Ukraine’s moral example has changed the course of history.
This week, the hinge of fate turned. In a dramatic reversal of its previous defeatist stand, the Biden administration has rallied to the cause of Ukrainian victory.
The pace of the reversal was practically blinding, starting with the visit to Kyiv of U.S. State and Defense Secretaries Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin on April 25, which was followed on April 27 with a request by President Joe Biden for $20 billion in arms and $13 billion in economic aid for Ukraine. Then, on April 28, the Ukraine Democracy Lend Lease Act of 2022, which had been passed by the Senate but left languishing in the House of Representatives since its March 1 introduction by a small bipartisan group, was finally brought to the floor by the Democratic leadership. It passed with an overwhelming 417-10 vote. Under this bill, virtually unlimited amounts of arms, with the exception of nuclear weapons, can be transferred to Ukraine at the president’s discretion. On April 30, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, along with several key Democratic House committee chairs, went to Kyiv to present the good news to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in person and take a bow.
Sources in Ukraine say that Ukrainian pilots are already training on F-16s. “It is just a pleasure to operate such a machine!” one pilot is quoted as saying. “Absolutely new philosophy, incredible avionics, everything the pilot may need.”
Outnumbered, Ukrainian pilots have nevertheless been giving the Russians a hard time flying antiquated and inferior models of former Soviet MiGs. Now, like the Polish exile Squadron 303 that racked up record kills during the Battle of Britain, they will have a chance to settle the score with modern aircraft.
Not only that, but in addition to the widely-reported 155mm howitzers that are now being delivered to Ukraine in real numbers, word is that the Ukrainians are also getting Multiple Launch Rocket Systems with long range artillery – mobile launchers firing GPS-guided munitions with a range of over 200 km. With these at their disposal, the Ukrainians will be able to take out the trains that the Russians are using to reposition their heavy weapons behind the lines.
Furthermore, our European allies have been unleashed, with the British sending a large assortment of sophisticated weapons, the Slovaks sending MiGs, and the Poles delivering some 232 tanks.
As a result, Russia is now in a strategic position broadly analogous to that Germany had in July 1944. It still has impressive armed forces, and is waging the war on foreign ground. But its offensive impetus has been spent and it is facing an enemy rapidly growing in strength. The long-term outcome is inevitable.
Russian President Vladimir Putin would be wise to try to cut a deal while he still has chips to bargain with – for example offering to quit Ukraine now in exchange for no reparations. That would save a lot of lives and treasure that will otherwise be spent expelling Russia while it runs up its bill for damages. But he is not wise, and instead is trying to bluff his way out by hinting that he might use tactical nukes. But the Russian government made a payment of some $650 million to meet its foreign debt obligations this week, something it would never do if it was planning to break completely with the rest of the world. For all their bluster, it is clear that the Russian leadership is unwilling to wall themselves into an enlarged version of North Korea. Thus, so far at least, no one is falling for their bluff.
The best way to get the job done would be for NATO to cut the war short by intervening directly with its own air power to provide air cover and close air support to the Ukrainian army so it can run the invaders out as quickly as possible. This would minimize loss of life and property and preempt any escalation by Putin by making clear in advance that anything he might try would be fruitless. But even without that, with the levels of support that are now being offered, Ukraine will certainly prevail in the end. Provided Biden does not go wobbly, the West is going to win.
As noted, the U.S. administration’s current stand represents a complete turnaround from its previous position, which was to not only accept, but even attempt to accelerate, Ukrainian defeat. Despite possessing certain knowledge of the planned invasion at least two months in advance, the administration refused to make use of the ample notice to airlift Ukraine any significant arms.
Instead, for show, Biden sent just $200 million in light arms before the invasion. To put it in perspective, readers may observe that this is 1/100th of the $20 billion amount Biden requested this week. Had serious arms shipments on the scale and quality now underway been delivered in advance, the invasion would never have got this far. Indeed, it would almost certainly have been deterred and all its bloodshed and devastation prevented entirely.
But rather than deter the invasion, Biden literally greenlighted it, offering Putin repeated assurances, right up to the day of the Feb. 24 attack, that U.S. forces would not intervene “under any scenario.” Instead of keeping our embassy in Kyiv and warning Putin of consequences should it be harmed, Biden ordered our diplomats to flee, and attempted to spread panic by encouraging others to do the same. As far as the administration was concerned, it would be best if Ukraine simply went away as soon as possible.
Given a free hand to do with Ukraine as he wished, Putin not only struck, but gave his forces license to commit atrocities without limit.
Fig. 1 On the eve of the Feb 24. invasion. the editor of Russian Journal National Defense welcomes Biden’s assurances that the US would not intervene to save Ukraine. “So let’s go!”
As a result of this administration’s fecklessness, tens of thousands of people are now dead, cities destroyed, and entire regions laid waste. So, Biden and his defeatist advisors have a great deal to apologize for. But now they have changed, radically. As if by a miracle, a group of chickens has been transformed into lions.
From whence came the spirit that turned Biden Yellowfeather into Biden the Lionheart?
In the movie Casablanca, a group of lost souls wasting away in limbo outside of the world struggle are rallied back to their humanity by the example of one courageous man, the heroic resistance leader Victor Lazlo. Some 80 years later, in the moment when he arouses the nightclub crowd out of their stupor to defy the Nazis by singing the Marseillaise, remains one of the greatest and most beloved movie scenes ever. It speaks to us at the deepest level, asserting that beneath all the apparent weakness and depravity of our flesh, there is something truly grand – hidden greatness of spirit that can come out to redeem us, and with us, the world, when it is needed most.
This week, that scene in Casablanca was played out in real life, on a world stage.
Who then is playing Lazlo? It is Ukraine, the hero country, that by taking an unexpected stand against monstrous evil, has awakened us as to who we need to be. It is the defenders of Mariupol, refusing to surrender, carrying on a fight that will go down not only in history but in myth, as an epic comparable to the stand of Leonidas and the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae. If reduced to one person, it is Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, who given the tempting offer by Biden of safe evacuation from Kyiv to be likely followed by a life of wealth and comfort on the lecture circuit, rebuffed it with the sharp response “I don’t need a ride. I need ammunition.”
There is a painting by Ukrainian artist Oleg Shupliak making the rounds on the internet now, depicting the Ukrainian army as the forces of Rohan and Gondor defeating Sauron’s Russian Orcs in the final battle of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. I like it because Tolkien’s point was that the little people of the world, the hobbits if you will, have within them the power to defeat the maniacal masterminds of evil.
I’ve already compared Zelensky to Lazlo. Many others are comparing him to Winston Churchill. But Lazlo was an accomplished and fearless political intellectual, while Churchill – who I greatly admire – was bred to lead. Zelensky, on the other hand, is Frodo. He is just a hobbit, like the rest of us.
Yet he has risen to greatness. So can we.
This is Ukraine’s finest hour. Let it be ours as well.
Dr. Robert Zubrin @robert_zubrin is an American aerospace engineer. His latest book The Case for Space, was recently published by Prometheus books.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and not necessarily those of the Kyiv Post.
