WTH does Ukraine need to win
Rep. Jimmy Panetta on Congress > White House, how China sees things & begging Iran for help
As the Ukrainian people continued to fend off assaults from the Russian Army, debate in Washington turned to the question of doing more. Congressman Jimmy Panetta — senior Democrat on House Armed Services and Ways and Means) joined the podcast to talk about those MiG aircraft, why Congress has led and the White House has followed, and what he thinks about shopping for oil in Venezuela and Saudi Arabia (not much).
For those who tuned into Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s impassioned address to Congress on Wednesday, the message couldn’t have been clearer: Do more for us, do it faster, give us the tools to defend ourselves. In an ideal world, there would have been a few blushing administration officials from Team Biden — the selfsame ones who decided in December not to send military trainers to Ukraine, the President himself, who reportedly personally vetoed giving the Ukrainians the MiG jets the Poles offered up — but apparently, the National Security Council is more preoccupied with “provoking” Putin and less preoccupied with assisting a Ukrainian victory.
The fact that the Biden Administration announced a new package of military support in the wake of Zelensky’s speech is nothing other than a lagging indicator of powerful public opinion in support of Ukraine. Without pressure, it seems safe to say that the White House wouldn’t have sanctioned Russian oil, supported SWIFT sanctions, denied Russia favored trading terms or armed the Ukrainians in a decisive fashion. As usual, the American people — and Democrats and Republicans in Congress — are more compassionate, more strategic, and more in tune with the imperative of defeating a bully like Putin, for once and for all.
The lesson here? Weakness is provocative: Let Putin take Crimea, and he’ll want more. Let Iran support terrorism, and they’ll kill more. Allow Xi Jinping to intimidate Taiwan and… Look for an upcoming pod on this very topic.
HIGHLIGHTS
Rep. Panetta: Obviously, these are things that we need, we're going to continue to have to do, because I do not believe that this will be a short war. This will be a war of attrition, if you ask me, and therefore we need to make it clear that we are going to be right there. Our role in Congress is to ensure that we are right there.
Rep. Panetta: Now, obviously we want to do everything we can, as I said earlier, to support Ukraine and not go to war with Russia. I cannot stress that enough. What do you do to deter Russia and defend Ukraine? What can you do? Well, I think we definitely have to ensure that what we continue to go down the path of what we can do in Congress. Sanctions, oil embargo, making sure that they're removed from the most favored nation, PNTR, doing those proper things that we have our role in Congress.
Rep. Panetta: [Regarding the Polish MiGs] Now, I think a key to this, a linchpin is this Mig debacle…. Okay. In doing the research that I did on this, it seemed that this was something where the EU and the Polish government got out ahead of the United States with those announcements, that the deal, "This is the deal we're going to do. Then we're just going to give the planes to America to give to Ukraine." That didn't sit well with an administration, who's doing everything it's can to not escalate this. They felt it was escalatory. Then they balanced that with the armaments that we are giving them from the Javelins, from the...
Rep. Panetta: Stingers, from the new one I talked about. the Star Streaker, which is basically longer, more accurate and faster to take down planes that are go beyond the stinger and the Javelin range. It's that type of continued effort that I think we need to do. Now with the MiGS, we can do that. We should still do that, but it probably shouldn't be in public like it was. Do it behind the scenes, make sure that the negotiations and discussions are behind the scenes … Let's negotiate. Let's communicate a little bit better, which I think is a lesson learned for us going forward in this war to make sure that all of our allies are on the same page.
Rep. Panetta: I do believe that this administration needs to understand that Poland is a linchpin to this war… Poland is not just on the frontline. It's literally at the tip of the spear, because you are going to have all of the armaments, all of the fighters who are coming into Ukraine, where they going to flow through? They're going to flow through Poland…. I'm not here to defend the Biden administration. I didn't know what they did, but I know what they were thinking, but I do believe that they, based on the research that I've done, that they [transferring the MiGs] was escalatory… Then they did the balance of, "Well, we got all these other armaments going in there as well," and that was their excuse for not doing it. But like I said, I cannot stress this enough, they need to push this forward and they need to provide them with those MiGS.
Rep. Panetta: They did a great job right up to [the beginning of the war]… and then I felt like they're kind of still finding their way through the invasion. Look, I saw it this week in Congress. I'm on the Ways and Means committee. We came out strong for an oil embargo. Next thing you know, they backed off it and then they did it their own through executive action.
Rep. Panetta: We came out strong through for removing them from the most favored nation status. The administration pushed back on us and said, "Don't do it. What we'd rather do is lower the tariffs of all the other countries and basically keep the tariffs high for Russia." It's like, why? It just doesn't make sense. Why not? Then next thing you know, they come out and say, "Oh no, we're for … removing them from MPT." I just think it's, there's a plodding along that's happening at this point, that hopefully it gets better, because like I said, this isn't going away anytime soon. I just think it's finding your footing in this time of war, which can be foggy, not just in Ukraine, but sometimes in our own country.
