Whither the offensive? Raise, call, or fold?

The Ukrainian spring offensive looks underwhelming. The US has options. Just not good ones.

Much ink has been spilt about the strengths and weakness of the armies fighting in Ukraine.  And, until the NYT Leak, there was a wide divergence in the assessments between the pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian/pro-western factions.  Thankfully, now there is a broad agreement that Ukraine in general and the Ukrainian offensive in particular are in a dicey situation.  Should this last ditch, Hail Mary pass of an offensive go pear-shaped then the Ukrainian army is going to be on the ropes.  And now, everyone knows.

The question is not what follows, but rather what the US can do about it.  Let's exhaust the possibilities.  The US could negotiate a cease-fire, a Minsk III, and follow it up with either a negotiated peace or a rearming period and a resumption of hostilities.  The Ukrainians could decide (obviously Kiev is sovereign actor and not a sock puppet for the long arm of the US) to launch the offensive, come what may, or cancel it and remain on defense while western support continues to trickle in.  Or the US could cut its losses and let Russia achieve its objectives.  Upping the ante a little, Poland and maybe Romania could join the war to assist Ukraine either jointly with a delayed offensive or after as a second wave.  And lastly, the US could go all in and send NATO forces into the fray.

Minsk III is a nonstarter for a variety of reasons.  None of the parties are currently interested in a cease-fire.  The US might change its mind in the wake of a failed offensive but Ukraine can't.  The right wing elements in the Ukrainian army simply won't allow it.  Dmytro Yarosh put it succinctly a week after Zelensky was elected on a platform of eliminating corruption and making peace in the Donbass. Zelensky said that he was willing to lose ratings, popularity, and his position to end the conflict.

Zelenskyy said in his inaugural speech that he was ready to lose ratings, popularity, position.... No, he would lose his life. He will hang on some tree on Khreshchatyk—if he betrays Ukraine and those people who died in the Revolution and the War.

That was 2019, before the war, since the Russians invaded the right-wing nationalists are both stronger and more entrenched.  Even if Zelensky had western support to rebuff the Banderites the Russians would not agree to it.

The Russians are no longer willing to believe that the west is a legitimate negotiating partner.  Russian diplomats coined the phrase недоговороспособны, which means unable to negotiate or not agreement capable, to describe the US, hat tip to the Saker. This word does not merely imply that the US is untrustworthy or negotiating in bad faith.  It means that the US lacks the ability to negotiate in good faith.  This was back in 2016 and referred to a cease-fire in Syria negotiated by Kerry and Lavrov that the US promptly violated for no apparent reason.  It was reinforced just before the invasion in a Russian Security Council meeting on February 21^st 2022 when Dmitry Kozak explained to Putin that Kiev and the west were openly lying in talks to implement the Minsk agreements.  And cemented firmly in place when Putin's counterparties in Minsk agreements, Angela Merkel, François Hollande, and Petro Poroshenko all confided to the western press that the agreements were a ruse and only served as a means to buy time to arm Ukraine.  Russia will either achieve its objectives or be defeated.  A negotiated cease-fire just isn't in the cards.

That leaves military options on the table.  The simplest of which is to walk away from the table.  The US could decide that Ukraine is a money pit in the middle of a muddy morass in Asia, and one should never get involved in a land war in Asia.  It is, after all, foremost amongst the classic blunders.  I consider this unlikely, at least in the near term.  A trump victory in 2024 could do it.  And the republicans in the House might refuse to approve the budget for it but the fiscal fight in congress won't come to a head until this summer.  In the meantime, the Biden administration would have to choose to abandon Ukraine to its fate and there is no indication of that.

It would also be an admission of defeat for US hegemony.  The US went to a lot of trouble to regime change Kiev into a Russian adversary and more trouble still to arm Ukraine and coercing Kiev into bombing the Donbass hard enough to provoke a Russian intervention must not have been an easy sell.  There was a brief period of time in the 1990s when it looked like Russia might lie down and submit to US dominance, but Putin put a stop to that.  A resurgent Russia is a thorn in the US's side.  A Russian Partnership with a resurgent China is serious challenge to US hegemony.  Their leadership in successful international organizations like the BRICS and the SCO is an existential threat.  Letting Russia win would be the watershed moment when the whole world comes to realize that the game is up.

If the US is committed to playing things out in Ukraine then there are two basic options.  Continuing the game in its current form or raising the stakes with foreign troops.  In its current form the choices are to launch an offensive or to stay on defense.  The leak has resulted in a lot of MSM coverage of how precarious the Ukrainian situation is.  The Air Defenses are almost out of missiles and artillery shells are running low and limited by current production constraints in the west.  The coverage has also greatly reduced the expectations for what a spring offensive could realistically achieve.

