WTH: Nukes, Biden's flip and Eastern Ukraine
Our new conversation with Gen. Jack Keane
Three takeaways from our pod with Gen. Jack Keane this week:
Russia is still not winning the war in Ukraine; and Putin is still making the same mistakes he made in Kyiv
U.S. policy has flipped, and the Biden administration seems interested in helping Ukraine genuinely defeat Russia
The right way to address Putin’s nuclear threats is with a strong declaratory policy. Per Gen. Keane: “I would tell Mr. Putin in no uncertain terms that if you use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, you are now at war with the United States, and we're gonna crush your army inside of Ukraine.”*
*H/t to our substack friends at The Liberal Patriot for suggesting a pithy opener. Let us know what you think.
So, is Putin serious about nuclear weapons? We don’t know. Is Joe Biden up to the job of deterring Putin? We don’t know that either. The Biden administration seems better at deterring itself than anyone else. That’s what the President is signaling every time he says we don’t want a “Third World War.” Actually, it’s Vladimir Putin who shouldn’t want a WWIII. No one wants to fight, but we know where we’ll come out. Does he?
We also cover the fight currently raging over Donetsk and Luhansk and the possibility Putin will take the war into Moldova. Weirdly, the Russians appear to have learned few lessons from their failed attempt to take down Kyiv, and continue to operate on four disconnected axes. The same approach was a bust in the first go round, and it’s not clear why Putin believes doing the same thing a second time will work in Ukraine’s east.
Meanwhile, civilians are still in Moscow’s crosshairs, and the images and stories from Mariupol have been devastating. Just because this isn’t on our front pages anymore doesn’t mean that the carnage has ceased. To the contrary, Ukraine deserves continued front page treatment. We’re going to stick with coverage of it on the pod in the coming months. Let us know your thoughts too.
HIGHLIGHTS
Gen. Keane: Certainly we bought into the Russian propaganda, I think, and how they were promoting the 10 year march to professionalize their military. And they've come up short in just about every functional area on the battlefield. But the Ukrainians were just as much a surprise. We knew that they had the will to fight. And we knew that even if the Russians had toppled them as was expected, that they would resist an occupation and organize themselves militarily against that occupation and would fight the Russians for as long as it took to get them off of Ukrainian land. …
Gen. Keane: I was in Ukraine twice just prior to COVID and got to meet a number of their people who now have some responsibilities, and I was strong about that conviction, but what I didn't understand is the skill that they had in addition to the will. And the flexibility of their organizations and the adaptability of it. I mean, these folks display a huge amount of imagination and creativity on the battlefield, and you compare that to the centralized leadership system of the Russians. And once they put an organization in motion, they don't change their plan.
Gen. Keane: [Russians] don't change their plan based on the enemy situation, while the Ukrainians are constantly changing based on what the Russians are doing, and exposing their vulnerabilities and taking advantage of it. Nothing really short of remarkable. I mean, this is a very tough fight in front of the Ukrainians to be sure. The odds probably still favor the Russians because they outgun and outman them. But the fact is, the Ukrainians really do, Marc and Dany, have an opportunity here. There's just no doubt about it. And that's why the support for them, arms and ammunition that they specifically need, is so crucial. And their moral support from the world is also important.
Gen. Keane: Well, the Russians were expected to do better because they're going into the Donbas region, an area where they have been supporting the separatists in at least a third of that region in Luhansk and Donetsk, the independently declared republics since 2014. So they're very familiar with the terrain, which is more open terrain, relatively flat, but not exclusively. There are towns and small villages. But it lends itself to more conventional high-end Russian mobile combined-arms warfare.
And also lends itself to the advantage that the Russians have in terms of their artillery. And by that I mean, a lot of those positions in the Donbas region are fortified positions, because you have to dig into the ground. You can't hide in building structures, which also provide concealment as well as protection. Well, fortified positions are easy to find on the battlefield. Satellites can find them, drones can find them, and artillery can pound them. So, that is something we expected them to do and they are doing just that.
The other thing is that that's the smaller area where they can consolidate their forces in that smaller area, and the Russian supply lines are much closer to the fighting area versus what they were in the northern part. And comparably so, the Ukraine supply lines are significantly greater, particularly with all the US and NATO arms and ammunition that are coming from Poland, and they have to move across the entire swath of the country from the west to the southeast to get to the fighting forces. Put all that together, and the Russians outnumber them, they likely have something of an advantage.
Gen. Keane: But here is what has happened. The Russians again have a very complicated plan to go into the Donbas region. They are literally attacking on four axes, which stunned me. That, and they're not usually supporting axes. Remember, when they began the overall campaign to seize the entirety of Ukraine, they came in on four independent axes. One would've thought they have learned their lesson, but they have not.
And the second thing that has happened, once again the Ukrainians are showing us their adaptability. Not only are they defending in those static positions, but when the opportunity presents themselves, they roll out a mechanized brigade and go forward and engage the Russians, and literally stall them in their place. And certainly they're not expecting anything like that to happen.
Gen. Keane: The concern we have had, Dany and Marc, is the preponderance of their artillery. It is what they're firing every single day against Ukrainian positions that we believe that artillery can grind down that force, gradually attrit them, and also make resupply very difficult in doing so. And that is why the Ukrainians have been asking for artillery.
