Rashad Alkhader – Follow up<\/p>\n
Institute of Peace Washington<\/p>\n
TPresident Biden\u2019s essay on the Ukraine war in Tuesday\u2019s New York Times has vitally clarified America\u2019s interests and goals following weeks of public debate weighted with uncertainty and concern over U.S. intentions and methods in that conflict. It offers a straightforward, positive approach\u2014one that the world\u2019s democracies should sustain\u2014for confronting Russia\u2019s assault against not only Ukraine, but global peace, stability and the rule of law.<\/p>\n
President Joe Biden speaks at the White House in May. His May 31 op-ed essay in the New York Times summarized U.S. goals and methods for ending the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Doug Mills\/The New York Times)<\/p>\n
A Clear, Positive Goal<\/p>\n
\u201cAmerica\u2019s goal is straightforward,\u201d Biden wrote in the essay. \u201cWe want to see a democratic, independent, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine with the means to deter and defend itself against further aggression.\u201d
\nThat succinct, positive formulation of the U.S. objective contrasts with negative goals focused on Russia, such as weakening its geostrategic position or power. It forms a clear message, pro-Ukraine and pro-freedom rather than anti-Russia, that is vital to strengthen the necessary alliances against the Kremlin\u2019s brutal aggression. It helps strengthen the U.S. partnership with Europe. Also, as USIP experts have noted, it\u2019s an essential first step to building more support among nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America that have hesitated to fully oppose Russia\u2019s effort to turn back the 75-year struggle to build an international rules-based order.
\nIt seems no accident that Biden\u2019s essay appeared in the Times, for it responds directly to the newspaper\u2019s May 19 editorial seeking greater clarity on U.S. policy. That editorial was part of a broader questioning in May, among many commentators and scholars, about whether the battlefield surprises of the war\u2019s first three months were leading to what the Times editorial called \u201cU.S. aims and strategy in this war [that] have become harder to discern.\u201d
\n\u201cI want to be clear about the aims of the United States,\u201d Biden wrote on Tuesday, and he was. It is the positive goals he emphasized\u2014a restoration of Ukraine\u2019s independence and ability to define its future, that will advance the vital U.S. and allied interests in the protection of democracy, sovereignty and rule of law.
\nBiden\u2019s word choices, describing the \u201cdemocratic, independent, sovereign and prosperous\u201d Ukraine that America supports, carry real meaning. A democratic Ukraine is one that will continue its tradition, in 30 years of independence, of freely elected governments. It will continue to respond to Ukrainians\u2019 persistent demands, in the face of Russian resistance and corruption, for more transparent governance. An independent and sovereign Ukraine is one that preserves its right to choose its future course, including potential membership in the European Union or NATO. A prosperous Ukraine is one that is free of Russian strangleholds on its economy, which the Kremlin is trying to achieve by seizing Ukraine\u2019s remaining coastline, notably the port of Odesa.
\nThe Path to a Negotiated Peace<\/p>\n
Biden emphasized that he \u201cwill not pressure Ukraine\u2014in private or in public\u2014to make any territorial concessions\u201d as part of any eventual peace process with Russia. Rather, he said, U.S. military aid is meant to help Ukrainians defend themselves well enough to \u201cbe in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table.\u201d
\nThis approach is in contrast to suggestions, including by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger last week, that Ukraine cede to Russia the Crimean Peninsula and portions of Donbas that Russia seized in 2014. Zelenskyy sharply rejected the notion as redolent of the 1938 Munich Agreement in which European governments forced Czechoslovakia to cede its Sudetenland region to Nazi Germany.
\nU.S. as well as international policymakers should note the consistent evidence that Zelenskyy\u2019s determination to sustain Ukraine\u2019s fight accurately reflects Ukrainians\u2019 attitudes. In stark contrast to Putin\u2019s demonstrated personal isolation (illustrated graphically by his meetings with rare formal visitors across an absurdly long table), Zelenskyy seeks out steady contact with Ukraine\u2019s citizenry. Ukraine\u2019s independent polling organization, the Rating group, is sustaining wartime monitoring of public opinion and found this month that 94 percent of Ukrainians approve of Zelenskyy\u2019s performance since the war began.
\nAs Biden expressed the U.S. goal of a \u201cUkraine with the means to deter and defend itself against further aggression,\u201d he also signaled a method for achieving it: supplying Ukraine with highly capable defensive weapons. His article announced that the United States will send Ukraine advanced, long-range rocket systems that have recently become more vital as the war has shifted to the wide, open steppe of southeastern Ukraine. The United States and its allies already have delivered 108 howitzers with a potential range up to 25 miles, and Ukraine so far has deployed 85 of them to front lines, a U.S. defense official said last week. The rocket system that Biden mentioned in his article will carry ammunition capable of a 50-mile range.
\nThose U.S. measures are reinforced by the European Union\u2019s decision Tuesday to ban 90 percent of Russian oil exports to Europe by the end of the year\u2014and by Germany\u2019s announcement that it will send advanced, longer-range anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine.
\nThe first step to any eventual peace process that can protect the basic rights of nations to freedom and democracy is a global rejection of Russia\u2019s unprovoked assault and support for its victims\u2019 self-defense.<\/p>\n
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Rashad Alkhader – Follow up Institute of Peace Washington TPresident Biden\u2019s essay on the Ukraine war in Tuesday\u2019s New York Times has vitally clarified America\u2019s interests and goals following weeks of public debate weighted with uncertainty and concern over U.S. intentions and methods in that conflict. It offers a straightforward, positive approach\u2014one that the world\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":83320,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fye-yemen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fye-yemen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fye-yemen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fye-yemen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fye-yemen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=83319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fye-yemen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fye-yemen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/83320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fye-yemen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fye-yemen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fye-yemen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}