{"id":1292210,"date":"2023-05-21T21:10:03","date_gmt":"2023-05-22T01:10:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/us-national-security-experts-urge-no-more-weapons-for-ukraine-in-ny-times\/1292210\/"},"modified":"2023-05-21T21:10:03","modified_gmt":"2023-05-22T01:10:03","slug":"us-national-security-experts-urge-no-more-weapons-for-ukraine-in-ny-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/us-national-security-experts-urge-no-more-weapons-for-ukraine-in-ny-times\/1292210\/","title":{"rendered":"US National Security Experts Urge No More Weapons For Ukraine In NY Times"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

US National Security Experts Urge No More Weapons For Ukraine In NY Times<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Via Consortium News,<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Last week,\u00a0The New York Times\u00a0<\/em>published\u00a0a full-page advertisement signed by 15 U.S. national security\u00a0experts<\/a>\u00a0about the war in Ukraine. It was headed \u201cThe U.S. Should Be a Force for Peace in the World,\u201d and was drafted by the Eisenhower Media Network.<\/p>\n

While condemning Russia\u2019s invasion, the statement provides a more objective account of the crisis in Ukraine than the U.S. government or\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0has previously presented to the public<\/strong>, including the disastrous U.S. role in NATO expansion, the warnings ignored by successive U.S. administrations and the escalating tensions that ultimately led to war.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The statement calls the war an \u201cunmitigated disaster,\u201d<\/strong> and urges President Joe Biden and Congress \u201cto end the war speedily through diplomacy, especially given the dangers of military escalation that could spiral out of control.\u201d<\/p>\n

This call for diplomacy by wise, experienced former insiders \u2014 U.S. diplomats, military officers and civilian officials \u2014 would have been a welcome intervention on any one of the past 442 days of this war. Yet their appeal now comes at an especially critical moment in the war.<\/p>\n

On May 10, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that he is delaying Ukraine\u2019s long-awaited \u201cspring offensive\u201d to avoid \u201cunacceptable<\/a>\u201d losses to Ukrainian forces.<\/p>\n

Western policy has repeatedly put Zelenskyy in\u00a0near-impossible<\/a>\u00a0positions, caught between the need to show signs of progress on the battlefield to justify further Western support and arms deliveries and, on the other hand, the shocking human cost of continued war represented by the fresh graveyards where tens of thousands of Ukrainians now lie buried.<\/p>\n

It is not clear how a delay in the planned Ukrainian counter-attack would prevent it leading to unacceptable Ukrainian losses when it finally occurs, unless the delay in fact leads to scaling back and calling off many of the operations that have been planned.<\/p>\n

Zelensky appears to be reaching a limit in terms of how many more of his people he is willing to sacrifice to satisfy Western demands for signs of military progress to hold together the Western alliance and maintain the flow of weapons and money to Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Boris Johnson\u2019s Role\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Zelensky\u2019s predicament is certainly the fault of Russia\u2019s invasion, but also of his April 2022 deal with the devil in the shape of then-U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson.<\/p>\n

Johnson\u00a0promised<\/a>\u00a0Zelensky that the U.K. and the \u201ccollective West\u201d were \u201cin it for the long run\u201d and would back him to recover all of Ukraine\u2019s former territory<\/strong>, just as long as Ukraine stopped negotiating with Russia.<\/p>\n

Johnson was never in a position to fulfill that promise and, since he was forced to resign as prime minister, he has\u00a0endorsed<\/a>\u00a0a Russian withdrawal only from the territory it invaded since February 2022, not a return to pre-2014 borders. Yet that compromise was exactly what he talked Zelensky out of agreeing to in April 2022, when most of the war\u2019s dead were still alive and the framework of a peace agreement was\u00a0on the table<\/a>\u00a0at diplomatic talks in Turkey.<\/p>\n

Zelensky has tried desperately to hold his Western backers to Johnson\u2019s overblown promise. But short of direct U.S. and NATO military intervention, it seems that no quantity of Western weapons can decisively break the stalemate in what has degenerated into a brutal\u00a0war of attrition<\/a>, fought mainly by artillery and trench and urban warfare.<\/p>\n

\n

A group of anti-war US veterans – including a dozen former military officers ranked as high as general – published an ad in the NY Times calling to halt arms shipments to Ukraine and end the war with peace talks<\/p>\n

They included this graphic of NATO military bases surrounded Russia https:\/\/t.co\/SCeTYLseOB<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/m9Ntrnjrgs<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) May 16, 2023<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An American general\u00a0bragged<\/a>\u00a0that the West has supplied Ukraine with 600 different weapons systems<\/strong>, but this itself creates problems. For example, the different\u00a0105 mm guns<\/a>\u00a0sent by the U.K., France, Germany and the U.S. all use different shells. And each time heavy losses force Ukraine to re-form survivors into new units, many of them have to be retrained on weapons and equipment they\u2019ve never used before.<\/p>\n

Leaked Pentagon Document<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite U.S.\u00a0deliveries<\/a>\u00a0of at least six types of anti-aircraft missiles \u2014 Stinger, NASAMS, Hawk, Rim-7, Avenger, and at least one Patriot missile battery \u2014 a leaked Pentagon document\u00a0revealed<\/a>\u00a0that Ukraine\u2019s Russian-built S-300 and Buk anti-aircraft systems still make up almost 90 percent of its main air defenses.<\/p>\n

NATO countries have searched their weapons stockpiles for all the missiles they can provide for those systems, but Ukraine has nearly exhausted those supplies, leaving its forces newly vulnerable to Russian air strikes just as it prepares to launch its new counter-attack.<\/p>\n

