Steppe Blood
Steppe Blood
Ukraine is bleeding out. Its army is exhausted by a ceaseless drone war unlike anything in the history of combat. Ukraine "needs to escalate to be strong enough to reach a decent settlement."
Ukraine is bleeding out. It cannot fight forever.
By David Ignatius (Washington Post)
KYIV — The terrible cost of Russia’s continuing assault on Ukraine is viscerally clear at a military rehabilitation centre on the outskirts of this city. Soldiers there describe how their bodies were shattered on the front lines. And they’re the lucky ones who survived.
Alexei was trying to hold his position at Pokrovsk, the scene of some of this year’s heaviest fighting, when a drone dropped a grenade near him. His left leg and right hand were nearly severed, attached by thin threads of tissue but now mended.
Nikolai lost his left leg in Kharkiv, another Russian target. He waited 18 hours to be evacuated because of drone attacks. Dima lost both legs when his vehicle was hit by a drone in Pokrovsk. The four soldiers traveling with him were killed.
I met these wounded soldiers at a recovery center funded by a Ukrainian businessman named Victor Pinchuk, one of 15 similar facilities he has established around the country. Like soldiers everywhere, they’re kids, with sleeves of tattoos and T-shirts promoting heavy metal bands. But they got old in a hurry. Talking with a half-dozen of them Friday, I heard the same grim account of what’s at stake in this war. As Alexei put it: “We don’t have a choice. If we stop fighting, we’ll stop existing.”
Listening to their stories, you realize that Ukraine is bleeding out. Its will to fight is as strong as ever, but its army is exhausted by a ceaseless drone war that’s unlike anything in the history of combat. The Biden administration’s rubric of support — “as long as it takes” — simply doesn’t match the reality of this conflict. Ukraine doesn’t have enough soldiers to fight an indefinite war of attrition. It needs to escalate to be strong enough to reach a decent settlement.
That’s the lesson I took from a visit here to attend a conference sponsored by Pinchuk’s group YES, which stands for Yalta European Strategy. It was founded 20 years ago to encourage Ukraine’s integration with the West. Now it’s trying to prevent the country’s destruction. The title of the meeting was “The Necessity to Win.” But the underlying message was that, without more firepower, Ukraine might be forced to settle on Vladimir Putin’s terms to halt his brutal onslaught.
The YES gathering was unlike any conference I’ve attended. It was a Davos-like meeting of prominent politicians and diplomats, featuring a passionate address by President Volodymyr Zelensky. But on the wall behind the speakers was a grim display of snapshots of dozens of dead soldiers — some bright-eyed, others haggard, all of them gone. And the most powerful presentations weren’t from the big shots but from soldiers who had come in from the front.
“We are tired,” said a drone unit commander named Serhii Varakin, who has been fighting Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine for more than eight years. His face, ringed with fatigue, was a portrait of the stress of relentless combat. The conference’s most emotional moment came when this hardened warrior told the audience: “I should have had a family, wonderful children, taking pictures by the barbecue, but now I take pictures on the front line.” The prolonged applause brought tears to Varakin’s eyes.
During a break from the conference, I visited a Ukrainian friend named Sergiy Koshman, a free-wheeling intellectual from Kharkiv and onetime civil society activist. Now he’s working to design weapons. At our last meeting, a few months after Russia’s full-scale invasion, he had described an almost giddy sense of national solidarity, with young activists talking about a mountaintop festival to defy Russian threats of using tactical nuclear weapons. But that mood has changed.
“We thought that once we showed solidarity, Russia would back off,” he told me. “Now it seems the war could last for decades.” He described a “radicalization” of intellectual life, in which the core principle had become: “We have to kill as many Russians as possible and find innovative ways to do it.” The war has transformed the country. “It’s so kinetic, when ballistic missiles are raining down on you daily. It’s a different reality.”
This cultural mood was vividly embodied by a soldier named Yarnya Chornohus. She’s a poet when she isn’t at the front, and she was a striking presence onstage: movie-star beautiful, with a snake tattooed on her right arm, the fangs open at her wrist, and the Ukrainian military emblem on her left arm. She said she had instructed her daughter to be ready to fight someday. As a poet, she said, she had learned the power of her verse comes from her experience of war.
