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White House Reportedly Worried About Russia’s Sudden Momentum Months After Biden Declared Putin ‘Already Lost’ War

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By NICK POPE

 

Manpower is a factor of growing significance for the Ukrainians, according to numerous reports. The war has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers, according to The Associated Press

White House officials are reportedly concerned that Russia may soon change the course of the conflict in Ukraine, less than a year after President Joe Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin “already lost” the war, The New York Times reported Wednedsay.

Some aides and officials inside the Biden administration are concerned that Russia may be turning the war’s tide despite the U.S. government’s April approval of $61 billion of fresh aid for Ukraine, according to the NYT. The current level of concern stands in contrast to Biden’s comments in July 2023 that Putin had “already lost the war” and that there is “no possibility” the Russians prevail in the conflict.

“Putin’s already lost the war,” Biden said during a July 2023 press conference alongside then-Finnish President Sauli Niinisto. “Putin has a real problem. How does he move from here? What does he do? And so, the idea that there’s going to be, what vehicle is used, he could end the war tomorrow, he could just say ‘I’m out.’ But what agreement is ultimately reached depends upon Putin and what he decides to do, but there is no possibility of him winning the war in Ukraine.”

Eighteen months ago, Biden administration personnel debated among themselves whether or not Ukraine could fully expel the Russians from their territory, according to the Times. Now, a number of officials and aides are reportedly viewing the next few months as critical toward determining the conclusion of the conflict, whether that takes the shape of a negotiated cease-fire deal or some other resolution.

Russian forces captured a considerable amount of territory near Kharkiv in Ukraine’s northeast over the weekend, and the Ukrainian command has been forced to divert some of their own forces to the region, leaving other parts of the front less well-manned. Recent gains in the Kharkiv region represented the most mileage that the Russians have captured in a short period of time over the course of the whole war, excluding its earliest stages.

Notably, manpower is a factor of growing significance for the Ukrainians, according to numerous reports. The war has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers, according to The Associated Press, and the Ukrainian government has lowered the minimum age of conscription from 27 to 25 and started to send certain types of convicts to the front lines.

Ukrainian forces have also reportedly struggled to quickly train enough pilots to operate costly and sophisticated F-16 fighter jets provided by the U.S. Another issue on the front lines is that Russian forces have learned to use electronic techniques to counter drone and artillery systems provided to Ukraine by the West, according to the Times.

The Department of Defense (DOD) also believes that congress’ delays in authorizing the $61 billion package has contributed to the current situation on the front lines, a DOD spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. However, there is hope that the situation will improve as weapons covered by the aid package approved in April begin to arrive at the front lines en masse, with U.S. officials currently expecting that the weapons will begin to make a real difference in July, according to the Times.

“On Friday, we warned that we had been anticipating that Russia would launch an offensive against Kharkiv and were anticipating that Russia would increase its attacks in an attempt to establish a shallow buffer zone along the Ukrainian border – and we have been coordinating closely with Ukraine to help them prepare,” the DOD spokesperson told the DCNF. “As we have said previously, Congress’ months-long delay in passing the supplemental put the Russians at an advantage, and it will take Ukraine time to regain the initiative. It is possible that Russia will make further advances in the coming weeks, but over time, the influx of U.S. assistance will enable Ukraine to withstand these attacks over the course of 2024.”

The DOD is “moving heaven and earth” to get weapons to the Ukrainians as soon as possible, and the agency is also preparing a new aid package to assist Ukrainian forces, the spokesperson added. Since the war started in February 2022, the U.S. alone has spent more than $100 billion to support the Ukrainian war effort, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

The White House did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

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U.S. Tells Europe To Handle Its Own Defense

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Reason.com - Free Minds and Free Markets  By J.D. Tuccille 

The U.S. is no longer willing to subsidize prosperous countries that won’t defend themselves.

The Trump administration’s foreign policy gambits can be baffling: Why rename the Gulf of Mexico? What is this fixation on annexing Greenland? Does anybody really want to find out what happens if we add Canadians to the U.S. Senate? But the president is right that allies have been allowed to shift the costs of their defense to the United States for decades, and they’ve relied on the U.S. to resolve what are largely European problems. With the U.S. government spending far beyond its means, it’s time for our NATO allies to step up, as U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently suggested.

