The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, has brought a glimmer of hope to supporters of the Ukrainian war effort. He suggested to Fox News on March 31 that he would try to rally his divided party behind the so-called REPO Act. That piece of legislation would allow President Biden, working with European allies, to seize Russian currency reserves frozen in the West and use them to aid Ukraine.
Grabbing these reserves would be politically convenient. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the United States and its allies have thrown more than a quarter-trillion dollars into the war, to little ultimate effect.… Seguir leyendo »
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s confidence must be shaken after leaving Washington without the approval of more US military funding for his country amid the ongoing war with Russia.
Although President Joe Biden has stressed the need for Congress to continue supporting Ukraine, Republican opposition to the administration’s request for more than $60 billion in emergency supplemental funding has been stiff. As the GOP demands the passage of stringent border policies from Democrats in exchange for backing the military aid package, the future remains pretty bleak for Ukraine. Even if the two parties end up striking a deal, it’s likely that each subsequent aid package will only face increasing resistance and more roadblocks.… Seguir leyendo »
On Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden issued what sounded like a desperate call in his bid to help Ukraine sustain its all but stalemated war effort against invading forces from Russia. “This cannot wait”, Biden said in televised remarks. “Congress needs to pass supplemental funding for Ukraine before they break for the holiday recess. Simple as that”.
In fact, there has been nothing simple about the Biden administration’s most recent supplemental budget requests for Ukraine. From the outset, Biden seems to have calculated that by pairing a call to Congress for money for Ukraine with a request for additional funds for Israel, Republican skeptics of the U.S.… Seguir leyendo »
As Washington turns its focus toward the 2024 presidential campaign, U.S. aid to Ukraine is becoming increasingly vulnerable to partisan politics and the culture wars. When the next tranche comes up for a vote in Congress, the number of Republicans voting no will be high. If the Biden administration wants to preserve the flow of support to Kyiv, it will need to mount a more robust, more honest case about the expected costs and length of the war effort to lawmakers and the American people.
Since the full-scale Russian invasion began in February 2022, the United States has committed $113 billion to military, economic and humanitarian aid for Ukraine and other countries impacted by the war.… Seguir leyendo »
On 7 July, days before the NATO summit in Vilnius, the US announced that it would supply Ukraine with cluster munitions – until it can ramp up production of other types of ammunition.
It is a controversial decision which is at odds with the views of NATO allies that have foresworn the possession and use of the weapons under the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions.
The Biden administration said it had received assurances from Ukraine that the munitions will not be used in areas populated by civilians, that Ukraine will keep records and maps of where they are used, and that it will conduct a post-war clean-up.… Seguir leyendo »
As Ukraine begins its spring counteroffensive, a 60 percent majority of Republicans say we should stand with Ukraine until Russia is defeated, according to a Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll conducted in March. But GOP support is softening. The share of Republicans who say the United States is providing too much aid to Ukraine has steadily increased from 9 percent right after the Russian invasion to 40 percent today, according to a Pew Research Center poll in January.
Many wavering Republicans are frustrated by the lack of a clear strategy for victory from the Biden administration. They hear Ukraine skeptics on the right arguing that the war is costing too much, depleting our military readiness, increasing the risk of nuclear confrontation with Russia and distracting us from the larger threat posed by Communist China.… Seguir leyendo »
As Russia prepares for an imminent Ukrainian counteroffensive, and America’s 2024 presidential race takes shape, it is becoming increasingly apparent that Russian President Vladimir Putin believes one possible path to victory in his so far unsuccessful war runs through the US election.
The latest evidence that Putin may just expect Western support for Ukraine to end – if only Russian forces hold on until there’s a new president in the White House – came tucked away in a blistering announcement from Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Friday, declaring entry into the country would be “closed for 500 Americans”.
