CNN
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The more Russian President Vladimir Putin tries to break NATO, the stronger NATO will become.
Not for the first time in the war in Ukraine, President Joe Biden has taken decisive action to bridge the rifts in the alliance. He announced Wednesday that he will ship 31 advanced U.S. tanks to the army in Kyiv.
This represents an important symbolic, political and military victory for Ukraine. A new so-called “Iron Fist” breaks through the established Russian front in the east, facilitates the advance of the Russian land bridge into annexed Crimea in the south, and threatens the feared Russian spring attack. I hope that it will stop the
It took Biden’s political savvy to end the most overt and damaging rift in the West’s war to date. The U.S. has previously said the Abrams tank was too complex, too complex to maintain, and too unsuitable for the terrain of the war in Ukraine. But Biden’s change of heart gives Germany cover and underscores Washington’s view that Western solidarity against Putin is crucial to saving Ukraine.
In fact, Putin’s main goal off the battlefield is to create divisions among Western allies and to sabotage or end the flow of weapons on which Ukraine’s survival as an independent state depends.
His failure came after a mild winter robbed Russia of another aspect of its strategy, despite fierce Russian public threats designed to bully European nations into reluctance to move tanks. There is also. Leaders withdrew from their support for Ukraine.
“President Putin expected Europe and the United States to weaken our resolve,” Biden said Wednesday at the White House. “He expected our support for Ukraine to crumble over time. He was wrong…and he was wrong from the beginning and is wrong now. doing.”
As the one-year anniversary of the unprovoked Russian aggression approaches, Biden and the West are in an extraordinary position that few strategists could have conceived a year ago.
— NATO is stronger and more united over the years. And it is a strategic disaster for Russia. The sense of alliance drift in the early 21st century was dispelled by a reminder of the bloc’s founding purpose of a common defense against Russian aggression. Putin’s actions will ensure that the lessons of nurturing alliances will last for decades.
— Biden anchored his legacy to a major land war in Europe, where the US waged an effective proxy war with nuclear rival Russia. This battle is in some ways the last battle of the Cold War, a test of will between the US president and the Kremlin heavyweights, who are deeply affected by the USSR conflict. Mr. Biden is leading the most important foreign policy since at least his 2003 invasion of Iraq. His success is critical to America’s credibility and his own. The gravity of the mission will likely overshadow much of the rest of his presidency in world history.
— Biden is reinstating the US as a strong global leader, reviving a vital transatlantic alliance, and boosting allies with successful and strong diplomacy. And so far, the president’s balancing act could lead to the pouring of ever more powerful weapons into Ukraine and a conflict with the West and even the use of small-scale tactical nuclear weapons by Russia. Avoiding escalation with Putin. The opening of a second year of war in Ukraine and the deepening of NATO’s involvement will test that equation like never before.
— The most notable aspect of the evolving relationship between the West and Ukraine is that one of Putin’s presumed motives for the war was to forestall the possibility of former Soviet states joining NATO. That’s it. Countries that were once part of Warsaw Pact territory, such as Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. But now, Ukraine’s war effort is armed and funded by the West, as if it were de facto her NATO state with access to some of the alliance’s most sophisticated weapons systems.
The Western rationale for its support is also evolving. Once the main goal was to allow unsuspecting nations to repel unprovoked aggression in order to allow citizens to freely choose their political system and sovereignty. Alliance leaders now appear to see Ukraine as an important strategic bulwark.
“If Putin wins, it will be a tragedy for the Ukrainians and a danger for us,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told CNN’s Kate Boldouin on Wednesday, referring to the authoritarian state. exercised its will, arguing that it would not be allowed to profit from threats.
Putin’s continued failures are unlikely to stop him from trying to split the Western alliance. His animosity towards the United States and its allies and his quest for revenge have been the cornerstones of his more than two decades of power. And curbing arms supplies to Ukraine and fueling Western fatigue from the war remains critical to his hopes of crushing victory or avoiding a decisive defeat.
Moscow reacted furiously to the decision regarding tanks, calling it extremely dangerous, adding that it had raised an already bloody conflict to a new level.
Biden is still trying to avoid an escalation that could lead to a direct clash between NATO and Russian forces, but the new tanks will attack Russia only if Putin withdraws troops from Ukraine. Critics of the war and the mass exodus of Western weapons say the West has fomented a bloody stalemate, killing thousands of Ukrainian and Russian troops and Ukrainian civilians. Both Moscow and Kyiv seem to believe they can win the war, so diplomatic efforts to reach a ceasefire or peace There is little room for pressure.
But Western military strategists warn that Moscow is preparing a new offensive for the spring, after already a bloody onslaught.
“It is dangerous to underestimate Russia,” Stoltenberg said in a speech in Oslo on Wednesday, adding that Moscow had mobilized an extra 200,000 troops and was ready to take big risks and endure staggering losses. pointed out that there is
Ukraine is now under pressure to demonstrate that these new tanks can be used in well-planned combined military operations to maximize their advantages and minimize their weaknesses to yield large gains on the battlefield. The German tank, known as the Leopard 2, could arrive in the next few weeks, but John Kirby, the National Security Council’s strategic communications coordinator, told CNN that Abrams’ machine is still in the US. He said it would take “many months” because it would have to be sourced from The maker has arrived.
Still, the chain of diplomatic and military influence unleashed by Biden’s willingness to send tanks sent an important message to Moscow.
“They are more important as symbols of US-European engagement,” retired Gen. Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
Ukraine requested at least 300 tanks. It’s unclear how many you’ll receive in the new Allied shipment, but it’s likely around 100 in total. No doubt you want to keep the flow going once your new weapon taps on. That’s what happened consistently in war.
At the time of the invasion last February, the United States and its allies were wary of even basic weapons supplies. But as a brutal war unfolded and Ukraine inspired the world with its resistance, barriers to more dynamic support were removed. We have missiles, armored vehicles, Patriot anti-missile missiles, and now some of the most sophisticated tanks in the US and allied forces.
While in Washington just before Christmas, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that his country’s needs were so great that it would never stop demanding more weapons.
So far, providing fighter jets is his government’s most coveted demand, a line Biden is unwilling to cross. It is also what caused the division of the alliance before.
But the pattern of this war is such that even if the scale of demands for specific equipment cannot always be met, what Ukraine wants will eventually be obtained.
