiles that Ukraine’s Danish and Dutch F-16s, which also aren’t allowed to fly across the border into Russia, could fire from over Ukraine at targets inside Russia.
The White House, meanwhile, has approved $320 million in military aid to Egypt, overriding human-rights concerns. The aid is part of $1.3 billion in weapons the U.S. hands Cairo annually. The $320 million had been held back until Cairo demonstrated progress on human rights. Blinken, who stopped in Cairo on his way to Kyiv, said Egypt had made progress on rights. Besides, Washington is relying on it to help mediate cease-fire talks in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. The money comes right back to America anyway. Egypt uses the $1.3 billion to buy U.S.-manufactured military equipment and weapons, including most recently a deal to buy more C-130J Super Hercules airlifters.
As the White House pushes for a cease-fire deal, Israel is using U.S.-made jets, missiles and bombs to bombard Hamas in Gaza, with an air strike Wednesday on a school-turned-shelter killing 18 people. An airstrike the day before that killed at least 19 people in camp for the displaced likely used U.S.-made, 2,000-pound bombs. More weapons are on the way: last month, Washington approved the $20 billion sale of new F-15s, ammunition and other military equipment to Israel.