A recurring theme of the conference was that President Joe Biden should remove current limits on Ukraine’s use of American ATACMS long-range missiles to strike deep into Russia. A procession of speakers said Biden should stop worrying about the danger of Russian escalation — and implied he was weak for even considering the issue. That strikes me as wrong; a primary responsibility of any American president is to avoid war with a nuclear superpower.
But I came away from the conference thinking the United States should take more risks to help Ukraine. It matters how this war ends. If Putin prevails, it will harm the interests of America and Europe for decades.
“I have no announcement to make” on the ATACMS issue, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a video interview with the group. That’s fine with me. Don’t announce anything. Leave Putin guessing. But if Russia’s surge continues, Putin’s bases within ATACMS range should be legitimate targets. He’s the one crossing the “red line” every day he continues his unprovoked aggression.
Zelensky, clad as always in a green combat shirt, said the proper range for U.S.-supplied weapons should be “long enough to act as a game changer and make Russia seek peace.” He’ll meet Biden in a week in New York to make that plea in person. I hope Biden says yes, privately.
If Zelensky is wise, he’ll bring along Oleksander Budko, a wounded veteran who spoke to the YES group. Though he lost both of his legs in combat, the boyishly handsome Budko was recently chosen as “Ukraine’s most desirable man” on a national television show. That’s the spirit that sustains Ukraine in this dark moment, and it’s moving to see.
But it’s not sentimentality that underlies deeper American support for Ukraine, but U.S. national interest.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/09/15/ukraine-strike-strategy-biden-help/
America’s Military—Death by a Thousand Drones
By EJ Antoni and Peter St Onge (Heritage Foundation)
Key Takeaways
What the Ukraine conflict has definitively shown us is that the economics of modern war have changed, perhaps forever.
Given the dramatic scale of Chinese military expansion, the United States will have to husband its resources far more carefully than it has been.
American policymakers must resist the temptation of using the military everywhere.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine over two years ago, politicians advocating for more U.S. taxpayer assistance to Ukraine have claimed we’re bleeding Russia dry at a comparatively small cost. But when it takes a million-dollar American missile to knock out a thousand-dollar enemy drone, it looks more like we’re the ones bleeding out—suggesting maybe we should quit the world-policeman racket.
That’s doubly true given our most daunting national security challenges are the rise of China and the collapse of security at the border.
Neocons like Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have called the more than $175 billion we've poured into the Ukraine meat-grinder "the best money we've ever spent,” despite there being no articulated American goal in the conflict against which to evaluate that claim.
The original Biden-Harris premise of our involvement in the Ukraine was that we must exhaust Russia to get to victory, although it was never clear precisely how or why. The ruthlessness of the Russian strongman Vladimir Putin is not a logical justification given the atrocities committed by countless dictators around the world, and the existence of far worse humanitarian disasters in places like the Democratic Republic of The Congo.
Regardless, it’s never been articulated precisely why the average American family should care who runs the Ukrainian city of Donetsk, especially with existential security issues on our wide-open southern border and a burgeoning Chinese military. Yet even if bleeding out Russia can be established as a national security issue worth over $175 billion, is that what’s actually happening? In a word, no.
What the Ukraine conflict has definitively shown us is that the economics of modern war have changed, perhaps forever.
Footage recently emerged of $35,000 Russian Lancet drones taking out $10-million Abrams tanks and $5 million HIMARS. Similarly, the Houthi drones in Yemen being launched against Western shipping cost $20,000 while the surface-to-air missiles intercepting them cost as much as $4.5 million. That’s a ratio of more than 100-to-1.
But that’s just America’s cost to build these weapons. It's fantastically expensive to transport them around the world too. Transporting a tank to the Ukraine is at least several hundred thousand dollars, and the cost of sending a guided-missile destroyer to meander around the Red Sea lobbing $2 million missiles is about $70 million per year—not including the missiles.
And the spectacular cost in the Red Sea hasn’t had much impact judging by insurance costs for Red Sea transit, which haven’t improved much. Furthermore, American ships don’t usually traverse the Red Sea; they use the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans instead. We’re spending millions to protect the shipping interests of Europe and China, both of whom use this lane to keep access to each other’s markets.