The blacklist, Moscow explained, targets individuals “involved in the spread of Russophobic attitudes and fakes”, as well as principals in companies supplying weapons to Ukraine.… Seguir leyendo »
En economía existe una ley conocida como 'ley de las consecuencias inesperadas': una acción A, que se supone que desencadena un resultado B, que conduce a un resultado C, que no es deseado ni deseable. Parece que la ley en cuestión es válida para las relaciones internacionales, como ha aprendido Vladímir Putin por las malas. Difícilmente podía imaginar y, a decir verdad, nadie imaginaba, que su deseo de conquistar Ucrania hace un año tendría como consecuencia principal la restauración del imperio de Estados Unidos. Ni los propios gobernantes de Washington lo previeron. Resulta, recordemos, que Joe Biden sabía de antemano la hora exacta de la invasión rusa.… Seguir leyendo »
Almost exactly one year ago, I sat in my office at the US Embassy in Moscow, reading reports of Russia’s brutal military assault on Ukraine. I was numb – but not surprised – by the gravity of what was unfolding.
For weeks, I had been telling everyone I could reach that Russian President Vladimir Putin was going to launch a war on the continent of Europe, the scale of which had not been seen since World War II.
Although confident in my pre-war assessment, I was disconsolate. For two years, I had worked hard as US ambassador to make even modest progress in the few areas in which any dialogue was possible with the Russians.… Seguir leyendo »
One year into Russia’s war on Ukraine, fears that American support for Kyiv would rapidly wane have proven demonstrably wrong. Western financial and military backing has been robust thanks to allied unity and an unexpectedly mild winter. But, as financial analysts constantly remind us, past performance is no guarantee of future results.
People like to back winners. If the anticipated Russian spring offensive looks successful or the counterpart Ukrainian offensive is uninspiring, expect louder US voices calling for a negotiated settlement. The warning signs are already here.
American officials privately express growing apprehension that there will be an early resolution of the conflict.… Seguir leyendo »
The United States’ recent promise to ship advanced M1 Abrams battle tanks to Ukraine was a swift response to a serious problem. The problem is that Ukraine is losing the war. Not, as far as we can tell, because its soldiers are fighting poorly or its people have lost heart, but because the war has settled into a World War I-style battle of attrition, complete with carefully dug trenches and relatively stable fronts.
Such wars tend to be won — as indeed World War I was — by the side with the demographic and industrial resources to hold out longest. Russia has more than three times Ukraine’s population, an intact economy and superior military technology.… Seguir leyendo »
The United States and its NATO allies are engaged in an intense debate over security assistance to Ukraine. The issue at hand is whether they should provide Kyiv with modern, Western-made heavy tanks — weapons that would greatly boost the Ukrainians’ battlefield power, especially for maneuver warfare of the type needed to retake much or most of the roughly 17 percent of Ukrainian territory that Russia still holds. (Britain has announced that it plans to send an unspecified number of its Challenger 2 main battle tanks.) But the larger debate remains unresolved.
If this kind of debate sounds familiar, that’s because it is.… Seguir leyendo »
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s bold Wednesday visit to Washington is an epic piece of theater designed to motivate multiple audiences — in the United States, Europe, Russia and Ukraine itself. The message is simple: With its own bravery in battle and the world’s help, Ukraine will prevail.
By embracing President Biden and addressing a clamorous joint session of Congress, Zelensky will send a riposte to Moscow that’s more potent, in some ways, than the Russian drones and missiles pounding his country. Ukraine has allies; it has staying power; NATO isn’t cracking; even in a polarized America, support for Kyiv is bipartisan and sustained.… Seguir leyendo »
Before February 24, 2022, most Americans agreed that the United States had no vital interests at stake in Ukraine. “If there is somebody in this town that would claim that we would consider going to war with Russia over Crimea and eastern Ukraine”, U.S. President Barack Obama said in an interview with The Atlantic in 2016, “they should speak up”. Few did.
