OPINION:
The Russian war to conquer Ukraine is the war that everyone wants to forget. It has been reduced by electoral politics to a bundle of inconvenient facts that neither candidate wants to confront.
Vice President Kamala Harris has assured us that there’s no difference between her and President Biden. Asked whether she’d do anything different from what Mr. Biden has done, she answered that nothing came to mind.
Ms. Harris has participated in every mistake made and disaster brought about by Mr. Biden in foreign policy and national security. She’s proud of their record of failure, which includes the Afghanistan debacle and the latest threat to embargo arms to Israel if it doesn’t increase the flow of aid to the Gaza Strip. She has no independent thought.
Russia’s war on Ukraine began when it invaded in February 2022, and in about April 2022, Mr. Biden blocked Poland’s plans to supply Ukraine with MiG-29 fighter-bombers, which the Ukrainian air force had been flying for decades. Instead, the Ukrainians are just now — almost three years later — getting U.S.-made F-16s.
The MiGs could have made an enormous difference to Ukraine’s success in the early stages of the war, but Mr. Biden and his diplo-dunces insist that every step we and the NATO nations take must not appear “escalatory” in Russia’s eyes.
That has meant a stalemate — a forever war — that Mr. Biden is content with.
Former President Donald Trump has promised to end the war between the time he’s elected again and Inauguration Day 2025. How he can do this, he hasn’t said. Mr. Trump is under intense pressure against helping Ukraine — or attaching severe conditions for it — from his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, and the isolationist wing of the Republican Party.
Mr. Biden has submitted a congressionally required plan to bring about some end to the war. But he classified it so there can be no public debate about it.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy came to the U.S. late last month to brief Mr. Biden on his own “victory plan.” Mr. Zelenskyy also briefed Mr. Trump and has since shared it with several European leaders.
Mr. Zelenskyy is clinging to his maximalist goal of driving Russian forces entirely out of Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula. But reality intrudes. Ukraine cannot drive the Russians out of Crimea, which Russia formally annexed a decade ago. And without masses of troops Ukraine doesn’t have and can’t get, there’s no way to drive the Russians out of Ukraine.
Of Mr. Zelenskyy’s plan, we know a few facts provided by leakers, each of whom has a political agenda.
According to a Wall Street Journal report — which relies on leaks from the Biden administration and European officials — Mr. Zelenskyy’s plan is nothing new. It calls for more U.S. aid and lacks a strategy to achieve its goal.
Part of Mr. Zelenskyy’s plan relies on obtaining U.S. permission to use U.S.-made long-range missiles to attack inside Russia. To Mr. Biden and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, that would qualify as escalation, so it won’t be granted, at least not before Election Day.
As The Washington Times reported about two weeks ago, North Korea is considering supplying troops to aid Mr. Putin’s conquest of Ukraine. Since then, Mr. Zelenskyy has said that North Korean troops are already fighting in Ukraine alongside Russian troops.
North Korea has an army of about 1 million men. If even two or three divisions of North Korean troops were sent to Ukraine, it would be a huge escalation that could overwhelm Ukraine’s forces. If it occurs, NATO would have to choose between sending in its own troops — which it should not do — or watching Ukraine fall.
Both Mr. Biden’s and Mr. Zelenskyy’s plans would be voided by North Korean intervention. Neither the Biden-Harris administration nor Mr. Trump has responded to the possible North Korean reinforcement of Mr. Putin’s war.
Mr. Putin, meanwhile, is content to keep the war going regardless of the losses to his forces, which reportedly number over 600,000 killed and wounded. Russian troops have made small, incremental gains, but neither side has achieved anything decisive.
Even if Mr. Biden gave permission to use U.S. weapons to attack deep inside Russia, that would not be a strategic game-changer. While Russian supply lines are vulnerable, it would take many more missiles than we have provided to significantly damage them.
Ms. Harris advocates more military and financial aid to Ukraine but hasn’t offered any new ideas for ending the war. She has only attacked Mr. Trump’s plans, saying that any one-on-one peace talks are out and that Ukraine must be represented in any such talks.
Mr. Zelenskyy will oppose any cease-fire plan, giving Russia a large chunk of Ukraine.
Mr. Putin won’t end the Ukraine war willingly. Russia hasn’t suffered from the U.S. and NATO countries’ sanctions. Mr. Trump needs to come up with a new strategy to end this war on Ukraine’s terms. As her risible confidence in Mr. Biden’s actions proves, Ms. Harris is incapable of any such thinking.
• Jed Babbin is a national security and foreign affairs columnist for The Washington Times and contributing editor for The American Spectator.
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