Major disagreement in the White House about what to do about Ukraine...

 

Biden and his staff. New York Times.

There is a major disagreement between Biden's top General and Biden's other advisors over what to do about the war in Ukraine. New York Times. General Mark Milley is the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and says Ukraine has accomplished all they are likely to accomplish this winter and should negotiate now from a position of relative strength. The other faction says that negotiation would only give Vladimir Putin a chance to regroup. It is unclear what the Biden White House will do but they are sending more military support to Ukraine and have said they are not insisting that Ukraine negotiate. Ukraine, Russia and Europe have expressed confusion over the mixed messaging coming from the White House. Biden appears to be worried about a nascent antiwar movement both here in the United States and abroad, with Republicans in congress becoming more reluctant to send aid to Ukraine. 

My Comment:

I think that General Milley is seeing the same things I am seeing from Ukraine. Yes, Russia has been retreating but they are also inflicting heavy casualties on Ukraine, basically trading territory for lives. They have also done massive amounts of damage to Ukraine's infrastructure to the point people there may freeze to death and/or starve this winter. And there is an absolutely massive buildup of Russian forces the size of which has not been seen in many years. 

The Ukrainians are now at the apex of their power and it would be very wise of them to come to the negotiation table from a position of strength as opposed to waiting until after Russia's offensive happens. Even if they are able to stop Russia's offensive, which would be fairly shocking, they would almost certainly lose territory and lives in the process. Why not preserve that instead? 

The problem is that the military has burned a lot of bridges with Joe Biden and the White House and for once I have to admit that they have a point. The military totally screwed up their intelligence estimates during the withdrawal of Afghanistan and it led to one of the most embarrassing defeats America has seen since the Vietnam War, and may have even exceeded that depending on who you talk to. The military could be right here but they just don't have the credibility anymore. 

Of course, the political advisors don't have much credibility either. They were the ones that said that Russia was going to collapse, both on the battlefield and at home, due to sanctions and support we gave Ukraine. That obviously hasn't happened and I honestly don't think either side of this debate in the White House has any credibility whatsoever. 

I do think there is a real possibility that Russia simply wouldn't respond to a genuine peace effort either. They consider the war in Ukraine to be an existential crisis and to reach a settlement might end up being unacceptable to them. Especially since they have already been burned by negotiations once, famously progress had been made in the peace process but the entire effort was torpedoed by Joe Biden and Boris Johnson. Plus, as I have been saying for awhile now, Russia's efforts in Ukraine are far more effective than is portrayed in western media. I think they probably feel they have a real chance of winning the war still. 

With that being said, I do think that the generals are right, there is never going to be a better time for the Ukrainians to come to the negotiating table and the powers that be in the United States and Europe should plan for peace. If we can avoid the major Russian winter offensive all the better. Tensions are way too high already and Europe is being crushed under sanctions. Plus there is the ever-present but low key danger of a nuclear exchange. 

I have been saying for a long time now that we need to allow our diplomats to get to work. That's what we have them for, to avoid war, but for far too long they have been on the sidelines and not working with Russia. That needs to stop and so does this war. 

Will that happen? I have no idea. I have zero faith in the Biden administration to do the right thing and even if they do, they will likely screw it up horribly (see Afghanistan for a major example of doing the right thing, ending the war, in the worst way possible). I do think that the hawks have a point about Putin not really wanting negotiations to begin so my guess is that an effort to end the war won't come from this White House anytime soon. But the fact that it's even being considered is a slim ray of hope in an extremely dark and depressing time.