Biden’s approval of F-16s for Ukraine was part of stage-managed policy shift; decision made as early as last year.

(Originally published May 23 in “What in the World“) Surprise! U.S. President Joe Biden pretended to relent to pressure from allies and told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima, Japan, that he would approve training Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets.

The approval clears the way for U.S. allies to supply Ukraine with their used F-16s. Biden also announced another $375 million in weapons and ammunition from the Pentagon’s own arsenal.

Biden’s approval turns out to be part of a well-scripted, three-month plan to further escalate allied support for Ukraine that is only the latest instance of the White House’s efforts to ease the U.S. public into a no-holds-barred proxy war against Russia. Biden’s approval of F-16s for Ukraine exposes a well-worn “twist my rubber arm” pattern that in the past year has seen him reject then approve Stingers, howitzers, Himars rocket launchers, Patriot missiles, Abrams battle tanks and now F-16s.

Why the White House applies this coy approach to its gradual escalation of the American commitment to Ukraine isn’t clear. In many ways, it’s reminiscent of former U.S. President Lyndon Johnson’s escalation of the U.S. presence in Vietnam between 1964 and 1968. And just as generals and military experts criticized that approach as fated for defeat, many have criticized Biden for his incrementalist approach to supporting Ukraine.

But Biden’s slow-march into Ukraine is likely due to what the White House senses are public reservations, ambivalence and downright opposition to risking conflict with Russia to supply Ukraine. Whatever the reason, the White House has relied on a now-familiar “frog in the pot” recipe for easing the American public into a “no-limits” support for Ukraine: pretending to oppose supplying more expensive, sophisticated weapons to Ukraine for fear Russia might respond by escalating the war, attacking the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or possibly even deploying nuclear weapons.

But the decision to give in to Zelensky’s request for F-16s had been made by Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, as early as last November after he visited Kyiv, according to a report by Politico that cites five unnamed U.S. officials. “At the time, the question wasn’t ‘if,’ but ‘when,’” Politico wrote.

Biden himself was convinced by as early as February, after paying his own surprise visit to Kyiv, according to the Associated Press. Citing three unnamed officials, the AP says that it was after Biden’s return that discussions shifted from a debate on whether to supply F-16s to a debate on how to do so.

That would mean the White House was already planning to give Ukraine F-16s in January when it lifted its objections to sending Abrams tanks. The rest of the public lead-up to the announcement in Hiroshima last weekend was merely a wag-the-dog public relations campaign, including the announcement that Britain was leading European allies in pressuring the U.S. to give in on F-16s, vowing to train Ukrainian pilots to fly them and establishing a consortium to buy them in defiance of Washington.

That set the stage for the U.S. to submit to foreign pressure in the same way that Biden approved the Abrams only after Britain vowed to send its own Challenger tanks. Biden approved armored fighting vehicles after France said it would send it would send its own. As a political tactic, it’s reminiscent of the tradition among Japanese prime ministers to use gaiatsu, or “foreign pressure,” to justify implementing unpopular policies.

Washington is still pretending that it won’t give Ukraine Atacms or attack drones. But the stage has already been set for reversal on those, too. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is now promising to give Kyiv attack drones despite not officially having any of those. So, we can likely expect attack drones to be next on Biden’s gift list.

Washington has also worried—or at least said it was worried—that Ukraine might use U.S. weapons to attack targets inside Russia, which would increase the likelihood of escalation by Russian President Vladimir Putin and possibly even pull China into direct support of Russia. The U.S. even reportedly went so far as to rig the Himars it has supplied Ukraine so they won’t fire longer-range Atacms missiles in case some ally gets the idea to hand those to Ukraine without U.S. approval. But Biden approved giving Patriots to Kyiv after Ukraine used its own drones to launch attacks inside Russia—thus demonstrating that such attacks would occur whether or not the U.S. gave Ukraine long-range missiles.

Biden nonetheless justified his volte face on Himars to Ukraine by saying Zelensky had promised he wouldn’t use them to launch attacks inside Russia. So far, Zelensky appears to have been able to keep his forces from breaking that promise. Biden said this time he had won a similar promise from Zelensky that the F-16s won’t intrude into Russian air space. Given how often military aircraft do wander inadvertently over invisible aerial frontiers, that seems like a promise that’s going to be even harder to keep. It will also be difficult to avoid having an F-16 launch a missile while over Ukraine that then lands across the border in Russia.

The Pentagon also opposed giving Ukraine Abrams tanks and F-16s because of the extensive training and cost of using them, warning they might not arrive in time to have any meaningful impact on the war. While Ukraine has said it needs F-16s to replace ageing Soviet jets lost during the war to counter Russia’s air force, Russian jets have largely avoided Ukrainian air space thanks to the effectiveness of its NATO-supplied air-defense missiles, which include the U.S. Patriot and lesser-known Nasams.

But in a revisionist narrative, the White House now says the F-16s aren’t meant for the present conflict. They’re meant for a postwar scenario, in which Ukraine—perhaps divided along Korea-style lines—must defend itself against further Russian aggression. Whether Zelensky, who has rejected any territorial concessions to achieve a ceasefire—has signed on to this apparently new vision of Ukraine’s future is anyone’s guess.

Officials also fear Russia capturing an F-16 and obtaining its advanced radar technology, though that’s presumably a worry with any advanced weapon used in combat.

There was also a more mundane, budgetary concern about providing Ukraine with sophisticated weapons it can’t use right away: giving it expensive items like tanks and fighters takes money away from the budgets allotted to give Ukraine artillery and missiles that it needs right away. In the Pentagon’s case, that’s an immediate concern: Congress only gave it approval to hand over $14.5 billion worth of weapons in the current fiscal year. With that budget already running low, Pentagon accountants have resorted to clever bookkeeping maneuvers to keep the weapons flowing.

That reservation was apparently overcome by getting Britain and other allies to agree to pay for the F-16s out of their own fleets. The U.K.-led consortium was apparently real, even if created as part of a White House pantomime. Presumably, allies that commit used F-16s to Ukraine will also need to replace them with newer fighter jets. It’s unclear yet whether allies such as Belgium and the Netherlands, which have been part of the push to give F-16s to Ukraine, have committed to buying new U.S.-made fighters.