Whether you are a staunch supporter of U.S. military aid to Ukraine or skeptical of Ukraine’s importance to America’s national interests, the Biden administration’s chaotic course should sound alarm bells.
The belated decision to deliver F-16 fighters after months of refusals is, after all, merely Biden’s latest reversal.
We initially opposed sending advanced HIMARS missiles until we modified our minds.
Then we opposed the availability of Patriot anti-missile batteries – until we modified our minds.
The identical story applies to Abrams M1 tanks.
The sensible effect of President Joe Biden’s restrained and hesitant policy towards the conflict is to offer enough weapons to maintain Ukraine from losing, but not enough to enable it to defeat Russia on the battlefield and completely drive the Kremlin out of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea.
No doubt, Biden and his team fear a larger-scale war and possibly frightening Russia to make use of nuclear weapons, and hope that sooner or later exhausting each countries will result in a negotiable settlement.
![A United States Air Force F-16 refuels in-flight with a KC-135 Stratotanker during a Red Flag exercise](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NYPICHPDPICT000011394011.jpg?w=1024)
![President Volodymyr Zelensky and Joe Biden](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NYPICHPDPICT000011480675-1.jpg?w=1024)
This can be a legitimate concern, however the uncertain and incremental strategy Biden employs threatens to defeat Ukraine and humiliate the NATO alliance.
“Those that cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it,” goes Santayana’s old saying.
Although the circumstances are different, the Biden administration appears to be intent on repeating the mistakes of our Sixties Vietnam strategy.
The essential mental fallacy was to think that the extent and application of military force might be precisely calibrated to send “signals” to North Vietnam for a negotiated end to the war.
The formal doctrine was called “gradual pressure” and, just like the American attitude towards the Ukraine conflict today, in practice it meant that America would offer enough force to maintain South Vietnam from losing, but would never threaten North Vietnam with actual defeat.
The doctrine assumed that North Vietnamese communists considered the conflict in the identical rational terms as america.
President Lyndon Johnson kept asking woefully, as one senior adviser recalled, “What does Ho Chi Minh want?” as if Ho were the mayor of Chicago who wants to construct five latest post offices.
What Johnson and his war strategists didn’t understand was that North Vietnam was determined to win and was willing to pay a heavy price for it.
![F 16](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NYPICHPDPICT000011393991.jpg?w=1024)
The identical goes for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s determination to subdue Ukraine.
America only supplies Ukraine with weapons, overseen by a handful of military trainers and advisers. So did the early years of Vietnam.
Ultimately, the Vietnam War drew increasing numbers of American troops into direct combat, culminating within the humiliation of america and the demoralization of the Western alliance for a decade.
The prospect of a direct US or NATO military intervention in Ukraine seems distant, but with Bakhmut’s apparent downfall in recent days, it is feasible that the momentum of the war will shift to Russia.
What is going to Biden and NATO leaders determine if Russia gets the upper hand?
Incidentally, certainly one of Johnson’s mistakes because the Vietnam War escalated in its early years was that he did not make a serious speech to the American people in regards to the importance of the war. When he finally did, in 1967, the general public was weary of Vietnam.
![President Volodymyr Zelensky and Joe Biden](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NYPICHPDPICT000011479647-1.jpg?w=1024)
One other telling analogy is that Biden didn’t deliver a serious speech on the importance of Ukraine’s independence or the explanations – and depth – of American involvement.
This might be because Biden would really like our war goals to be ambiguous in order that in case of trouble he can bail out the identical way he did in Afghanistan.
It’s remarkable to ponder the scene where our European allies, often averse to conflict, have a firmer commitment to Ukraine than america, although we supply a lot of the weapons.
“An awesome country,” wrote the eminent British commander, the Duke of Wellington, “can don’t have any such thing as just a little war.”
Even when American soldiers will not be directly involved in combat on the bottom, our practical policy of escalation through higher and higher weapons implies that the Biden administration cannot shirk the reality of Wellington’s axiom.
Steven F. Hayward is a resident scientist on the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley.