‘Definitely Not Both’: Former Army Commander Says US Can’t Support Two Proxy Wars
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Over the weekend, US President Joe Biden doubled down on his pledges to send weapons to both Ukraine and Israel. However, a former senior US military officer said supporting war on so many fronts was unsustainable and would further degrade US military readiness.
After Hamas launched attacks on Israeli border towns last week that killed more than 1,300 Israelis, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) declared a siege of the Gaza Strip and unleashed a relentless bombardment that has killed more than 2,750 Palestinians as of Monday evening, with another 1,000 missing and at least 10,000 injured. After Israel fired thousands of Tamir missiles from its Iron Dome system - shooting down Hamas rockets targeting several major cities, Biden said the US would step in to resupply Israel.
Since then, Biden has also sent thousands of small arms to Israel and deployed two aircraft carrier battle groups to the region. On Monday, US media reported up to 2,000 US troops were ready to deploy to Israel, with plans to use the in non-combat support roles for the IDF.
The rush to buttress the Israeli military comes amid a political fight in Washington over continued US military aid for Ukraine, which has topped $46 billion over the last two years. Now, the question is whether the US can not only support Ukraine, but Israel, too.
“We’re the United States of America for God’s sake, the most powerful nation in the history - not in the world, in the history of the world,” Biden said in a pre-recorded US media interview that aired on Sunday. “We can take care of both of these and still maintain our overall international defense.”
The White House is expected to ask Congress for an Israel aid bill, but the legislature remained locked in dispute over selecting a House speaker - a fight initiated, in part, but the previous speaker’s insistence on including Ukraine aid in next year’s budget.
15 October 2023, 19:05 GMT
“If there's a choice, if it has to be one or the other, the support will most likely go towards the Israeli side,” international consultant and retired US Army Lt. Col. Earl Rasmussen told Sputnik on Monday.
“He's completely off-base,” Rasmussen said of Biden. “There's no way we can support two - we can generate money and send more money I guess, but that's not going to do any good there. And Ukraine's a lost cause.”
“He can promise that or whatever, but delivering those weapons is another story, and getting the funding through. I think it'd be very difficult to do it, especially if escalation occurred - a two-front conflict - and especially if we get involved directly with it. Meanwhile, we've got tensions increasing in Taiwan and with China. I think it's very unlikely they would be able to support both initiatives,” Rasmussen said.
“I would say from a funding, from a capacity perspective: I do not see our weapons companies - we've drained so much with Ukraine, we're running low on everything, we even had ammunition that we had stockpiled in Israel directed and sent to Ukraine. So I guess Israel is apparently trying to get that back, which I don't think it's going to come back. So we are in a weakened position and I just do not see that happening. I would say that from a priority perspective, Israel will have a priority over Ukraine. It just has a more strategic importance to us as well.”
The former US Army officer said the events of the past week illustrated the Biden administration’s real priority is Israel, which would get any and all largesse it requires at the expense not just of Ukraine’s war effort, but at the expense of Palestinian human rights as well.
“I think there's a lot of things going on here. What's interesting is, at least with the news here, very little has been saying about Ukraine this past week. Everything is about Israel and Hamas,” he said, noting that “you see no kind of condemnation from the US government” of Israel’s siege and bombing campaign against Gaza.
16 October 2023, 17:39 GMT
“As far as human rights go, we kind of threw it out the window,” Rasmussen said. “I think for Biden, he has to support Israel, there's too much government influence from the Israeli lobby, too much money and contributions coming into the Congress. We already provide $4 billion a year to Israel as it is. I'm sure that's going to go up. Whatever necessary, we’ll shift over from Ukraine to Israel. I think Ukraine is just not a high priority item anymore.”
“I think this gives the Biden administration a shift, it's almost an exit ramp from Ukraine. Politically, he needs to support Israel. He can kind of gently shift the narrative away from Ukraine, perhaps,” he suggested, noting that “this latest counteroffensive is being exposed as a complete failure.”
Rasmussen suggested Biden wanted to return to the Middle East, including by playing peace broker between Israel and Hamas, but also that there are likely some in Biden’s administration who want to see a war between Israel and Iran, which Jerusalem has attempted to blame for the recent outbreak of violence, and which would be a dramatic escalation that would drag in the US.
“This could blow up. This could be worse than the Ukrainian tensions, potentially. I don't think he wants to blow anything up before the election, but it does not look good and I don't think it looks good [politically] for Biden as well.
16 October 2023, 18:47 GMT
Asked about the capabilities of the US military-industrial complex in light of all the weapons being sent to Ukraine and Israel, Rasmussen said the US military posture had “weakened considerably” since February 2022 “and it's going to be weakened and stressed even more.”
“The readiness of soldiers, I would say, especially with a major conflict - it's questionable,” he said.
“I don't think the US military, both from a weapons and ammunition perspective, we've been drained extensively that 20 years of endless wars militarily goes. I don't think we're postured that we've shifted some of our policies and training and everything, and we're not meeting our recruiting goals either.”
“I don't see the US capable of actually handling either one successfully - and definitely not both,” he said. “I think it's our military, our readiness posture, it's significantly weakened over the last several years. We've drained our weapons caches a lot. Corporations are not, our military-industrial complex is not ramped up sufficient to meet the needs that are there. So it's a very dangerous and threatening situation,” he said, predicting the US would likely lean on “proxy forces” in the Middle East, just as they have in Ukraine.
