The Kyiv Independent
Sept 27, 2024
Dear U.S. President Joe Biden,
As Ukrainian cities continue to be targeted by Russian missiles and drones, bringing death and devastation to civilians, and as Ukrainian soldiers face the horrors of glide bombs dropped from Russian territory, we take the liberty of appealing to you.
We fully understand that, as president of the only country in the Western coalition able to provide a credible and persuasive response to Moscow’s aggression, you have been careful since the beginning of the war to avoid any scenario that could lead to escalation.
In a few months, it will be three years since the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. It now seems clear to us that, for both military and political reasons, this worst-case scenario no longer offers any advantage to Moscow’s leadership. Quite the contrary.
As for the question of Russia’s future after its defeat in Ukraine, the current power structure leaves little room for doubt. The vertical power structure of the “siloviki” (“strongmen”) will likely be reorganized around those components of the politico-mafia system that first understood the need to end Vladimir Putin’s experiment to salvage what remains.
We do believe that there is still a major risk of escalation, but it has moved to Asia. Just as Mao Zedong waited for the Kuomintang to exhaust itself in its fight against Japanese troops before launching the Long March, Xi Jinping is waiting patiently for the Russian military apparatus to collapse.
From this point of view, any Western procrastination can only delay Russia’s inevitable defeat and simultaneously strengthen China’s imperialist designs, not only toward Taiwan and the Philippines but also in the Russian Far West, particularly in the territories of Outer Manchuria, which Russia annexed in the 19th century, the key access to the Sea of Japan.
For these reasons, we believe the legacy of leadership you have shown since the Russian invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, would be tarnished if, in the final months of your presidency, you did not reinvigorate the Western coalition by supporting the following measures:
- Lifting restrictions on the use of Western weapons by the Ukrainian army to neutralize military and logistical targets on Russian territory;
- Supplying 300 Abrams tanks and 1,000 decommissioned Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, with financial support from other Ramstein coalition countries;
- Creating, within NATO, a structure modeled after Cocom during the Cold War to control arms exports and dual-use technologies to Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Belarus, and Azerbaijan;
- Expanding NATO to include Japan, Australia, South Korea, the Philippines, and any other democratic country that, like Argentina, expresses a wish to join.
Thank you once again for your leadership. Please accept, Mr. President, the expression of our highest consideration.
Signatories include leading politicians and officials in the U.S. and the EU, as well as prominent academics.