{"id":5434,"date":"2022-03-17T09:29:09","date_gmt":"2022-03-17T13:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=5434"},"modified":"2022-03-17T09:30:47","modified_gmt":"2022-03-17T13:30:47","slug":"the-next-step","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2022\/03\/17\/the-next-step\/","title":{"rendered":"The Next Step"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

David and Goliath<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Ukraine is fighting a \u201cDavid versus Goliath\u201d battle against the second biggest military power in the world \u2013 Russia.\u00a0\u00a0What the Russians, and the world, thought would be a surgical dissection of Ukraine, ending in the quick fall of Kyiv and the death or exile of President Zelenskyy, failed to occur.\u00a0\u00a0Instead, the Ukrainians are fighting for every inch, and forcing Russia back into their \u201cold\u201d playbook from Afghanistan and Chechnya and Syria: destroy everything so there is nothing left to defend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Zelenskyy is speaking to many of the liberal democracies of the world \u2013 live from his office (or bomb shelter) in Kyiv.\u00a0\u00a0He spoke, clad in a khaki t-shirt, to the United Kingdom\u2019s and Canada\u2019s Parliaments, the General Assembly of the European Union and the United Nations, and yesterday, to the Congress of the United States.\u00a0\u00a0In each speech, he has picked a point of that group\u2019s history and compared Ukraine\u2019s battles to their own.\u00a0\u00a0The speeches themselves are important, but what is more significant is that they provide \u201cproof of life\u201d, of Zelenskyy,\u00a0\u00a0of the Ukrainian government, and Ukrainian resistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anaconda Plan<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The United States continues to ratchet up economic sanctions against Russia.\u00a0\u00a0The Russian banks can\u2019t participate in the world, the Russian stock market remains closed, even the Russian oligarchs are finding their luxury homes and yachts seized.\u00a0\u00a0But it\u2019s all in-direct action.\u00a0\u00a0We are providing pain try to influence Russian plans.\u00a0\u00a0But that pain is nothing compared to the pain Ukraine is inflicting.\u00a0\u00a0Estimates are that as many as ten thousand Russian troops are dead.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ukraine is paying the heaviest price.  Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers are also dead, as well as many thousands of Ukrainian citizens, some caught in the crossfire, but many more intentionally targeted by the Russian military.  That is the new \u201cRussian Strategy\u201d:  we will destroy your cities and your people until you can bear the cost no longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ukrainian city of Mariupol is being leveled.\u00a0\u00a0400,000 civilians remain in the battle zone.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s not a Russian mistake or strategic necessity.\u00a0\u00a0It is the price they are making Ukrainians pay for daring to defend their own country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The world sanctions against Russia will ultimately destroy their economy.\u00a0\u00a0But it\u2019s a slow process, an \u201cAnaconda\u201d plan of gradually choking out economic life.\u00a0\u00a0Economic sanctions cannot keep pace with the horror occurring on the ground.\u00a0\u00a0The demands by the free citizens of the world are growing; more needs to be done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Weapons<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The United States is rounding up weaponry from around the world to slip to the Ukrainian military. It\u2019s not simple.\u00a0\u00a0The Ukrainian Army is a mix of \u201cNATO\u201d style and Russian weaponry.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s no good to give them weapons they are unable to use.\u00a0\u00a0But the US is directly giving them \u201csimple\u201d high tech weapons, the Switchblade<\/em> armed drone that looks like a toy but can loiter over a target, and then explode on it like a bomb.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Zelenskyy is asking for a NATO \u201cno-fly\u201d zone, clearing the skies of all aircraft over Ukraine.  He believes his army can hold its own, IF, he can control the skies.  But that tactic would cause a direct confrontation between NATO (US) and Russian warfighters, a major step towards World War III.  That final step is still one to avoid.  But Zelenskyy, and the Polish government, has offered an intermediate step that we should do \u2013 now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ukraine\u2019s No-Fly Zone<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Give Zelenskyy the tools to create his own \u201cno-fly zone\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0If the Ukrainians need fighter jets, then we should give them fighter jets.\u00a0\u00a0The Poles have the fighters that Ukraine needs, MiG 29\u2019s and 27\u2019s; fighters that the Ukrainian Air Force knows how to fly.\u00a0\u00a0Poland has already offered those fighters up, but the \u201cdeal\u201d was nixed by the strategists in the US Pentagon.\u00a0\u00a0Their fear was that it was a NATO escalation that could trigger a Russian attack into a NATO nation \u2013 World War III.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That might have been a good call two weeks ago, but it hasn\u2019t \u201caged\u201d well.  Russia\u2019s President Vladimir Putin has made it clear that he will use the most egregious tactics against non-combatants in Ukraine.  We, to this point, have given him free rein to do so.  NATO and the US must find a way to raise the stakes again, beyond slow economic strangulation.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what does that all mean?  Poland will transfer the fighters to a US base in Germany.  Ukrainian pilots will slip out of Ukraine and accept the planes there.  Here\u2019s the rub:  US forces will arm the planes, loading the missiles and other weapons, for their flight back to Ukrainian airbases.  Without the arms, then the whole exercise is a waste of time, and a death sentence to the Ukrainian planes and pilots.  It is inevitable that Russian air  defense forces will try to interdict the Ukrainian fighters along the way in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Essentially then, the US base in Germany will be the launch site for forces used against the Russian Air Force.  That\u2019s the Pentagon\u2019s concern \u2013 and escalation towards direct conflict.  What if the Russians respond by a missile attack on the US Air Base?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Putin\u2019s Choice<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If Putin intends to start World War III, he\u2019s going to do it.\u00a0\u00a0If his invasion of Ukraine was a \u201ctest\u201d to see how far NATO would go in response, he\u2019s got his answer.\u00a0\u00a0The real question is \u2013 either he\u2019s a \u201crational\u201d actor, unwilling to start a World War he cannot win, or he\u2019s not.\u00a0\u00a0If he\u2019s not rational, then World War III is probably inevitable.\u00a0\u00a0If he\u2019s rational, he won\u2019t cross the line of a direct attack on NATO.\u00a0\u00a0Either way, that\u2019s out of our control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What we can control, is our response to the ultimate sacrifice that Ukrainians are making.  It\u2019s time to take the next step. The world demands it, and Ukraine has earned it.  Send them the MiG\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ukraine Crisis<\/h4>\n\n\n\n