OPINION:
Russia’s war in Ukraine — now in its 16th month — has produced many revelations, and we should take time to consider them carefully. Some are positive, like the resiliency and determination of the Ukrainian people. Others are less so.
We experienced such a revelation this past week concerning the fragility of the Russian regime when confronted by a rebel leader who, for days, threatened the center of military and political might.
President Vladimir Putin was forced to flee Moscow to St. Petersburg as the Kremlin attempted to quash an “armed rebellion” by Wagner Group mercenaries led by their chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
The dictator marched his troops out of Ukraine and seized a city south of Moscow that served as the Russian army’s major headquarters, orchestrating Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. But as soon as the threat emerged, Mr. Prigozhin quickly realized that he had overplayed his hand and relented.
Having been exonerated by the Russian regime in return for his acquiescence and exile to neighboring Belarus, he withdrew his militia of 50,000 fighters and returned to positions in Ukraine. The coup quickly turned into cooing as all seemed forgiven until Mr. Prigozhin acts up again.
Still, the affair was a significant embarrassment to Mr. Putin. Having tolerated for months Mr. Prigozhin’s incessant griping about a lack of support for his forces by the Russian military, Mr. Putin’s inaction to bring his militia potentate to heel contributed to the fiasco that made Russia appear to be a Third World dictatorship.
But that is only half right, because Russia is not a Third World power; it is a nuclear one. Had the situation resulted in the overthrow of the Russian government, it could have placed enormous nuclear capability in the hands of an unstable thug.
The revelation? Russia’s war with Ukraine has not only destabilized Europe, but also the Russian regime itself.
That brings us to a second revelation. The United States and its NATO allies were caught off guard by what amounted to a mutiny. Fortunately, it resolved quickly.
But if there had been a coup, were the U.S. and NATO prepared for it? The short answer is an emphatic no.
President Biden already demonstrated his lack of strategic understanding when he abruptly and fecklessly withdrew U.S. forces from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021. That blunder emboldened Mr. Putin to invade Ukraine six months later.
And when the Russian president made his move, the U.S. president fumbled by suggesting that a “small incursion” might be acceptable.
Even when confronted with a full-on invasion, Mr. Biden has made matters worse by dribbling military arms and support to an embattled Ukraine. Even now, as Ukraine is poised to begin a summer counteroffensive, the U.S. is lagging in providing M-1 tanks, F-16 fighters, long-range ATACMS missiles, and dual-purpose improved conventional munitions needed to set the conditions for battlefield success.
That hesitancy is indicative of the Biden administration’s bleary-eyed national security calculations that, to date, have not formulated a plausible end state to the Ukrainian war. Such a plan should include three clear pronouncements.
First, we want a stable Russia that coexists peacefully with the West and not one given to Third World upheavals that threaten to have “loose nukes” in the hands of the likes of Mr. Prigozhin, an unstable hoodlum.
Second, NATO exists for a broader reason: peace for all of Europe, including Russia. We respect Russian sovereignty and self-determination in the same way we respect that for all nations.
Third, despite Russia’s internal affairs — which are not ours to interfere with — our support for Ukraine is indefatigable and will not flag until Russian forces withdraw from Ukraine’s territory. This is non-negotiable.
The silence of the Biden administration in failing to articulate a clear policy for Ukraine imperils our ability to deal with sudden and volatile conditions like that witnessed in Russia this week. The lack of U.S. and NATO clarity on the way to end the war in Ukraine is, in a word, dangerous.
There is one final revelation that the war in Ukraine has clarified. The U.S. military is not sufficiently prepared to engage in large-scale combat operations to deal with situations that may confront us like that in Ukraine.
In particular, our Army must be rigorously trained, abundantly resourced, and structurally organized to fight two major regional wars simultaneously or sequentially: one in Asia and one elsewhere.
No one wants war, but being unprepared for it is preposterous negligence that our elected leaders must avoid through preparedness.
Our provision of arms to Ukraine has unmasked the deficiency in our own wartime materiel capacity. Moreover, the violence of the war in Ukraine demonstrates that we have much to do to prepare for major combat.
That is a pivotal revelation that must not be ignored by our leaders.
• L. Scott Lingamfelter is a retired Army colonel and author of “Desert Redleg: Artillery Warfare in the First Gulf War” (University Press of Kentucky). His new book, “Yanks in Blue Berets: American UN Peacekeepers in the Middle East,” will be released by UPK on July 4.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.