{"id":258386,"date":"2022-09-08T06:15:39","date_gmt":"2022-09-08T06:15:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=258386"},"modified":"2022-09-09T06:41:30","modified_gmt":"2022-09-09T06:41:30","slug":"why-the-us-is-becoming-more-brazen-with-its-ukraine-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=258386","title":{"rendered":"Why the US is becoming more brazen with its Ukraine support"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ellen Mitchell \u2013 The Hill Sept 3, 2022<\/strong><\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

A Zircon hypersonic cruise missile is launched by the frigate Admiral Gorshkov. Both Russia and China have a number of hypersonic missiles operational and deployed. The West doesn’t have any. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

The Biden administration is arming Ukraine with weapons that can do serious damage to Russian forces, and, unlike early in the war, U.S. officials don\u2019t appear worried about Moscow\u2019s reaction.<\/p>\n

In the past several months, Washington has detailed tranches of new drones, harder-hitting missiles and deadly rocket systems as part of billions of dollars pledged to the former Soviet country. The clear support is a far cry from the early days of the war, when\u00a0the U.S. government seemed hesitant to list exactly what was being sent into Ukraine so as not to tip off or draw the ire of Moscow.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s changed thanks to a struggling Kremlin that has failed to follow through with its threats.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver time, the administration has recognized that they can provide larger, more capable, longer-distance, heavier weapons to the Ukrainians and the Russians have not reacted,\u201d\u00a0former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine\u00a0William Taylor\u00a0told The Hill.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Russians have kind of bluffed and blustered, but they haven\u2019t been provoked. And there was concern [over this] in the administration early on \u2014 there still is to some degree \u2014\u00a0but the fear of provoking the Russians has gone down,\u201d added Taylor, who is now with the U.S. Institute of Peace.<\/p>\n

When Russia first attacked Ukraine on Feb. 24, President Vladimir Putin made it clear that any Western country\u00a0that provides certain weapons to Ukraine, including aircraft and missile defense systems, could be seen as stepping into the conflict.<\/p>\n

Though the United States quickly sprang to Ukraine\u2019s aid \u2014 pouring more than $10 billion worth of weapons into the country over the past six months \u2014 Washington appeared to tread carefully in the early days of the war, sometimes declining to detail specific systems and artillery being sent to bolster Kyiv.<\/p>\n

\u201cOperational\u00a0security\u00a0matters\u00a0to\u00a0the\u00a0Ukrainians,\u00a0right\u00a0now,\u201d then-Pentagon press secretary\u00a0John Kirby<\/a>\u00a0told reporters in March. \u201cThey\u2019re\u00a0fighting\u00a0for\u00a0their\u00a0country, and the Pentagon is not going to be detailing publicly the tools with\u00a0which they are doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most notably, the administration resisted calls from Kyiv to supply the country with fighter jets \u2014\u00a0rejecting a plan in early March<\/a>\u00a0that would have involved transferring MiG-29 jets from Poland to Ukraine \u2014 out of concern it would escalate tensions with Russia.<\/p>\n

The caution also extended to public rhetoric.\u00a0President\u00a0Biden<\/a>\u00a0reportedly\u00a0told Defense Secretary\u00a0Lloyd Austin<\/a>\u00a0and Secretary of State\u00a0Antony Blinken<\/a>\u00a0in April\u00a0to tone it down<\/a>\u00a0after the Pentagon chief said that the\u00a0U.S. wanted a weakened Russia<\/a>\u00a0that could not launch another attack \u2014 comments that Blinken then publicly aligned himself with.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were a bit more careful at first \u2026 not knowing if Putin would find and attack supply lines and convoys, not being sure if he would escalate, and also not being sure if Ukraine could use what we have them or hold out for long against Russia,\u201d said\u00a0Michael O\u2019Hanlon, a military analyst at the Washington, D.C.-based think tank Brookings Institution.<\/p>\n

In addition, the U.S. military sought to avoid stirring the pot with Russia by postponing a test of the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile in March and again in April\u00a0to avoid \u201cmisinterpretation.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Also in March, Defense officials kept a\u00a0successful hypersonic missile test<\/a>\u00a0under wraps for two weeks.<\/p>\n

Cut to August, when defense officials said the United States for the first time would send Ukraine\u00a0ScanEagle surveillance drones, heavily armored MaxxPro mine-resistant vehicles and TOW guided anti-tank missile systems\u00a0as well as various new munitions and ammo.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s after the administration\u00a0also revealed it had sent<\/a>\u00a0AGM-88 High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles to Ukraine.<\/p>\n

And since June, the U.S. has\u00a0steadily been increasing<\/a>\u00a0High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems to the country, which American service members have trained Ukrainian troops\u00a0to use in batches.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead,\u00a0multiple reports<\/a>\u00a0have indicated that the U.S. plans to soon send Excalibur precision-guided artillery munitions \u2014 weapons that can travel up to 70 kilometers and would help the Ukrainians target dug-in Russian positions and command posts.<\/p>\n

Part of the shift in messaging can be attributed to the fact Kyiv defied international expectations and did not quickly fall when Russia first attacked, according to\u00a0Nathan Sales, a former State Department official who most recently served as the acting undersecretary for civilian security, democracy and human rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the administration\u2019s messaging about the support it\u2019s providing is changing because the nature of the war is changing,\u201d said\u00a0Sales, now with the Soufan Group, an intelligence and security consultancy.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of the invasion, the prediction in Washington was Kyiv would topple in a matter of days, followed by a prolonged guerrilla-based campaign and insurgency.<\/p>\n

Such a conflict requires small, lightweight, portable weapons that can take out helicopters and tanks, armaments such as Stinger missiles and Javelins, which the U.S. government quickly provided.<\/p>\n

Instead, the battle morphed into a conventional conflict, whereas a large mass of combined forces on one side is fighting large mass of forces on the other.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo engage in that kind of campaign you need a much wider array of weaponry \u2014 you need artillery, you need drones, you need various other forms of heavy weaponry like anti-ship missiles. \u2026 What\u2019s changing isn\u2019t so much the administration\u2019s willingness to talk about what it\u2019s giving but the nature of the weapons it\u2019s actually giving,\u201d Sales said.<\/p>\n

Another part of the equation: Recent intelligence that indicates Russia is feeling the sting of Western-imposed sanctions and a military service force that is dwindling in power as the war wears on.<\/p>\n

Last month, Reuters reported that major Russian airlines such as Aeroflot have grounded their planes so\u00a0they can be stripped for spare parts<\/a>, taking components from some of their planes to keep others airworthy.<\/p>\n

And facing losses on the battlefield,\u00a0Putin last month sought to boost Russia\u2019s combat personnel\u00a0by more than 130,000 troops by\u00a0eliminating the upper age limit for new recruits and encouraging prisoners to join.<\/p>\n

U.S. officials think the effort is\u00a0\u201cunlikely to succeed.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Taken altogether, the intelligence paints a picture of a country struggling to maintain its own institutions, much less fire back at Western nations for aiding Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u00a0think the instincts of the people in the departments and agencies, particularly State and Defense and the intelligence community, I think their instincts are to be more forward leaning and more aggressive,\u201d one former senior government official said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot more space on our side, I think, to take actions that will assist Ukraine without being unjustifiably afraid of how Putin is going to respond,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The warmongers in the West are edging closer toward direct military confrontation with Russia. For at some point Putin will decide to deal with the source of the problem in Ukraine and it\u2019s not in Kiev, but rather Washington and London. And the decision makers in both capitals KNOW THIS <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[91,116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-russia","category-ukraine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=258386"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":258405,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258386\/revisions\/258405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=258386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=258386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=258386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}