If it’s genocide, is it Predator time?
President Biden used genocide for the first time Tuesday to describe the actions of Vladimir Putin’s invaders in Ukraine. He was in the middle of talking about gas prices in Iowa (NPR):
“Your family budget, your ability to fill up your tank, none of it should hinge on whether a dictator declares war and commits genocide a half a world away,” Biden said.
Asked later what made him use the word “genocide,” Biden replied, “Yes, I called it genocide. It has become clearer and clearer that Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of even being — being able to be Ukrainian.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Biden in a tweet, thanked him for weapons the U.S. has supplied, and asked for heavier weapons still.
About those heavy weapons. It is clear that fighter jets and a no-fly zone are still a bridge too far for NATO allies. But as the Pentagon broadens its scope of supply, most anything else is on its way, including “howitzer cannons, coastal defense drones and protective suits to safeguard personnel in the event of a chemical, biological or nuclear attack,” reports the Washington Post. The list of what might ship in the next $750 million aid package is not finalized:
Ukrainian defense minister Oleksii Reznikov spoke with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday, Kirby told reporters during a news briefing at the Pentagon. The discussion was part of a “constant dialogue and conversation” between the two officials and focused in part on the weapons and other assistance being provided to Ukraine. Additional details were not disclosed, but Reznikov wrote on Twitter earlier this week that Ukraine is seeking additional unmanned aircraft, air-defense systems, artillery, armored vehicles, combat aircraft and anti-ship missiles.
Ukraine’s U.S. ambassador, Oksana Markarova, met with General Atomics, maker of Reaper and Predator drones, according to a company spokesman.* But that’s likely upbeat, public relations, says Barry Summers, a friend who follows efforts by General Atomics to introduce its surveillance drones into U.S. commercial airspace. General Atomics lost a $1 billion deal with Australia just weeks ago.
Baby diapers or Stingers?
The U.S. prefers smaller, harder-to-target arms shipments. Robert G. Bell, a NATO official at Georgia Tech University, says Russians would need a network of spies to find and destroy them in transit. For their part, Russian officials have declared arms convoys in Ukraine “legitimate targets,” the Associated Press reports:
“It’s not as easy to stop this assistance flow as it might seem,” said Stephen Biddle, a professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University. “Things like ammunition and shoulder-fired missiles can be transported in trucks that look just like any other commercial truck. And the trucks carrying the munitions the Russians want to interdict are just a small part of a much larger flow of goods and commerce moving around in Poland and Ukraine and across the border.
“So the Russians have to find the needle in this very big haystack to destroy the weapons and ammo they’re after and not waste scarce munitions on trucks full of printer paper or baby diapers or who knows what.”
Amazing how little fuss there is about spending billions in U.S. tax dollars on armaments to defend some other country’s freedom when conservatives balk at spending them to support their own countrymen. Nary a peep from conservatives about the moral hazard of Ukraine not pulling itself up by its own bootstraps. Why is that?
The real moral hazard is moral hazardism.
* Flying GA drones from a video monitor is not like piloting fighter aircraft. Transfer to Ukraine would require lengthy specialized training, trained ground crews, and remote piloting facilities. If Gray Eagles suddenly appeared in Ukraine, who knows who would be remotely piloting them and from what country(s)?
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