Yet the consensus shifted when Russia invaded Ukraine. Suddenly, Ukraine’s fate was important enough to justify spending billions of dollars in resources and enduring rising gas prices; enough to expand security commitments in Europe, including bringing Finland and Sweden into NATO; enough to make the United States a virtual co-belligerent in the war against Russia, with consequences yet to be seen.… Seguir leyendo »
On the morning of Sunday, February 27, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen sat huddled in a secure room with a group of other senior Treasury officials—including me—to discuss a set of extraordinary economic and financial measures against the Russian Federation. A few days earlier, Russia had invaded Ukraine, a stark and violent transgression of international law. At the direction of U.S. President Joe Biden, the Department of the Treasury had already imposed full blocking sanctions on a number of Russia’s largest banks, put in place Russia-wide export controls on sensitive technologies, sanctioned a number of Russian elites, and determined that any Russian financial services firm could be a target for further sanctions.… Seguir leyendo »
Es difícil imaginar una reunión más transcendental que la que los presidentes Biden y Xi acaban de mantener en los aledaños de la reunión del G-20 en Bali. La ausencia de Putin, sin duda, ha facilitado la redacción de un comunicado final en el que la mayoría de los miembros del G-20—aunque no todos— deploran la invasión de Ucrania por parte de Rusia y solicitan que las tropas rusas se retiren. En cambio, el resto —entre los que se encuentra China— declara de manera abierta no ver las cosas así, haciendo referencia expresa a las sanciones como problema. A pesar del comunicado, la guerra en Ucrania no parece haber sido el fondo del diálogo bilateral entre Biden y Xi, sino Taiwán.… Seguir leyendo »
President Biden expressed confidence Wednesday that next year’s Congress — likely with at least one chamber under Republican control – will maintain robust U.S. support for Ukraine. But his certainty is not shared by many on Capitol Hill and in Kyiv. The struggle inside the GOP could have a massive impact on Ukraine’s fight for survival against Russia.
At his post-election news conference, Biden defended his administration’s support for Kyiv, maintaining that he had not given Ukraine a “blank check” and bragging that “there’s a lot of things that Ukraine wants we didn’t do”. He also said that he expects Republicans in the House, likely to be led next year by Rep.… Seguir leyendo »
Last week, the United States and its NATO partners convened in Madrid to celebrate their unity in support of Ukraine as it fights Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal aggression. This week, the grim reality on the ground is reemerging. Ukrainian forces don’t have the weapons they need to resist the Russian onslaught in the east, much less push Russian troops off their land.
The Biden administration deserves credit for giving Ukraine massive amounts of help and rallying European allies to the cause. At the same time, concerns are rising that President Biden’s risk-averse strategy amounts to giving Kyiv just enough weapons to maintain a violent stalemate but not to win the war.… Seguir leyendo »
En el periodo de más de tres meses de la invasión rusa en Ucrania, el gobierno de Biden ha dicho muchas cosas sobre la guerra. Tuvo que desdecirse de algunas de ellas casi de inmediato, como cuando resultó que la afirmación del presidente Biden de que Vladimir Putin “no puede permanecer en el poder” no era un llamado al cambio de régimen. En otros puntos, su retórica se ha intensificado con el paso del tiempo: en marzo, el objetivo de Estados Unidos era ayudar a Ucrania a defenderse; para finales de abril, “debilitar” a Rusia.
Eso sí, hay una declaración del gobierno que ha sido muy consistente: Estados Unidos no entrará en guerra con Rusia a causa de Ucrania.… Seguir leyendo »
As the Biden administration scrambles to find ways to bring down soaring gas prices, several old ideas are gaining new life in public debate and inside the White House. The latest is a proposal to ban or restrict U.S. oil exports, which wouldn’t fix the problem and would very likely hurt our European allies while handing a financial windfall to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On June 16, Bloomberg News reported that the White House is considering capping U.S. exports of gasoline and diesel fuel, a step short of a full ban on all petroleum product exports. The White House’s National Economic Council has already been exploring legal justifications for restricting exports, the report stated, because the president doesn’t have explicit authority to make this unprecedented move.… Seguir leyendo »
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