The carrier battle group we’re sending as a show of force in the region is costing $7 million per day—about $2 billion per year—against much more cost-effective, newer drone technology. Perhaps the world-policeman role is bleeding out the policeman.
We’ve been here before. In 1906 the U.K. launched HMS Dreadnought. She was a revolution in battleship design, to the point that all ships before and after her became known as either pre-dreadnoughts or dreadnoughts. But instead of conferring permanent dominance upon the Royal Navy, Dreadnought bankrupted it.
Because those obsolete pre-Dreadnoughts, it turned out, were largely British. The U.K. has obsoleted its own military, yielding global dominance to the U.S., who with superior industrial might, could send more dreadnoughts down the slipways. The collapse of American industrial might vis-a-vis China now poses a similar challenge.
Given the dramatic scale of Chinese military expansion, the United States will have to husband its resources far more carefully than it has been. The U.S. has wasted many trillions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan, ignoring the return of great power competition.
American policymakers must resist the temptation of using the military everywhere. They should instead focus scarce American resources on the most pressing national security challenges to the American people, including the threat posed by the cartels at the border.
A more cost-effective strategy might be to stop being the world’s policeman at a disproportionate cost to U.S. taxpayers and prioritize protecting our own national security interests instead.
NB: EJ Antoni is a Heritage Research Fellow, Grover M. Hermann Center and Peter St Onge PhD is a Heritage Visiting Fellow and Mark A. Kolokotrones Fellow
https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/americas-military-death-thousand-drones
Zelensky’s NATO Delusions
'Zelensky hopes to get an invitation for Ukraine to join NATO out of Biden before he leaves the White House'
By Sylvie Kauffmann (Le Monde)
It's as if the campaign for the November 5 US presidential election wasn't already sufficiently surreal. The man arrested on Sunday, September 15, for prowling, armed with an assault rifle, around the golf course where Donald Trump was indulging in his favorite sport, appears to be a staunch supporter of the Ukrainians in their war against Russia. He even tried, unsuccessfully, to enlist in their ranks.
This may seem like just another plot twist to the Americans. However, for the Ukrainians, it's an additional complication in a shaky American political landscape that is nonetheless crucial to the outcome of a war that has been bleeding them dry. That outcome is becoming ever more pressing. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky insisted on September 13 in Kyiv on the necessity to end the war as he opened the Yalta European Strategy conference. However, "Putin may continue to seek something other than peace," he stated.
The next day, at the same podium, a man with an imposing build, a gray beard and short hair reiterated the argument in his own words: "We know how to fight, but we're tired... In fact, we've been exhausted for some time now. We're not entitled to stop. We need help." Ukrainian officer Serhii Varakine commands the drone unit of the 58th brigade. He began to speak about the war, about the Russians he "can't consider brothers after what [he's] seen," when suddenly he started talking about himself: "I haven't stopped since 2016. I'm 44 years old. I should have a family, children, and take barbecue photos instead of taking photos of the front."
Then he fell silent as tears welled up in his eyes, just as they did earlier for Pavlo Palissa, a sturdy man in his forties wearing fatigues and commanding the 93rd mechanized brigade, when he spoke of the loss of his men.
Another major military push
It has to be done, but not at any price. After two and a half years of high-intensity fighting, Ukraine's leaders can pride themselves on standing up to an invader known to be quite powerful. Yet they've become apprehensive about the prospect of a war with no end. The incursion that began on August 6 into Russian territory in the Kursk region has boosted their short-term morale by showing that they are capable of regaining the initiative.
Now, it's time to go even further, to escalate the military action to increase pressure on the Russian population and its president in order to push for negotiations to end the war. This is why there is relentless insistence for recalcitrant Western allies − mainly in Washington − to support Kyiv's use of weapons to strike deep into Russian territory. Since Ukraine's allies have expressed their desire to help strengthen the country's negotiating position, it's time for them to take concrete action to support their words.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2024/09/18/zelensky-hopes-to-get-an-invitation-for-ukraine-to-join-nato-out-of-biden-before-he-leaves-the-white-house_6726467_23.html
American Assassination
Self-repair capability of US democracy is weakening, with grave consequences
By Global Times
Former US president Donald Trump was once again the target of an assassination attempt, marking the second such incident in two months.
