Biden Lacks 'End Game' in 'Doomed' Ukraine Project - Ex-Pentagon Analyst
13:06 GMT 15.12.2023 (Updated: 13:47 GMT 15.12.2023)
© AFP 2023 / MANDEL NGAN
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Despite Kiev’s botched counteroffensive, and creeping ‘Ukraine fatigue’ across the US and the European continent, the Biden administration is intent on propping up the Zelensky regime for as long as it takes, or rather, as long as it can, given that money for military aid may run out by the end of the year.
The 'Ukraine' project "is doomed," and the regime in Kiev "has already lost," Michael Maloof, former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, told Sputnik.
“The Biden administration, and I think even some European countries now are seeing the inevitability of that,” he added.
With the much-heralded Ukraine counteroffensive turning out to be a total flop, despite the enormous military assistance that the US and its NATO allies have doled out, the mainstream media has now stopped talking about any so-called 'successes' by the Zelensky regime and has gone practically silent. So currently, given the open admissions that Kiev's counteroffensive was a disaster, ‘Ukraine fatigue’ is now gaining ground both in the US and Europe. Meanwhile, the Russian Armed Forces have transitioned to an offensive stance in the special military operation zone and are advancing along the entire contact line, as emphasized by President Vladimir Putin during his annual press conference on December 14.
Ukraine’s military, according to Maloof, had seriously lacked one particular element from the start - air power. “They didn't have the air power to deal with tank traps, mines that the Russians built up over time. And it devolved into trench warfare,” he said.
As for Western countries, in their frenzy to fuel NATO’s proxy conflict against Russia in Ukraine, they ended up facing depleted weapons and munitions stocks. “Neither the United States nor the Europeans even have the stockpiles to undertake a war... We are so depleted right now, we wouldn't even be able to fight a one-front war,” said Maloof.
Weighing in on talk by the West to “help the Ukrainians to build up their own indigenous military production capabilities,” the retired senior security policy analyst dismissed it as “silly.” He recalled that Russia recently warned that if Ukraine were to start manufacturing these weapons on its soil, such facilities would be deemed a legitimate target.
“Well, that also applies to the F-16s that they [Kiev regime] hope and pray to get,” stressed Maloof, and continued:
“But first, pilots have to be trained in English to understand the instructions, and that could take years. So in addition to the training, so even if they were based in Ukraine, they're going to be taken out. Could the Ukrainians launch these F-16s from a NATO country? If they did that, it immediately involves a NATO country... And Russia would have a right to respond.”
Of course, Ukraine’s President Volodymy Zelensky had been offered a chance at a negotiated settlement, but he was pressured by then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, other Western leaders, to reject Russia’s generous terms with the promise of more arms.
Well, now “that's faltering,” the former US Defense Department staff member succinctly pointed out. Ukrainian President Zelensky failed miserably in his last ditch effort to win a funding package worth over $60 billion from American lawmakers.
President Joe Biden has been trying to push a $110-billion package through Congress that includes about $61.4 billion for Kiev. The House failed to reach the 60-vote threshold to advance the bill earlier in December, with Speaker Mike Johnson insisting Ukraine aid is "dependent on the enactment of transformative changes" to border security laws.”
Moscow has indicated that it is prepared to sit down and talk, the political analyst mentioned, but there would have to be concessions. But, in Maloof’s opinion, even if Zelensky showed any inclination to sit down for negotiations, he might be taken out of the equation, that is, killed by any opponents in Kiev.
In the US, more and more people on Capitol Hill appear to have had enough of the ‘Ukraine’ narrative, realizing the futility of “throwing any more money at this,” he said.
As for the Europeans, whose countries have been reeling from the impact of backfiring sanctions on Russia, they ought to “get their own act together… get their industries up and running again, and get their quality of living back in place. It's going to take a generation at least anyway,” Maloof suggested.
However, as things currently stand within the Biden administration, there appears to be “no end game” with respect to the Ukraine conflagration, he said.
“There's going to be support for as long as it takes. The talk is silly because we don't have the money and, happily, there has been now leveraging of our own southern border to try and do something with that in exchange for even any consideration of further assistance to both Ukraine and Israel at this point, simply because we have our own real national security threat.”
The neoconservatives within either party, Democratic or Republican, who push this agenda and this Russophobia “have to have enemies... They want to push American democracy, even at the tip of a gun... And it's wrong, and it's gotten us where we are, so locked in now,” Maloof concluded.
