From October 2021, the US government knew with eminent intelligence that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin intended to attack Ukraine very soon. It informed the Ukrainian government and its allies, some of whom refused to believe the US insights, notably Germany and France. The US did a bit to prepare the Ukrainians, but not much. When Russia attacked on Feb. 22, 2022, the US thought that Ukraine would fold fast.
Bob Woodward, famous for his Watergate revelations, has worked at the Washington Post since 1971, currently as associate editor. He operates as Washington’s chief court chronicler. Every second year he produces a book about the inside dealings in the White House. He has just published his 23rd book, War (Simon & Shuster), which discusses the White House on the war in Ukraine and Gaza. Roughly half of the book is devoted to each topic, while domestic issues are given short shrift. I concentrate on the discussion of Ukraine.
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As usual, Woodward has had extensive access to the court, that is, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, his deputy Jon Finer, CIA Director Bill Burns, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, Secretary of State Tony Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, while he has not interviewed President Joe Biden. As is usually the case with Woodward, the more access he has had to a person, the more positively he presents that person. His main hero in this book is Sullivan, the second Blinken, and the third Burns. Woodward has the habit of making not very credible quotes from conversations at which he was not present, but they offer attractive reading.
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During his time as US vice president, 2009-2017, Biden dealt extensively with Ukraine, and he entered with a firm view of Russia. He was not looking for a reset (unlike Obama), but wanted “to find a stable and predictable way forward with Putin.” That led to his not very fortuitous meeting with Putin in Geneva on June 16, 2021. This meeting occurred after Russia has made a major troop concentration around Ukraine in April 2021, but “curiously, Ukraine was barely a footnote in the conversation.”
On July 12, 2021, Putin in effect declared war on Ukraine in a long article denying the right of Ukraine to exist as a nation. Woodward reports: “Sullivan and… Finer took the manifesto seriously, but it didn’t strike them as an alarm bell or a declaration of war.” That was a serious mistake.
Who was their Russia expert? “For CIA director Bill Burns, who had served as ambassador to Moscow from 2005 to 2008, the manifesto of many of his conversations with Putin over the years. ‘There was nothing really new in it,’ Burns believed.” This was a stunning mistake, illustrating Burns’ misreading of everything Russian. Putin first denied that Ukraine was a nation in 2008 but that was not public. That Putin published a 5,000-word article on his website was a major event and this was a very militant article. Burns was the foremost opponent in the US administration to offering Ukraine NATO membership in 2008. The Biden administration had only one top Russia analyst, Burns, and he was usually wrong, but very diplomatic.
Even before the war started, “Biden told his principals… that his first priority was avoiding a direct conflict with Russia.” Apparently, the fate of Ukraine was secondary at best.
On Dec. 7, 2021, Biden called Putin. He claimed that the West could impose “enormous costs to Russia” if it invaded Ukraine. “Putin flatly denied Russia had any plants to invade Ukraine.” But after having talked tough, Biden started drawing up his own red lines against himself: “There is no plan for a NATO or US combat presence in Ukraine.” Why say that? Leave your adversary in maximum uncertainty!
What was the first thing the American leaders would say when Russian invaded? What they were not going to do! Biden: “I am not sending US troops to Ukraine.” Sullivan: “If you threaten to use US troops in Ukraine, Putin will go faster and bigger, not back off.” This is what you say when you know nothing about Russia. The flawed Putinologist Bill Burns “strongly agreed with this assessment.”
As the war started, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “asked Biden to set up a no-fly zone around Ukraine” to close the skies. But Biden said no. Previously, which Woodward does not mention, Sullivan had refused to maintain the freedom of navigation, one of the oldest US principles, on the Black Sea. Their dominant idea was fear of Putin.
Woodward reflects how confused the White House was about its fears that Putin would use nuclear arms. Either it came from the CIA, controlled by Bill Burns, or it was sheer imagination. “Biden had said privately that if Putin used a tactical nuclear weapon on the battlefield in Ukraine, the US would not respond with nuclear weapons”! Why even think such a thing? This reads like an unintended encouragement to Russia to use nukes.
At no time would it have made any sense for Russia to use nukes. The ultimate shenanigan is World War III: “Biden and Sullivan believed that an armed clash between the US and Russian forces at any level could too easily lead to World War III.”
When reading this book, you are left with one thought: Are the US rulers really such amateurs? Naturally, Woodward might not have wanted to report on serious discussions of strategy, but it is striking that none of these policymakers is reported to have said anything about what they wanted to achieve in the war, least of all Ukraine’s victory or Russia’s defeat. Did they want to do anything for Ukraine and its people? They don’t say. They just wanted to avoid various things.
Unless Biden does something in the next two months to turn the war in Ukraine around, his legacy there will be pretty bad.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.
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