How many more bullets are aimed at American political figures? This event has thrust the issue of escalating political violence in the US into the spotlight.
Politicians have resumed their customary performances in Washington: condemning violence and calling for unity. Yet, behind these lofty words lies a political system spiraling out of control, a beacon slowly dimming.
American media and analysts have offered various explanations: increasing social inequality, political polarisation, the spread of fake news, and rampant gun ownership.
Some even provide historical context, suggesting that the political violence has always been part of American politics.
The evolution of America's democratic system to its current state is linked to early defects in this machine. However, it has self-repair capabilities, and the current problem is that this ability is weakening.
It can no longer keep pace with the global progress and development of democracy, nor can it adapt to the political and social developments within the US.
The flaws of this dual-party rivalry are becoming increasingly apparent over time.
The American electoral system is gradually becoming a money game. Whoever has the financial resources can manipulate election outcomes. Corporations and wealthy individuals easily influence policy directions through political donations.
In this process, the voices of ordinary citizens are feeling completely marginalized. This money-driven politics exacerbates social inequality and erodes public confidence in the political system.
The two-party system has devolved into a disingenuous performance. The Republicans and Democrats appear to be at odds, but in reality, they are engaged in a back-and-forth power play.
Their conflicts are not about solving problems but about winning elections. In this process, the true spirit of democracy is cast aside, ultimately deepening societal division and polarization.
Social media in the US has become a tool for spreading lies and hatred. In such an information environment, it is difficult for the public to make rational judgments, and extreme ideologies and conspiracy theories flourish.
The American judicial system has also been politicized. Supreme Court justices are no longer neutral arbiters but have become representatives of party interests. The law is no longer a symbol of justice but a weapon in political struggles. Critically, this machine can no longer solve these problems and instead becomes a creator of issues.
Even the shrewdest politicians cannot discern whether it is societal polarization that has caused party polarization or vice versa.
This touches upon a more fundamental problem: it is the system itself that perpetuates political violence. In other words, the machine's operating system is flawed, not just a few parts or components. It either produces defective outcomes or damages itself in the process.
Washington's politicians seem aware of the severity of the problem but are powerless. They continue to exploit the system for their political gain, attempting to divert attention by creating new adversaries.
America needs a political reform. It needs to redefine what true democracy is and establish a political system that genuinely represents the interests of all people. This inclusivity is crucial for rebuilding the public's confidence in politics.
Meanwhile, Washington's political elites should be careful in using the term "democracy" on the international stage, as it may further remind people to pay greater attention to the challenge they are facing domestically, and damage their reputation.
The bullets are flying, and the potential consequences are grave. Who will they ultimately hit? Let us wait and see.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202409/1319987.shtml
Trump safe after being targeted in second apparent assassination attempt
By CNN
The FBI is investigating what it said is an apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump at his Florida golf club Sunday, the second time in two months there’s been an apparent attempt on the former president’s life.
Trump is safe and was not harmed in the incident, his campaign said. Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said during a Sunday news conference that his office was informed at 1:30 p.m. ET of shots fired by the Secret Service, when agents fired at a man who had a rifle in the bushes along the perimeter of the Trump International Golf Club.
Trump had been playing golf at the time, moving between holes five and six, a source briefed on the matter told CNN.
A Secret Service agent spotted a rifle barrel with a scope sticking out of the fence of the golf course and “immediately engaged” with the person, Bradshaw said. The agent who spotted the rifle, Bradshaw said, is part of a team that stays a hole or two ahead of Trump on the course. The person was 300 to 500 yards away from Trump, an official said.
The person fled the scene in a car and was spotted by a witness, which ultimately helped law enforcement officials locate the vehicle driving north on I-95 in Martin County, one county to the north of Palm Beach.
“We are able to catch a witness that came to us and said, ‘Hey, I saw the guy running out of the bushes, he jumped into a black Nissan and I took a picture of the vehicle and the tag,’ which was great,” Bradshaw said.
