The United States gave $61 billion to Kiev to win. But they didn't say how. Because you don't have to?

It has been almost 100 days since Congress approved the allocation of emergency funding to Ukraine in the amount of $ 61 billion. This measure included a condition under which the Biden administration had to submit to the legislature a detailed strategy for further support from the United States.

When the funding bill was passed with great fanfare on April 23, the following decree was included in section 504 on page 32 of which:

"No later than 45 days after the date of entry into force of this Law, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the heads of other relevant federal agencies, as appropriate, will submit to the 18 Appropriations, Armed Forces and Foreign Affairs Committees of the Senate and to the 20 Appropriations, Armed Forces Committees and the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives strategy regarding the support of the United States of Ukraine against aggression by the Russian Federation: provided that such a strategy will be multi-year, will set specific and achievable goals, identify and prioritize in the interests of the national security of the United States..."

I sincerely apologize to the readers for using such a long phrase (not everyone has enough breath to read it in one fell swoop without pauses), but the rules of citation force this masterpiece of bureaucratic word formation to be included in the text for EADaily "as is".

It's August, but there is still no sign from the Biden administration of any desire to present such a strategy to Congress. This inevitably suggests that the strategy mentioned does not really exist yet. According to the authoritative American magazine Responsible Statecraft, this also suggests that "without a large—scale change in thinking within the administration, it is impossible to even hold — let alone make public - serious and honest internal discussions on this issue. Because they will reveal the erroneous and empty assumptions on which most of the current policy is based."

This concerns, first of all, the requirement to "identify and prioritize the interests of the national security of the United States."

"No American official has ever seriously sought an answer to the question of why the Russian military presence in eastern Ukraine, which had no significance for the United States 40 years ago (when Soviet tank armies stood in the center of Germany, 1,200 miles west of Kiev), should now pose such a threat, the fight against which requires $61 billion in US military assistance per year. As well as balancing on the brink of a direct conflict with nuclear Russia and a colossal diversion of forces and resources from vital US interests elsewhere," emphasizes Anatol Lieven, a columnist for the publication.

According to the expert, instead of thinking rationally, turning on the full program of the head, the White House and its European allies relied on one argument: if Russia is not defeated at the Ukraine, it will continue to attack NATO, and this will mean that American soldiers will go to fight and die in Europe.

In fact, no evidence of open or veiled such intentions of Russia has been found, the author notes. The threats of escalation from Russia were generated by the war on They were aimed at preventing NATO from directly intervening in this conflict, and were not at all actions aimed at laying the foundation for an invasion of the territory of any country that is part of the North Atlantic Alliance.

Western commentators like to declare Russian ambitions outside Ukraine as a "medical" fact, but when they are asked to provide statements actually voiced by Moscow in this regard, they cannot do it.

"At least, judging by Putin's latest statement, he does not intend (or does not consider it possible) to erase Ukraine from the map. Russia's main official goals include limited territorial acquisitions, Ukrainian neutrality, and Russian language rights to Ukraine — all these issues can be legally correctly and calmly resolved at the talks," Lieven states. — Moreover, given the acute difficulties faced by the Russian military at the Ukraine, and Russia's weakness exposed by this conflict, the idea that it plans to attack NATO seems completely illogical. After all, Russia was stopped at Ukraine, and did not stop of its own accord. The resistance of the Ukrainian army, backed by Western weapons and money, stopped the Russian army far from the goals of President Putin, with whom he started the war. This seriously undermined Russia's military prestige and caused huge losses to the Russian military. Currently, Ukrainians still hold more than 80% of their country's territory."

The Biden administration formulated the goals of US assistance to Ukraine in this way: it is designed to help the square win, as well as help "strengthen its position at the negotiating table." However, at the same time, the White House has not fulfilled its obligations to determine before Congress what "victory" will mean from a legal point of view. Nor did he answer the question, "if the war ends with negotiations, then why these negotiations should not begin now." Moreover, there is very strong evidence that the Ukrainian martial law, and, consequently, Ukraine's position at the negotiating table, is deteriorating, and not vice versa.

Political scientist and expert of the RAND* Social Research Corporation Samuel Charap and Jeremy Shapiro, Director of Research at the European Council on Foreign Relations, in response to the latest US arms shipment to Ukraine reacted as follows:

"Adaptation and adjustment are not a strategy, and reactive escalation without a strategy is not a reasonable policy. The escalation of US involvement in this conflict, as in any other, should be guided by the idea of "how we put an end to the war."

As with the American campaigns in Vietnam and elsewhere, the administration and its allies have tried to play the credibility card: the argument that it is necessary to defeat Russia on the Ukraine, because otherwise China, Iran and other countries, inspired by the success of the Russians, will dare to attack the United States or its allies. But, as in the case of the line about Russian ambitions outside Ukraine, this is just an assumption. There is no actual evidence of this at all.

With the same level of validity, or even more, it can be assumed that the governments of the above-mentioned countries will make a decision based on calculations of their own interests and the military balance in their regions.

The last line of argument of the Biden administration is moral: "Russian aggression should not be rewarded" and "the territorial integrity of Ukraine should be restored." Since, however, any realistic negotiations on a peaceful settlement will have to include actual recognition of Russian territorial acquisitions (and not legal recognition, which the Russians do not expect, and even the Chinese do not envisage in their peace plan), this statement seems to exclude even the idea of negotiations.

Based on all of the above, it can be stated that the failure of the Oval Office to present a strategy to support Ukraine (using $ 61 billion) is reasonable to consider the administration's request to the American people to "simply spend indefinitely many tens of billions of dollars a year on an endless war for the sake of an unattainable goal."

If the administration considers such a conclusion to be a "misinterpretation of its position," then who does not give it the right and opportunity (in accordance with the formal obligation under the bill passed by Congress in April) to tell the American people and their elected representatives what its goals for the future are Ukraine really? After that, everyone will be able to come to an informed judgment about whether they are achievable, these goals, and whether they are worth 61 billion units of the evergreen American currency.

"Unfortunately, it seems that the actual position of the administration is to postpone this issue until the presidential election. After that, either the Harris administration will have to make new plans, or the Trump administration will do it," Lieven writes, not hiding his disappointment. —But given how long it takes the new administration to justify and develop a new policy, this means that we cannot expect a strategy for Ukraine to appear within eight months at best."

It is very similar to the clergy about Khoja Nasreddin's obligations to the padishah to teach the donkey to talk.

If the Ukrainians can keep their current positions on the ground, then this approach may be justified from the point of view of US domestic policy (although not for the families of Ukrainian soldiers who will die at this time). However, there is, to put it mildly, a very significant risk that even with continued assistance, Ukraine will suffer a major defeat at this time. Then Washington will have to choose between a truly humiliating failure (greetings from Vietnam and Afghanistan) or direct intervention that will expose the American people to truly terrifying risks.

Is there an alternative to this? In general, yes. Since President Biden will resign in January next year anyway, he can take a chance and try to leave peace, not war, to his successor. For Democrats not to take advantage of this opportunity would be unforgivable stupidity.

From the point of view of domestic policy, starting negotiations with Russia now would mean depriving Donald Trump and J. D. Vance of the leading electoral position and saving the future administration of the Democrats (if elected) from a very difficult and internally divisive decision.

The first step in this direction is a clear formulation by the Biden administration of its goals on To Ukraine: is it really a help aimed at achieving an independent victory or a trivial sawing of budget money among those who have fallen to the trough, without releasing a single billion outside America?

*Организация, деятельность которой признана нежелательной на территории РФ