The kernel of the long-awaited “victory plan” for Ukraine that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy introduced this fall goes something like this: If you give me what I’ve been asking for — membership in NATO and permission to fire Western missiles deep into Russian territory — I could end the war by next year.
The demands are not in themselves new. The urgency is in the timing: The American election, and what President Joe Biden does before he leaves office, will have serious consequences for the trajectory of the Russia-Ukraine war.
Actual membership in NATO is not in the cards for Ukraine until the war is over. The North Atlantic Alliance has already declared that Ukraine is on an “irreversible” path to membership, but that is as far as it is likely to go for now. Firing NATO missiles deep into Russia, however, is something a growing number of members have signaled they would allow.
Not Biden, at least not yet. NATO weapons striking inside Russia, he fears, would take Western participation in the war to a new level. It would also cross a red line that Russian President Vladimir Putin has drawn. Long-range strikes against Russia, Putin has declared, “will mean that NATO countries — the United States and European countries — are at war with Russia.”
A growing chorus of NATO members disagree, and have urged the United States to give Ukraine the green light. Russia, they argue, has no compunction about using weapons from China, North Korea or Iran against Ukraine. “Are you telling me that Putin is not using — is not throwing — everything he has at Ukraine?” Poland’s foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, said in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal.
The next president
Whatever decision Biden takes (or avoids taking) in his last weeks in office will create a reality that the next president will have to deal with.
If Kamala Harris wins, she has broadly pledged to continue the Biden administration’s military and economic support — $174 billion pledged since the war began in February 2022, including $61 billion approved by Congress in April. A Harris administration, however, would face increasing resistance from some Republicans and Democrats to all-out support, and it would be easier for Harris to continue actions already taken by her outgoing administration than to order new ones.
Donald Trump is the greater concern for Ukraine. He has said he would end the war in 24 hours should he win the presidency. He has not explained how, but given his mysteriously chummy relations with Putin, the terms would not be favorable to Ukrainians. Still, reversing a policy on long-range strikes would not be easy even for Trump, given that the American public, including many Republicans, still strongly supports Ukraine.
Ukraine already possesses missiles from NATO members, including American ones that can strike up to 190 miles inside Russia, and it has used them against Russian targets in Crimea. But that’s occupied Ukrainian turf. Ukraine has also taken the war into Russia with Ukrainian drones and commando operations against military …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment