Send American soldiers into Ukraine to standup and operate the Patriot missile defense system.
The Biden administration’s pending decision to send Ukraine a Patriot missile defense system encapsulates everything that is right and wrong about its policy vis-à-vis Ukraine.
The Biden administration is doing the right thing, but belatedly, reactively, and inadequately—and with catastrophic consequences because of its dithering and delay.
Providing Ukraine with a Patriot missile defense system is obviously the right thing to do. The Patriot is a defensive weapons system that will protect innocent Ukrainians against horrific Russian war crimes.
Russia is deliberately targeting Ukrainian residential building and civilian infrastructure.
The Patriot will enable Ukraine to intercept Russian missiles while they are airborne, well before they can slaughter innocent, men, women and children—and well before they can cripple Ukraine’s electrical grids and power supply.
Delay. The problem is: it will be months before the Patriot arrives in country. In the meantime, Russia continues to wage war against innocent civilians.
Why the delay? Because it will take months to train Ukrainians to operate the system, and the Biden administration won’t send American troops into Ukraine to operate the Patriot. That would risk “provoking Putin” don’t you know, and we can’t have that.
This is ludicrous and makes no sense. Protecting innocent Ukrainian civilians is hardly a provocation; it is humanitarian mission and clearly the right thing to do.
Putin can protest all he wants; but he knows, and the world knows, that shooting missiles out of the sky to save lives is not at all analogous to targeting Russian soldiers.
Conflict Deescalation. In fact, deploying the Patriot to Ukraine is a deescalatory measure, not an escalatory measure.
The Patriot is designed to contain and minimize the horrific costs of war. President Biden needs to recognize this and overcome his timid approach to aiding Ukraine.
His timidity is needlessly prolonging the war and worsening the horrific costs of war for those who can least bear it: innocent Ukrainian civilians.
Moreover, the need for a missile defense system in Ukraine was obvious within the first few months of the war. Russian military attacks on civilian targets have occurred habitually throughout the conflict. Yet only now is the Biden administration thinking about providing Ukraine with a Patriot missile defense system.
Predictably and sadly, this administration’s approach all along has been the proverbial day late and a dollar short. The truth is, this administration never expected Ukraine to succeed and has been forced to play catchup every single step of the way.
Act Now. Now is the time for Team Biden to get ahead of the curve for once. The administration should overcome its fear and timidity and immediately send an American military team into Ukraine to standup and operate a Patriot missile defense system.
The risk to our soldiers would be minimal, and relatively few soldiers would be required to standup and operate the system. We’re talking hundreds, not thousands, of soldiers.
Within several months, after Ukrainians have been fully trained on how to operate the system, the U.S. team can leave.
There is no reason to dither and delay. Do the right thing and do it now.
Feature photo credit. Another civilian target destroyed by a planned Russian military attack, courtesy of Ukrainska Pravda.