Since at least June 2022, Biden and other U.S. officials have\u00a0acknowledged<\/a>\u00a0that the war must end in a diplomatic settlement, and have insisted that they are arming Ukraine to put it \u201cin the strongest possible position at the negotiating table.\u201d Until now, they have claimed that each new weapons system they have sent and each Ukrainian counter-offensive have contributed to that goal and left Ukraine in a stronger position.<\/p>\n

But the leaked Pentagon documents and recent statements by U.S. and Ukrainian officials make it clear that Ukraine\u2019s planned spring offensive, already delayed into summer, would lack the previous element of surprise and encounter stronger Russian defenses than the offensives that recovered some of its lost territory last fall.<\/p>\n

One leaked Pentagon document warned that \u201cenduring Ukrainian deficiencies in training and munitions supplies probably will strain progress and exacerbate casualties during the offensive,\u201d<\/strong> concluding that it would probably make smaller territorial gains than the fall offensives did.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

NATO\u2019s Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting on April 21.\u00a0(NATO)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

How can a new offensive with mixed results and higher casualties put Ukraine in a stronger position at a currently non-existent negotiating table? If the offensive reveals that even huge quantities of Western military aid have failed to give Ukraine military superiority or reduce its casualties to a sustainable level, it could very well leave Ukraine in a weaker negotiating position, instead of a stronger one.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, offers to mediate peace talks have been pouring in from countries all over the world, from the Vatican to China to Brazil. It has been six months since the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley\u00a0suggested<\/a>\u00a0publicly, after Ukraine\u2019s military gains last fall, that the moment had come to negotiate from a position of strength. \u201cWhen there\u2019s an opportunity to negotiate, when peace can be achieved, seize it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It would be doubly or triply tragic if, on top of the diplomatic failures that led to the war in the first place and the U.S. and U.K.\u00a0undermining<\/a>\u00a0peace negotiations in April 2022, the chance for diplomacy that Milley wanted to seize is lost in the forlorn hope of attaining an even stronger negotiating position that is not really achievable.<\/p>\n

If the U.S. persists in backing the plan for a Ukrainian offensive, instead of encouraging Zelenskyy to seize the moment for diplomacy, it will share considerable responsibility for the failure to seize the chance for peace, and for the appalling and ever-rising human costs of this war<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The experts who signed\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>statement recalled that, in 1997, 50 senior U.S. foreign policy experts\u00a0warned<\/a>\u00a0President Bill Clinton that expanding NATO was a \u201cpolicy error of historic proportions\u201d and that, unfortunately, Clinton chose to ignore the warning<\/strong>. Biden, who is now pursuing his own policy error of historic proportions by prolonging this war, would do well to take the advice of today\u2019s policy experts by helping to forge a diplomatic settlement and making the United States a force for peace in the world.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

TIMELINE<\/strong><\/p>\n

1990 \u2013 U.S. assures Russia that NATO will not expand towards its border \u201c\u2026there would be no extension of\u2026NATO one inch to the east,\u201d\u00a0says<\/a>\u00a0US Secretary of State James Baker.<\/p>\n

1996 \u2013 U.S. weapons manufacturers form the Committee to Expand NATO,\u00a0spending<\/a>\u00a0over $51 million lobbying Congress.<\/p>\n

1997 \u2013 50 foreign policy experts including former senators, retired military officers and diplomats sign an open letter stating NATO expansion to be \u201ca policy error of historic proportions<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

1999 \u2013 NATO\u00a0admits<\/a>\u00a0Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic to NATO. U.S. and NATO\u00a0bomb<\/a>\u00a0Russia\u2019s ally, Serbia.<\/p>\n

2001 \u2013 U.S. unilaterally\u00a0withdraws<\/a>\u00a0from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.<\/p>\n

2004 \u2013 Seven more Eastern European nations join NATO. NATO troops are now directly on Russia\u2019s border.<\/p>\n

2004 \u2013 Russia\u2019s parliament\u00a0passed<\/a>\u00a0a resolution denouncing NATO\u2019s expansion. Putin responded by saying that Russia would \u201cbuild our defense and security policy correspondingly.\u201d<\/p>\n

2008 \u2013 NATO leaders\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0plans to bring Ukraine and Georgia, also on Russia\u2019s borders, into NATO.<\/p>\n

2009 \u2013 U.S.\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0plans to put missile systems into Poland and Romania.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

2014 \u2013\u00a0Legally elected<\/a>\u00a0Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, fled violence to Moscow. Russia views ouster as a coup by U.S. and NATO nations.<\/p>\n

2016 \u2013 U.S.\u00a0begins<\/a>\u00a0troop buildup in Europe.<\/p>\n

2019 \u2013 U.S. unilaterally withdraws from\u00a0Intermediate Nuclear Forces<\/a>\u00a0Treaty.<\/p>\n

2020 \u2013 U.S. unilaterally\u00a0withdraws<\/a>\u00a0from Open Skies Treaty.<\/p>\n

2021 \u2013 Russia\u00a0submits<\/a>\u00a0negotiation proposals while sending more forces to the border with Ukraine. U.S. and NATO officials\u00a0reject<\/a>\u00a0the Russian proposals immediately.<\/p>\n

Feb 24, 2022 \u2013 Russia\u00a0invades<\/a>\u00a0Ukraine, starting the Russia-Ukraine War.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nSun, 05\/21\/2023 – 23:30<\/span><\/p>\n

From:Zerohedge<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US National Security Experts Urge No More Weapons For Ukraine In NY Times Via Consortium News,\u00a0 Last week,\u00a0The New York Times\u00a0published\u00a0a full-page advertisement signed by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1292210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbimBl-5qa6","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1292210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292210\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1292210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1292210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1292210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}