Gen. Keane: I think getting the Russians out of the territory completely would be pretty tough to do. Stalling the Russian advance is certainly very doable, and that would leave the Russians in control of some of the territory in Southern Ukraine. And I think that is one of the reasons why the Russians are moving, we think, politically.
And maybe these announcements would come on May 9th, and for our audience, that is the day the Russians have celebrated the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. And the thought would be that Putin would claim a victory over Mariupol, despite the fact that there's some soldiers and civilians holed up in the steel plant. They would make, a possibility, move the independent republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, which they haven't completely occupied, more so occupied in Luhansk than Donetsk, and move that to possibly annex those two, much as they did Crimea.
And then also declare Kherson, a city that they have occupied, but the Ukrainians are still fighting against them, but they are occupying it, and declare that as another independent republic. And possibly do much the same in Transnistria, Moldova, where the Russians have had a presence of about 1500 troops and Russian separatist militia in that area for some time. That is not as impactful, certainly, on Ukraine, but it helps to tell the Russian propaganda story about all their successes.
Gen. Keane: The strategic objective I think remains for the Russians in the South, which is to control the South and the Southern coastline, and the cities and towns along that. And most importantly the ports, which would deny the Ukrainians particularly the opportunity to export all of their agricultural systems. As you know, they are one of the world's leading agricultural countries, and much of their economy is very dependent on their exports internationally.
Gen. Keane: [T]he Biden administration clearly turned the page after a couple of weeks of not having a clear objective of what we were doing in Ukraine to begin with, and not giving them the weapons they were asking for almost from the beginning… [T]hey are now talking about supporting Zelensky's desire for victory, to crush the Russian military inside of Ukraine, and attempting to give him all the weapons that he possibly needs. And I was also told that the Secretary of Defense for the seven to 10 days leading up to the last meeting, when they, both of them went to see Zelensky in Kyiv, they were personally working through the Ukraine's list with their counterparts.
Gen. Keane: I maintain the view that if you can crush the Russian army in Ukraine, what better deterrent is there than that in terms of protecting NATO from some near-term advance by the Russian military on a NATO nation, which obviously Putin has stated is one of his objectives.
Gen. Keane: They've also have done some saber-rattling about strategic nuclear weapons, which is just off the charts irresponsible and something we're not used to hearing since the inception of the Soviet Union and United States having these weapons, to that degree and that degree of irresponsibility.
But I mean, for our audience to understand, the United States has got an effective strategic deterrence when it comes to strategic weapons. And in our triad, that consists of submarine launch, ballistic missiles, intercontinental ballistic missiles that are in silos out West and are ready to go, and bombers that can take nuclear bombs and drop them. Those are not ready to go. They're not on alert, but they can be brought up to alert status based on a conflict.
And he's brandishing tactical nuclear weapons, but we have to take it seriously. We don't really know what's in Mr. Putin's mind. And we don't know what's contaminating that mind if there is anything else. Most people, when looking at Putin in the past, knew he was ruthless, knew he was brutal, Chechnya, Syria, Aleppo, Idlib Province.
Gen. Keane: We have plenty of evidence how ruthless and brutal he is, and also how much of a chess player he is in trying to deal with people who believe are weak, but we've always ascribed to him a certain degree of rationality. And this seems to be something that is clearly at high risk.
Jack Keane: Well, in my mind, the way to deal with that issue is recognize that he's just changed the event. I'm not suggesting that we have to respond with a tactical nuke ourselves, but I would tell Mr. Putin in no uncertain terms that if you use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, you are now at war with the United States, and we're gonna crush your army inside of Ukraine. And that risk will be some of your other assets, your Black Sea maritime force and your Mediterranean force, to include your three bases in Syria. All of that will be at risk and you, Mr. Putin, are doing this 'cause you are expanding the war by using the first tactical nuclear weapon in the history of mankind, and we're not gonna stand for it.
Gen. Keane: [O]ne thing we do know, is reported in the media that the National Security Council under leadership of Jake Sullivan has put together this task force Tiger, which is a whole of government task force to deal with what would be the United States' response and a suggested response from NATO if Russia introduced WMD, the chemical weapons or tactical nuclear weapons inside of Ukraine. So, obviously, it's got the attention of the administration. They're working through a number of options in how to deal with that. But I don't like ... I don't think their public rhetoric on this is as strong as it should be.
Gen. Keane: When I look at Putin, 22 years in power, number one objective, like everybody who’s an authoritarian dictator, is to stay in power. He's determined to do that. His popularity rating was in the low 60s, which for him is significant. An American politician would love to have that. But it rose into the mid 80s as the result of this campaign that's going on and it's still high because the Russian people are buying into the false narrative that this is a limited military operation to put down the Nazi genocide that the Ukrainians are committing against Russian-speaking people.
Gen. Keane: I believe that I part with ISW a little bit here; that I think Putin, in the long run, has never given up, is not giving up the political objective to topple the government in Ukraine. Not necessary to occupy that whole country but to force that government out of power . I don't think he's given that up, although militarily it's not achievable for the time being. I think he's bound and determined to stay in power, to accomplish that objective, and I've given up on discounting Mr. Putin.
Find the full transcript here.
No shownotes this week.