Launching the offensive now, or in the near future, is a very risky gamble.  It appears to be underpowered to make real gains against entrenched Russian positions and expending forces to take territory that provides anything short of a decisive tactical advantage just leaves the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) open to a response from Russian Forces (RF).  I consider this option to be unlikely.  The leak gives political cover to cancel or delay the offensive.  I want to believe that somewhere deep in the bowels of the US Military Industrial Complex there are still some realists left with enough sense to realize that an offensive is a bad idea and that there are still some pragmatists in the Biden administration with the political savvy to know that a failure of this magnitude could cost them and their party dearly.  I want to believe that somewhere there is still a man behind the curtain with some brains.  But it is an open question how deep the rot has gone.  There are clear signs that much of what passes for leadership in the US has committed the unforgivable sin of believing its own propaganda and it could turn out to be turtles all the way down.  If that is the case, then expect a doomed offensive in the coming weeks.

Delaying or canceling is a much saner strategy.  The fighting along the line of contact has been a grueling slog for both parties.  Bakhmut/Artemovsk alone has taken months and the RF could easily take well into 2024 to claim the rest of the Donbass if the AFU reserves for the offensive are put on defense.  That would give the west time to ramp up military production to something closer to the levels required for this war, or for the war that the US is forecasting with China in the coming years.

But let's be honest, sanity hasn't been the US's strong suit for a while now.  I suspect that the US has realized that Russia is going to win unless something changes.  And the only thing that has a chance of changing that outcome is escalation.  So, I suspect that some western forces will be entering the conflict, probably this summer.  For a limited escalation Poland is the obvious choice.  For a less limited escalation Poland and Romania.  At the high end of the escalation scale the US enters the conflict and brings along all of NATO.

I don't think that it would be inaccurate to say that Poland is actively considering sending troops to Ukraine.  Naked Capitalism has a good round up of the trial balloons being floated.

Warsaw has current and historical interest in Ukraine and one of the deepest animosities with Russia in all of NATO.  I suspect that some version of Polish entry is the most likely outcome.  There are two realistic variants.  The offensive could be delayed until Poland is ready and launched by joint Ukrainian and Polish forces.  Or Poland could go into western Ukraine to hold the rear, possibly up to the right bank of the Dnieper River.

Poland does have a real army, but it is both untested and fairly small compared to Russia's.  For more firepower the US could add Romania and roughly double the Polish forces.  Romania has not been sending up trial balloons, but it does have some interests in Ukraine and Moldova.  I don't consider this particularly likely.  It has been mentioned by a couple of analysts as a possibility but there hasn't been much in the way of corroborating signs.  But were either the Polish army or the Romanian and Polish armies to enter the conflict, then Russia would move closer to a full war economy, call up more reserves, and increase the current levels of conscription.

Lastly, the truly terrifying possibility, NATO vs Russia.  So far, the US and its vassals in NATO have pulled out all the stops to fight Russia save one.  Sending in troops.  A direct conflict between Russia and the US greatly increases the risks of nuclear war.  That is precisely why it never happened in the cold war.  But these are crazy times.  The US might decide that it is the only thing that can keep the US at the top of the food chain.  For this to happen there would have to be some kind of 'big event,' something akin to Pearl Harbor or 9/11, a chemical, nuclear, or biological false flag would probably do the trick as would a Russian ‘attack’ on NATO forces.  I don't have a probability assessment for this possibility.

It's one of those immovable object versus unstoppable force questions.  The US can't let Russia win.  If Russia wins then the US loses its control over most of the world and the wealth that goes with it.  If Russia wins then the 5% of the world's population that lives in the US will have to get by on something closer to 5% of the world's resources and manufactured goods.  This is utterly unacceptable for the movers and shakers in the US.  Not only would the US lose its supremacy, but the ensuing downgrade of its debt, loss of reserve currency, revolt of its vassals everywhere, and all that those things entail would cause a collapse in the US roughly comparable to the collapse of the Soviet Union.  These United States might even cease to be united.

But the US can't beat Russia with anything short of all of NATO.  Even with all of NATO the Russians have shorter supply lines, much greater levels of military production, and a big head start in the mobilization department.  And, if it actually came to a US-Russia war then China would get off the fence and back Russia to the hilt.  Knowing, as it does, that should Russia lose China would be the next target.

That said, the NYT Leak is an excellent setup for a 'big event,' and Germany is hosting Air Defender 2023 in June, the biggest air exercise in NATO history.  It would be a fine time for a Ukrainian offensive that had been delayed until June to 'provoke' Russia into a 'big event.'  Lastly, the US had a begrudging respect for the USSR that it does not have for Russia.  It is by no means certain that the US will try to avoid this contingency. I sincerely hope that this is just a wild delusion and not an accurate insight, but time will tell.