Rep. Panetta: I think [Putin,] his only way out is up, is escalation at this point. I think the Biden administration is mindful of that and very worried about that as they should be. You heard the President say … we've talked about the no fly zone. What that means, that is essentially is an act of war. I think basically with that they, and the potential chance for miscalculation and leading to an ultimately conflict with the U.S., with NATO, a nuclear war. That's why they're trying to be very careful about that …
Rep. Panetta: Trust me, you'd love to say, basically go in there and punch Putin right in the face, especially after what we've been hearing about the Russian military and how feeble they're turning out to be. These decisions that this administration's going to have to make, trust me… Hopefully they're already thinking this through, but at this point, what we're seeing from the Ukrainian people, is like I said in the beginning of this interview, this is a war of attrition. Therefore, this is going to be an insurgency.
Rep. Panetta: … this will be a Charlie Wilson's war too. I believe it has to be, because like I said, these Ukrainians, no matter if they surround Kyiv, no matter what type of devastation they're facing right now, they're fighting. They're not giving up and we should do everything we can to support them.
Rep. Panetta: [On China’s response to the war:] I do believe they're watching very closely, but at the same time, considering the economics of this and watching the ruble be crumpled and the Russian economy be completely crippled, they're taking that into account, and they're kind of recalculating, "We got $3 trillion out there in these banks that we could be cut off from."
Rep. Panetta: Yeah, look, I think when it comes to, [Taiwan] … Whether or not we do strategic ambiguity or strategic clarity, I don't think that's necessarily the question. I think the question, is not necessarily about Chinese restraint, it's about the United States readiness. Therefore, it's not necessarily about the U.S. resolve. I think we know what we'd do. The president said what we'd do, it's about our readiness and therefore, what have we done to your point, to continue to be ready for the potential of this type of invasion, that we do see as inevitably going to happen?
Rep. Panetta: The strings need to be pulled on this a little bit more. Looking at the people of Ukraine with the people of Taiwan, have the same response and looking at their, "reserve system," which is conscription. But it's four months a year, in which what I've read, people are basically spending their time raking leaves and removing spare tires. They've gotten to a point where they've called some of them strawberry soldiers, because, … young men who have been sheltered by their parents and bruise easily.
Rep. Panetta: [The Taiwanese], they're upping [reserve duty[ a little bit more." Well, that means that they're going to be doing two weeks a year and then they may have some shooting, more shooting involved in their initial conscription training of that four months. I think there needs to be more because I think, you know what they're starting to say now is, "Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow."
Rep. Panetta: But there's also this attitude of, "Well, the U.S. is going to come to our aid. Do we need to fight? I'd like to hear a little bit more about the will of the Taiwanese and where they're at in regards to if something like this happens, are they willing to put up the fight quick enough to where then we can come in? Because as we know, it's going to take time. There's going to be this initial barrage. It's going to be cyber missiles, embargoes, the frontline islands, but then they still got to traverse the rough seas and deal with the rugged coastline, deal with the mountainous terrain. Are they going to take advantage of that? Are the people of Taiwan going to take advantage of that? Like you're seeing in Ukraine and that fortitude from the Ukraine.
Rep. Panetta: [On gas prices:] Prices aren't determined by what's goes on in the United States. It's determined by what's going on in the world. That's what we're dealing with right now. I know as much as you like to blame the Biden administration for a lot of things, I would have to push back and say there's a lot more that you need to take into account, besides just the way they're dealing with the production of our oil of our fossil fuels.
Marc: The president is pushing for OPEC and for Saudi Arabia to increase production, to reduce gas prices.
Dany: And Venezuela.
Marc: Would it be helpful in that and apparently the Saudis would not take his phone call, which is quite an embarrassing moment for America for the leader of Saudi Arabia would not even take a phone call from the president. Would they be more amenable to increasing production, if we weren't in the process of trying to get a new Iran deal?
Rep. Panetta: The SPRO, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. I think that's something that they're trying to do. I disagree with them negotiating with Venezuela or looking at Iran to basically increase the oil output, the global output. I think that's something that they should not do. I think that's actually kind of embarrassing that they were doing that to be frank. I would hope that there are other avenues that they can do.
Rep. Panetta: [On bipartisanship:] Let me tell you, that's one thing that I tried to express, that there are Democrats and Republicans that are not there in Washington, DC to yell and scream. There are Democrats and Republicans, for the most part, that are there to actually govern. To me, that's one of the best parts about the job, are the people I work with on both sides of the aisle, that understand what it means to represent their constituency by getting stuff done.
Find the whole transcript here…
SHOWNOTES:
We’re keeping up with the news on Ukraine through updates at the Institute for the Study of War, the great twitter reporting from the Kyiv Independent and its staff, and on the ground updates from our frequent guest Yaroslav Trofimov of the Wall Street Journal.