Biden is failing Ukraine — without change, Trump and Harris will too 

Former President Donald Trump’s agreement with the Taliban in 2019  partially set the stage for President Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. That ended, shamefully and tragically, what both called America’s “forever war.” 

Now, Biden may be returning Trump’s favor in Ukraine.  

As he continues to fund what many see as a new seemingly endless conflict, his policy of withholding the weapons and authority Ukraine needs to liberate itself paves the way for his successor, under pressure, to cut off support for a U.S. quasi-ally — suddenly, “within 24 hours,” under Trump, or gradually but inexorably under a Kamala Harris administration. 

The Biden-Harris rhetoric on Ukraine has been mostly supportive in resisting Vladimir Putin’s aggression. In his farewell address to the United Nations last week, Biden touted his own response to Russia’s second invasion of Ukraine. (The first went unchallenged under the Obama-Biden administration in 2014.) 

“[A]t my direction, America stepped into the breach, providing massive security and economic and humanitarian assistance,” said Biden. “Our NATO Allies and partners in 50-plus nations stood up as well. But most importantly, the Ukrainian people stood up….Ukraine is still free.” 

Unfortunately, the administration’s actions have not matched its noble declarations.  

After more than two and a half years of war, tens of thousands of Ukrainian deaths, millions displaced, scores of cities destroyed, and critical infrastructure obliterated, Ukraine remains mostly unconquered but hardly “free.” It is the same as saying that half of Europe in 1942, still struggling to resist but not yet under the yoke of Naziism, was considered free. 

Trump has already indicated how, if elected, he will handle the Ukraine situation Biden is leaving. He has made clear he will demand that both sides make compromises to achieve an immediate end to the fighting — that is, Ukraine will have to surrender part of its sovereign territory to Putin’s Russia. Confirming that he expects territorial and other concessions by Ukraine, Trump told Volodymyr Zelensky in their joint appearance last week, “it takes two to tango.” 

Trump, after all, has had experience in squeezing Zelensky to do his bidding, as he did in 2017 to press him to gather incriminating material on Hunter Biden’s financial dealings in Ukraine. 

But Putin’s own past performance has demonstrated that he will treat a cessation of hostilities as only a temporary reprieve from his long-term quest to restore the territory of the Soviet empire. Whatever promises he may make now to achieve a respite from Ukraine’s surprising resistance and bold counter-incursion of Russia, he will ignore them when he sees the next opportunity to advance his revanchist goals.  

That’s what Putin did after Ukraine gave up its Soviet-era nuclear weapons in 1994, when Russia, the U.S. and the United Kingdom guaranteed Ukraine’s political independence and territorial integrity. It’s what he did after he invaded Georgia in 2008 and the Bush administration acquiesced in the aggression. Again, in 2014 he invaded Eastern Ukraine and Crimea; the Obama-Biden administration did nothing as he prepared for his renewed aggression in 2022.  

If Harris is elected instead of Trump and takes over foreign and national security policy, she will face the same dilemma Biden has been punting since 2022. Should America help Ukraine win the war — that is, eject Russia from all Ukrainian territory it presently occupies? Or should we continue to provide Ukraine only with the weapons it needs to survive and prevent Russia from totally absorbing it into a reconstituted Russian empire? 

Biden-Harris up to now have held the view that the U.S. must avoid too successful a Ukraine defense because it would be seen by Putin and his henchmen as U.S. escalation and direct intervention in a war against Russia. “That,” fears the Biden-Harris administration, “is World War III.” 

Then, last week, Biden and Harris sent increasingly conflicting signals regarding U.S. policy on Ukraine.

For apparently the first time since the war began, both used the term “win.” Biden asked the United Nations, “Will we sustain our support to help Ukraine win this war?” Yet, when Zelensky presented his plan to achieve Ukraine’s victory, his administration dismissed it out of hand as “unrealistic” and “nothing new.”

An essential part of Zelensky’s plan was that Biden allow Ukraine to strike deeper into Russia with Western long-range missiles. Despite the supportive urgings of the United Kingdom and other Europeans, Biden has adamantly refused. Meanwhile, Russia continues to make incremental gains in the east, where Ukraine’s besieged forces suffer from a lack of air defenses and an insufficient supply of munitions. 

Biden is clearly intimidated by Putin’s threats of retaliation, as stated again last week regarding Zelensky’s request for longer strike authority. “This will mean that NATO countries — the United States and European countries — are at war with Russia,” said Putin.” We will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.” 

If Biden and Harris refuse to provide Ukraine the weapons and authority it needs to win and instead consign it to a slow, grinding war of attrition, then their inspiring rhetoric rings hollow. What they really offer is just a more protracted version of Trump’s plan to pull the plug on U.S. support for Ukraine. 

Ukrainians, and the rules-based international order, require more from all three. 

Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2006 and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010. He is a nonresident fellow at the Institute for Corean-American Studies and a member of the advisory board of the Global Taiwan Institute.