Biden’s Secrecy on Allowing Ukraine to Strike Russia Is Dangerous
“I will be crystal clear — there’s been no change to our policy,” Deputy Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said on Thursday, when asked if they were allowing Ukraine to strike targets within Russia.
It is anything but clear, given that the Pentagon’s position contradicts widespread reporting that President Joe Biden secretly authorized Ukraine to strike targets inside Russia with U.S. weapons. When it comes to confrontation between nuclear superpowers, clarity would seem to be important! But it’s been in short supply, not just on the Pentagon’s Thursday press briefing, but in previous statements as well.
“We have been clear about providing Ukraine the ability to defend its sovereign territory,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said during a May press conference. But things quickly became less clear in his next couple sentences:
“The dynamics of an aerial engagement, I’d leave it up to the experts, but certainly our expectation is that they continue to use the weapons that we’ve provided on targets inside of Ukraine. Now the aerial dynamic’s a little bit different. Don’t want to speculate on any type of engagement here at the podium.”
What?
Picking up on the ambiguity, a reporter asked: “But you’re saying it’s off limits or not off-limits?” — but Austin did not respond.
How’s that for clarity?
There are several reasons I’m harping on this. For one, there are arguments for and against permitting Ukraine to use U.S. arms to strike within Russia, but the debate can’t even take place if the public isn’t informed that a policy change is being considered. Secondly, miscommunication between militaries is a recipe for miscalculation and potential catastrophe.
The U.S. intelligence community’s annual threat assessment singled out “Ukrainian strikes within Russia” as a factor that “continues to drive concerns that Putin might use nuclear weapons.”
These concerns are not unfounded. In May, Russia for the first time announced tactical nuclear weapon drills in response to a statement by the U.K.’s foreign minister that Ukraine will be able to target inside Russia with British-supplied long range weapons.
Russian nuclear doctrine allows its president to authorize the use of nuclear weapons in situations in which ballistic missiles are launched against Russian territory.
That’s why clarity matters. When the Biden administration offers vague hints that Ukraine is allowed to use U.S. arms on targets within Russia, that could mean anything, from small-scale artillery fire on a military installation to a ballistic missile attack on the Kremlin. Without specifying the former, speculation can run rampant about the latter — speculation that the Kremlin is watching. Russian state media organ TASS has issued a steady drumbeat of articles based on reporting in the U.S. media on the policy change.
"This is no military assistance, this is participation in a war against us,” Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council said of the U.S. policy change on Friday. “And such actions could well become a casus belli [act that provokes a war].”
That same day, Secretary of State Antony Blinken finally acknowledged the administration’s policy change during a press conference in Prague.
“Over the past few weeks Ukraine came to us and asked for the authorization to use weapons that we’re providing to defend against this aggression, including against Russian forces that are massing on the Russian side of the border, and then attacking into Ukraine,” Blinken said. “And that went right to the President, and as you heard, he’s approved the use of our weapons for that purpose.”
But while Blinken confirmed the policy change, he failed to clarify some crucial details that only trickled out in subsequent news reports:
Short-range weapons like HIMARS rocket artillery would be authorized
Strikes will focus on Russian military locations near the border
Long-range weapons like ATACMS [ballistic missiles] are not authorized
That the new policy excludes ballistic missiles — something specifically referenced in Russian military doctrine — would seem to be worth publicly articulating! But I guess that goes against the reflexive secrecy of the national security community, which endangers us all.
"Secrecy" is an interesting term to describe what they are doing here. I'd suggest obfuscation is a better one give that most of the mainstream reporting is likely due to authorized leaks, presumably of information that's considered classified, to shape a narrative.
Also this was amusing:
“The dynamics of an aerial engagement, I’d leave it up to the experts"
Presumably the Secretary of Defense, a retired United States Army four-star general who had to obtain special Congressional waiver for his nomination, is not considered an expert here.
As you say, secrecy is a reflexive instinct in organizations like the security establishment. As with levee banks, it makes life easier most of the time, but rare and catastrophic failures outweigh this.