Blunt Word for Europe

“The United States remains committed to the NATO alliance and to the defense partnership with Europe, full stop,” Hegseth, who served as an infantry officer in Afghanistan and Iraq before taking high-profile roles with Fox News and then with the Trump administration, commented last week at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group held in Brussels. “But the United States will no longer tolerate an imbalanced relationship which encourages dependency.”

Hegseth went on to say that any security guarantees negotiated for Ukraine after almost three long years of war between that country and invading Russian forces “must be backed by capable European and non-European troops,” but only “as part of a non-NATO mission….To be clear, as part of any security guarantee, there will not be U.S. troops deployed to Ukraine.”

But what really brought the message home for attendees was when the U.S. defense secretary emphasized that America has security obligations throughout the world, particularly regarding China. That means, with NATO, the U.S. would focus on “empowering Europe to own responsibility for its own security.” To that end, Hegseth urged U.S. allies to exceed the 2-percent-of-GDP target for defense spending set by the alliance—which most fail to meet—and to aim for 5 percent.

Hegseth’s speech threw “the world’s biggest military alliance into disarray,” according to the A.P. But the message wasn’t unanticipated, nor was the reality of competing demands on American resources entirely unappreciated. France’s President Emmanuel Macron quickly called a meeting of European leaders “to discuss European security.” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte agreed Europe and Canada “have not paid enough over the last 40 years…. The U.S. is rightly asking for a rebalancing of that.”

Poland, which has historical reasons to fears Moscow’s intentions, is already near the 5 percent target for defense. Last March, Poland’s President Andrzej Duda praised the U.S. role in defending Europe and supporting Ukraine, but asked other NATO countries to join his country in building military capability.

Unequal Commitments to Defense

At least since the end of the Cold War, most European countries have skated by on minimal military expenditures, counting on the United States to handle any threats that might emerge. That situation continued even after Russian troops poured into Ukraine.

“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,” The Wall Street Journal reported in December 2023. “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’s last annual report revealed the U.S. represents 53 percent of the GDP of all countries in the alliance. But the U.S. makes 67 percent of alliance defense expenditures. NATO sets a goal for members to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense. Even with rising tensions, only 11 of the alliance’s 32 members hit that benchmark in that report (the next report should show more meeting the goal).

Among the countries not hitting the 2 percent mark are Canada, France, and Germany—all wealthy countries that could significantly contribute to the alliance’s defense. Germany claims to have hit the 2 percent target in its latest budget. But Canada’s government reportedly told NATO that it “will never” hit the target. Writing about that admission, The Washington Post‘s Amanda Coletta noted that “nearly all of Canada’s 78 Leopard II tanks ‘require extensive maintenance and lack spare parts.'”

In supporting Ukraine, European countries gave somewhat more than the U.S. But Europe emphasized financial and humanitarian aid, so the U.S. has offered slightly more military assistance at €64 billion ($62.1 billion U.S.) compared to Europe’s €62 billion ($65 billion U.S.), according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

The U.S. Can’t Afford To Continue as Europe’s Protector

As Hegseth emphasized in Brussels, the U.S. has security concerns around the world, especially in the Pacific with China, while European worries are more regional. But the U.S. has another big concern: The federal government spends far too much. After entitlements, defense spending is a major recipient of tax dollars—or, more accurately, of money borrowed from the future given the massive deficit. According to the Congressional Budget Office, “the federal budget deficit in fiscal year 2025 is $1.9 trillion. Adjusted to exclude the effects of shifts in the timing of certain payments, the deficit grows to $2.7 trillion by 2035.” Debt will also soar if the gap between spending and receipts continues.

Last year, the Cato Institute broke down federal spending, showing that Medicare, Medicaid, and other health entitlements make up 28 percent of the federal budget, Social Security is 22 percent, defense and income security account for 13 percent each, and net interest on the debt is 11 percent. Everything else makes up the remaining 13 percent. It’s going to be very difficult to balance the federal government’s books without addressing entitlements and defense spending.