Authorities alerted the Martin County Sheriff’s Office, which detained the person. The witness was able to then identify the man.
David Aronberg, State Attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, said the suspect said nothing as he was detained.
“He knew enough to stay silent,” he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Sunday evening. “He did not apparently speak to officers, he was calm. So, it looked like a person who has done this before, not necessarily this crime, but someone who has had repeated interactions with law enforcement.”
The person in custody in connection with the apparent attempted assassination is Ryan Wesley Routh, according to three law enforcement sources. The self-employed affordable housing builder in Hawaii went on social media to weigh in on politics and current events, at times criticizing the former president, and expressed strong support for Ukraine.
Routh traveled to Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor more than two years ago, according to video and images geolocated by CNN to Kyiv’s Independence Square.
Video shows Routh attended a rally at the square in support of Ukrainian troops on May 1, 2022 and visited the same location about six weeks later, where a photo shows him standing beside a Ukraine flag emblazoned with an appeal for international volunteers to support the war effort.
The FBI’s investigation has gone global as officials work to flesh out his background, a law enforcement source told CNN. Some of Routh’s suspected online activity also involved the use of platforms headquartered outside the United States, the source said, which will involve working with international partners to identify everything the FBI possibly can about the detained individual.
Officials said an AK-47-style rifle with a scope; two backpacks that were hung on the fence and had ceramic tile in them; and a GoPro camera were recovered at the scene.
The holes Trump was playing when the incident occurred are on the eastern edge of the golf course.
Trump had no public events on his schedule for Sunday, and his golf game was a last-minute addition to his itinerary, two sources familiar with the matter said.
The apparent assassination attempt at Trump’s golf course in Florida comes two months after an assassination attempt against the former president at a Butler, Pennsylvania, rally that sparked scrutiny of the US Secret Service.
“Former President Donald Trump is safe and unharmed following a possible attempted assassination shortly before 2 p.m. Sunday at Trump International Golf Club at West Palm Beach. US Secret Service personnel opened fire on a gunman located near the property line,” Rafael Barros, the Secret Service special agent in charge of the Miami field office, said in a statement.
Ronald Rowe, acting director of the US Secret Service, is traveling to Florida in the wake of the incident, a law enforcement source familiar with the matter told CNN.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Sunday that his state would conduct its own investigation of the apparent thwarted assassination attempt. And the congressional task force that’s investigating the first attempted assassination of the former president is requesting a briefing with the Secret Service following Sunday’s incident.
‘No place for political violence’
Trump’s campaign said in a statement earlier in the day that the former president “is safe following gunshots in his vicinity.”
Trump — who had been golfing with donor Steve Witkoff, according to a source familiar with the matter — soon assured supporters that he was safe, too. “There were gunshots in my vicinity, but before rumors start spiraling out of control, I wanted you to hear this first: I AM SAFE AND WELL!” Trump wrote in a fundraising email that afternoon.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have been briefed on the security incident involving Trump and they are both “relieved to know that he is safe,” according to the White House.
“As I have said many times, there is no place for political violence or for any violence ever in our country, and I have directed my team to continue to ensure that Secret Service has every resource, capability and protective measure necessary to ensure the former President’s continued safety,” Biden said in a statement Sunday evening.
Harris echoed Biden’s support for the Secret Service having “every resource, capability, and protective measure necessary to carry out its critical mission” in her own statement released by the White House Sunday night. “I am deeply disturbed by the possible assassination attempt of former President Trump today,” she said. “As we gather the facts, I will be clear: I condemn political violence. We all must do our part to ensure that this incident does not lead to more violence.”
Biden and Harris, both of whom are in Washington, DC, with no public events Sunday, will be kept updated by their team. Attorney General Merrick Garland has also been briefed, according to Department of Justice spokesperson Dena Iverson.
Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, wrote on X later Sunday that the former president is in “good spirits.”
“I’m glad President Trump is safe. I spoke to him before the news was public and he was, amazingly, in good spirits,” Vance said.
“He is one of the strongest people I’ve ever known,” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham posted. “He’s in good spirits and he is more resolved than ever to save our country,” the Trump ally wrote.