ATACMS? What is Team Biden thinking?

Handcuffing an incoming president? Or even just giving him a worse situation to deal with? This was once unthinkable, but is the sort of churlishness one expects from this administration.

WASHINGTON – It’s perhaps appropriate that the Biden administration is finishing up with another foreign policy move that leaves one wondering “what could they possibly be thinking?”

Team Biden’s late-in-the-day authorization for Ukraine to use US-provided ATACMs mid-range missiles to attack targets inside Russia is the latest—but far from the first—head-scratching move by the “adults in the room.”

From a purely military perspective, these weapons are helpful—especially when you are allowed to use them against more targets. But hitting targets inside Russia won’t have a decisive effect on the Ukraine fighting either way.

In warfare, timing is everything. If Ukraine had been given ATACMs (and other weapons it requested) earlier, say, about nine months into the war when the Ukrainians had the Russian forces discombobulated, a clear-cut victory might have been possible. Or at least a negotiated settlement on very favorable terms.

However, Team Biden dithered and the window of opportunity closed on the Ukrainians, who in short order found themselves battering against Russian forces in fixed, defensive positions, and are now worrisomely stressed by Russian forces on the offensive—which presumably explains Team Biden’s recent authorization to supply anti-personnel mines to Ukraine.

The administration hasn’t explained its latest move regarding ATACMs in any useful way. So observers are left speculating. The two most common reasons offered are that Biden (or whoever is making the decisions) are:

* Punishing Moscow for deploying North Korean troops onto the Ukrainian battlefield.

* Providing Ukraine with added military capability that strengthens its position on the battlefield and in any future negotiations with the Russians. And this, according to administration thinking, makes it harder for the incoming President Donald Trump to “sell out” the Ukrainians by forcing them into a bad deal with Russian President Putin—or even worse, cutting them off from US support.

One supposes it all may be about “cost imposition” and setting things up for eventual negotiations. Fair enough, even if ill-advised.

But handcuffing an incoming president? Or even just giving him a worse situation to deal with? This was once unthinkable, but is the sort of churlishness one expects from this administration.

At the end of the day—and assuming Putin doesn’t “go nuclear”, admittedly a risky assumption—the ATACMs won’t make much difference.

Rather, it’s just another step in a line of missteps that have cost a million lives on both sides since Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022—during the second year of the Biden administration. That’s a million human beings. And in 21st-century Europe that supposedly had outgrown such conflicts.

This latest move is best viewed in the context of Biden’s handling of Ukraine, and even the administration’s broader foreign policy. By only timid, incremental, and oh-so-“nuanced” flexible deterrent options—the incompetents have now backed the Western democracies into an increasingly small corner.

Their approach with Ukraine from the beginning has been McNamara-esque. Incremental to the point of ineffectiveness—while hoping the other guy will give up or ask for a deal that lets us leave claiming success.

These are the people who thought running from Afghanistan in 2021 was a good idea, and still insist it was a success.

And they thought they’d brought peace to the Middle East—as National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan wrote in Foreign Affairs, claiming the region was “quieter than it had been in two decades.” A week later on October 7, 2023 the place exploded.

It’s even less surprising given that so many administration officials cut their teeth during President Obama’s era. Yes, the same Obama who dismissed Putin’s tough-guy act as just his “shtick.” Hardly. Putin is the sort who can smell weakness and felt emboldened enough not long afterward to seize Crimea and a slice of eastern Ukraine in 2014.

Biden’s foreign policy team has all the smarts of a gang of graduate students tossing around terms like “flexible deterrence options” and “escalation dominance” and solving the world’s problems in a late-night dorm room rap session. They’ve got it all figured out.

Putin goes ballistic

Now what about Mr Putin? He wasn’t going to just sit still with the ATACMS announcement. And he’s threatening to use nuclear weapons—as he’s threatened before.

The tyrant is clearly frustrated, his targets are actually unifying, however imperfectly, against him. Germany’s leader in the 1930s also used to break out in loud angry tirades, shaking his fist and fulminating.

And senior administration officials assure us Putin is just signalling—or, “acting up.” Maybe. But recall Jake Sullivan’s boast mentioned above about a peaceful Middle East. If they were wrong about that, maybe they’re wrong about Putin.

But even if Putin doesn’t use nukes, that’s small consolation. He won’t give up his stated objective of restoring Russia to earlier glory, including reestablishing influence (at least) in its old Soviet Union-era boundaries—presumably to include the Baltic nations and, who knows, maybe as far as the Elbe.

And his saboteurs are already active in Western Europe—and presumably just awaiting orders.

World War III?

Which leads us to remember this latest crop of bow-tied swells who entered office in January 2021 insisting “the adults are back in charge” and they would restore diplomacy and prevent World War Three.

Instead, they’re creating the conditions for a world war—and maybe it has already started.

The Chinese and the Russians are tighter than ever. The Iranians are full participants, providing Russia with drones—and a diversionary “front” in Lebanon and Gaza (with Chinese support).

And the North Koreans—a starving hell-hole dependent on Beijing’s good graces (and oil, food and money) for survival has now become a genuine player in what is for now a European war—providing Russia with millions of artillery shells, rockets and at least 10,000 troops, for starters.

How tight is the alliance? Tight enough. Consider that Putin is willing to absorb the humiliation (he is Russian after all) of relying on Asians for support and survival—and even playing second fiddle to the Chinese—who have their own military objectives, close to home for now, and far beyond eventually.

And in the western hemisphere, Venezuela—effectively a Chinese satrap that is destabilizing its region—is readying to seize half of neighboring Guyana (with a lot of oil) and daring America to do something about it.

Chinese political warfare is ascendant almost everywhere—as seen at the new Chinese-built port that opened in Peru the other week. Africa? A similar story. Pacific Islands, same thing. It is hard to argue that in the time the “adults” have been back, the world has become safer.

ATACMS is a story that will be forgotten in a week or two.

But intentionally or not, President-elect Trump will enter office having been handed the keys to the Augean Stables by the aforementioned bow-tied swells—who’ll soon be scurrying off to sinecures in think tanks and lobbying firms or Ivy League teaching positions—as “professors of practice” of all things.

Trump and his team will have to clean up their mess. It’ll take a good-sized shovel.

Grant Newsham is a retired US Marine officer and former US diplomat. He was the first Marine liaison officer to the Japan Self-Defense Force and is a fellow at the Center for Security Policy and the Yorktown Institute. He is the author of the book, “When China Attacks: A Warning To America.“