Undoubtedly, with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) turning its attention to the Pentagon, loads of waste, fraud, and abuse will be uncovered. But it’s impossible that so much financial mismanagement will be uncovered as to make up for trillions in deficits all by itself. Some priorities will have to be rejiggered to get spending controlled.

So, Hegseth’s blunt reminder to Europeans that their continent is their responsibility to defend is justified. Countries that together almost equal U.S. GDP and are mostly clustered together should be making more serious arrangements for their own defense.

Not all Trump administration pronouncements were so well-considered. The U.S. reportedly plans to meet with Russian envoys to discuss Ukraine’s future—without inviting Ukraine or European allies. That’s presumptuous and runs the risk that Ukraine just won’t stop fighting if it doesn’t like the terms.

In response, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for the creation of an “armed forces of Europe” to defend the continent. French President Macron’s security meeting suggests Europeans are thinking along similar lines.

That could work out for everybody except the Russians. If Europeans assume greater responsibility for defending their continent and for supporting Ukraine, Washington, D.C. would likely be very happy.

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Trump proposes US, Russia, China scale back nuclear weapons and military budgets

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From LifeSiteNews

By Stephen Kokx

The U.S. president is focusing not only on a resolution in Ukraine but bringing peace to the world while pivoting away from Europe.

As the Trump administration’s foreign policy begins to take shape, political observers are looking for clues as to what the next four years will look like. Remarks Donald Trump made while in the Oval Office this week about Russia and China are helpful in this regard.

While seated behind the Resolute Desk — with a portrait of Ronald Reagan hanging over his left shoulder — Trump encouragingly told reporters that “one of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi of China, President Putin of Russia, and I want to say, ‘let’s cut our military budget in half.’ And we can do that.”

Trump exuberantly added, “President Putin and I agreed that we were going to be (de-nuclearizing) in a very big way … we already have so many you could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over.”

Trump’s comments came after he had spoken to Putin by phone, a call where they also agreed to “start negotiations immediately” to end the Ukraine conflict.

Trump’s desire to engage with — as opposed to simply attack — two countries that have long been described as America’s biggest adversaries is a breath of fresh air as it shows he is willing to break with past (failed) operating procedures that have done nothing but increase profits for defense contractors and have heightened the likelihood of a world war breaking out.

At present, the U.S. military has an annual budget of around $850 billion. That is roughly the size of the next nine largest militaries in the world combined. For comparison’s sake, Russia and China purportedly spend $145 billion and $290 billion each year, respectively, on defense.

The U.S. and Russia currently account for the vast majority of the world’s nuclear weapons, collectively owning 11,000. Fox reported that the U.S. has 3,748 nuclear warheads as of September 2023. In the late 1980s, that number was a whopping 22,217. Russia reportedly has 4,380, and China possesses around 600.

A coup for freedom

Speaking in Munich on Friday, Vice President JD Vance informed European technocrats that their decades-long, U.S.-subsidized vacation from self-reliance has come to an end.

“It’s important in the coming years for Europe to step up in a big way to provide for its own defense,” Vance told a stunned crowd.

“The threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor … what I worry about is the threat from within; the retreat of Europe from some of its own fundamental values.”

Vance’s remarks were not well received. Liberal German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius whined that “this is not acceptable,” a comment that prompted anti-war activist Daniel McAdams and Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah to call on the United States to leave Europe behind altogether.

 

Vance followed his historic broadside by holding a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Early reports indicate that Vance essentially told him to pound sand. Curt Mills of The American Conservative shared the following crucial observation on X:

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth delivered an equally forceful message at NATO headquarters in Brussels this past week.

“The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement,” he said, shattering the dreams of globalists around the world.

If Trump is successful in bringing peace to Ukraine and if he negotiates a lasting deal with Russia and China — all while defanging the U.S. Deep State and stopping the war in the Middle East — he will have accomplished what no other modern president has ever done, and would be entirely deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize. He will have also lived up to his old 2016 promise of draining the swamp.

It’s still early, and plenty of things can go awry from now until 2028, but at this stage in the game, Trump 2.0 is shaping up to be what many of his initial supporters had hoped for the first time around.

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