Belated Loosening of Restrictions on Ukraine Leaves World Stumbling Towards Greater Danger

Ukrainians may be too exhausted to benefit from the new rules.

It's sometimes possible to forget in a chaotic world, but Russia's invasion of Ukraine drags on, as does Ukraine's defense against its aggressor. Overlooking that ongoing and bloody conflict is unfortunate since recent developments have heightened tensions between Russia and its allies on the one hand, and the U.S. and NATO on the other. Not least of these developments is the exiting Biden administration's belated decision to let Ukraine use American missiles against targets in Russia—leaving an exhausted Ukraine, the new Trump administration, and the world to deal with the consequences.

Escalation After Escalation

"President Biden has authorized the first use of U.S.-supplied long-range missiles by Ukraine for strikes inside Russia," Adam Entous, Eric Schmitt, and Julian E. Barnes of The New York Times reported last week. "The weapons are likely to be initially employed against Russian and North Korean troops in defense of Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region of western Russia, the officials said."

The U.S. is also providing previously withheld antipersonnel mines.

The mention of North Korean troops refers to a prior escalation as North Korea dispatched thousands of combat troops to Russia to assist its ally's war of aggression. Ukraine promptly took advantage of the loosened reins by striking a Russian military base with U.S.-made ATACMS missiles. Russia then upped the ante again with use of a nuclear-capable ballistic missile, threats to actually use nuclear weapons, and indications that it might strike an American military base in Poland. That last would be an explicit attack on NATO and require response by all its members.

Which is to say that the nasty, grinding, two-and-a-half-year-old invasion of Ukraine not only shows no end in sight but appears on the verge of spreading. And it's heating up at a time when the United States is in the process of transition from a lame-duck president of questionable mental capacity to a new administration which won't take office until January.

Belated Permission To Strike Back

Part of this timing can be laid on the Biden administration. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, that country's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other officials have begged for weapons and—as important—permission to use them as they see necessary. Instead, the U.S. and other western nations have selectively supplied arms, with hobbling restrictions on how and where they can be used.

"Mr Zelensky's frustration is understandable," The Economist observed in September. "In international law, the right of self-defence allows strikes on positions from which the aggressor's attacks are launched or enabled." The Economist added, "the real reason for Mr Biden's reluctance is almost certainly fear of Russian escalation. Yet so many supposed Russian red lines have been crossed that Mr Putin's warnings have lost much of their power."

The result has been that Russia has largely been able to use threats of escalation and even of attacks on the West to define the terms by which Ukraine gets to defend itself. That's guaranteed a war that drags on, in which Ukrainians are encouraged to continue fighting but not allowed the means to do their best.

Nobody To Manage the Crisis

To finally loosen restrictions now that badly aging Joe Biden's chosen successor, Vice President Kamala Harris, has lost the election and the federal establishment is preparing for new civilian leadership and different policies, is bizarre. It feeds heightened international tensions when America is in a poor position to manage a new (or growing) crisis.

That leaves Europe and the rest of NATO to handle the conflict on its eastern border. The rest of NATO, to put it mildly, isn't really up to the job.

"The British military—the leading U.S. military ally and Europe's biggest defense spender—has only around 150 deployable tanks and perhaps a dozen serviceable long-range artillery pieces," Max Colchester, David Luhnow, and Bojan Pancevski of The Wall Street Journal reported last December. "France, the next biggest spender, has fewer than 90 heavy artillery pieces, equivalent to what Russia loses roughly every month on the Ukraine battlefield. Denmark has no heavy artillery, submarines or air-defense systems. Germany's army has enough ammunition for two days of battle."

NATO leadership is well aware of this problem, noting last month that "the combined wealth of the non-US Allies, measured in GDP, is almost equal to that of the United States. However, non-US Allies together spend less than half of what the United States spends on defence."

President-elect Donald Trump has made an issue of this mismatch, bluntly threatening to refuse to defend countries that don't meet military-funding obligations. That might be quite a trick with neighbor Canada, potentially the worst freeloader of the bunch; in an assessment leaked to The Washington Post, Pentagon analysts say Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told NATO officials his country "will never" spend NATO's required 2 percent of GDP on defense.

But even if Trump successfully prods European allies to take more responsibility for dealing with threats on their own continent, that's months and years in the future. In the meantime, tensions are rising with a caretaker administration in Washington, D.C. and hollow militaries among most NATO nations.

Ukrainians May Be Too Exhausted To Benefit

Perhaps the people growing most tired of a war that drags on, consuming soldiers who are hobbled in how and where they strike the enemy, are Ukrainians.

"Ukrainians have grown increasingly skeptical of quick accessions to NATO and the EU," finds Gallup, which sees "rising fatigue with the war and strains on Ukraine's relationships with key allies in the West."

Importantly, "an average of 52% of Ukrainians would like to see their country negotiate an end to the war as soon as possible," according to the polling firm. By contrast, "nearly four in 10 Ukrainians (38%) believe their country should keep fighting until victory." That's down from the beginning of the war, when 73 percent wanted to fight until Ukraine had won.

Encouraging Ukrainians to fight, but with their hands tied, for two-and-a-half years has ground down the country's people, wealth, and will. The Biden administration waited not just for an inopportune moment in terms of domestic politics to loosen restrictions on Ukraine's defense efforts; it waited so long that Ukrainians might no longer be in a position to benefit from the changed rules.

Whether or not Ukraine can take advantage of loosened strictures, or Europeans are ready to contain the conflict to their east, the war in Ukraine is escalating. We're stumbling towards greater danger.