The Republican Party remains divided on Ukraine, but an emerging talking point from the pro-Putin side is that the U.S. needs to “pivot to China.” Their claim is that supporting Ukraine and opposing Russian imperialism are somehow incompatible with the need to defend our Asian allies against an increasingly belligerent China.
Yet Russia and China are allies, and defeating Russia in Ukraine is absolutely critical for the defense of our Asian allies—for several very important reasons.
Tech bro and all-around man-splainin’ ignoramus Vivek Ramaswamy would outright surrender to Russia’s Vladimir Putin:
“I will end the war by ceasing further U.S. support for Ukraine and negotiating a peace treaty with Russia that achieves a vital U.S. security objective: ceasing Russia’s growing military alliance with China,” Ramaswamy is expected to say in a policy speech Friday, according to an advance copy of his remarks obtained by CBS News.
Ramaswamy would “offer a Korean war-style armistice agreement” that would cede most of Ukraine’s Donbas region to Russia.” And as part of the settlement, he said he would suspend U.S. military assistance to Ukraine, prevent Kyiv from joining NATO and lift Western sanctions against the Kremlin. He would also withdraw all troops from Ukraine and close all bases in Eastern Europe. …
In return, he says the U.S. would expect Russia to relinquish its military alliance with China, rejoin the nuclear non-proliferation START treaty, and withdraw all nuclear weapons and delivery capabilities from surrounding areas of Ukraine and annexed regions of the war-torn country.
Ramaswamy is just channeling his inner Donald Trump. The former guy vomits out words to the same effect.
Former President Donald Trump took to his social media platform, Truth Social, to warn, “A big mess in Russia, but be careful what you wish for. Next in may be far worse!”
“Biden will do about Russia whatever President Xi of China wants him to do,” he added.
He further referred to China “wanting large portions of unpopulated land to have for their much larger population,” calling the current conflict an “unthinkable opportunity” for them to move on Russia.
House Republicans prattle on about the same nonsense. “Why would you pick Ukraine [for NATO membership]?” said MAGA Rep. Matt Gaetz to Newsmax, similarly eager to surrender to Putin. “Why not extend NATO to Russia and make it an anti-China alliance? Are we really thinking that we’re more afraid of the broke-down tanks from Russia than the fact that China is building a secret military base on the island of Cuba, 90 miles away from the United States? If we had to pick Russia or Ukraine for NATO, one could reasonably make the argument that Russia probably provides more benefit long term.”
The thing is, all these Republicans are wrong. In fact, anyone who thinks the United States can help defend our Asian democratic allies without first taking care of the Russia problem is delusional. Here are some of the reasons why.
Russia and China are allies. You can’t separate the two
China may be reluctant to overtly support Russia’s war in Ukraine, but the two nations are united in several ways.
They are both major drivers of the BRICS framework (which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), attempting to build a counterbalance to Western hegemony by bringing together the so-called “global south.” While neither Russia nor China is actually in the global south, they are effectively rallying an international coalition of developing nations under their banner, and having decent success at it. Will it provide a real counterweight to the West’s dominant economic heft? Not anytime soon. But neither country can succeed in their long-term plans to counter Western power without building toward some kind of international union.
Whether the rest of the world accepts a more ambitious BRICS alliance, one with real teeth (it currently has none), remains to be seen. I’m guessing not. But China needs Russia to keep Europe preoccupied. Russia needs China for its economic survival and to keep the United States’ attention divided. The two have little reason to work at cross-purposes anytime soon.
That’s why Ramaswarmy and Gaetz’s notion that the West can pull Russia into an anti-China alliance is so patently ludicrous you can’t imagine they actually believe it. Russia needs to be feared and would never agree to join an alliance as a junior partner overshadowed by pretty much everyone else. And the West would work to constrain Russia’s imperialist ambitions. At least with China, Russia can pretend to be an equal partner, and China is happy to play along. And neither will contain the other’s imperial, expansionist agenda.
Then there’s Trump’s ridiculous assertion that “[China wants] large portions of unpopulated land to have for their much larger population.” China’s population is shrinking, and its brith rate is now lower Japan’s. “For a country’s population to remain stable, a birth rate of 2.1 children per woman is required. China’s fertility rate is now at 1.16, while in Japan it is at 1.26,” reported Foreign Brief. China’s problem isn’t a lack of space for its people—it has a landmass three times larger than India, which is now the most populated country in the world. China’s problem is economic stagnation precipitated by an aging population, supercharged by corporations like Apple moving away from China, burned by the COVID-19 shutdowns, and rattled by China’s belligerence toward Taiwan. No one wants all their eggs in the China basket anymore.
So no, China doesn’t need “more land.” That’s just dumb, which is what we’d expect from Trump or his new mini-me, Ramaswamy. It is not an “unthinkable opportunity” for China to move on Russia. And even if it was, that’s not our problem. Why is Trump, as usual, doing his best to defend Putin and Russia?
Russia would support a Chinese attack on Taiwan
We can make fun of Russia’s military all we want, but its Pacific Fleet exists and has dozens of surface vessels and submarines that would present a formidable challenge to any allied defense of Taiwan, or lead to a new Korean War. In addition, Russia has strategic bombers and other aircraft that would, again, provide support to a Chinese assault. These assets aren’t being degraded in Ukraine, but a toothless Russia in Europe would allow the U.S. to complete its pivot to Asia, redeploying to the east most, if not all, of its European-based assets.
Part of this pivot would be the understanding that Europe needs to be more proactive in its own defense—a debate and realization already underway. It’s downright humiliating to Europe that the United States has had to take the lead in Ukraine’s defense. A growing rearmament is already underway, led by a hyper-aggressive Poland. It sucks that the military-industrial complex will benefit, but the alternative is far worse. It’s not our fault that Putin and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping exist.
Russian victory would force the U.S. to permanently deploy forces to NATO’s eastern flank, diluting the U.S.’s ability to focus on Asia
The Pentagon’s budget is massive and bloated because of the supposed need to simultaneously fight 2.5 wars. Right now, if Ukraine’s ammunition shortage is any indication, it’s not clear we’d have the munitions to fight a single-prolonged war against a near-peer adversary.
A Russian victory in Ukraine, which Trump, Gaetz, and Ramswamy would love to deliver, would retain Russia as a belligerent force capable of rearming and threatening its European and Central Asian neighbors. Treaty obligations would force the United States to retain a large European presence, diluting the U.S.’s ability to fully pivot to China.
Effective deterrence must make it clear to a possible adversary, like Xi, that any offensive action wouldn’t just be costly, but it also might not even succeed. The more troops, ships, and planes the U.S. deploys in or near Asia, the harder Xi’s calculations become.
If the U.S. abandons its European allies, its Asian allies will take notice and be less likely to resist Chinese belligerence
The cornerstone of any alliance is trust. Russia and China exert power via force (the former) or economic soft power plus threats (the latter). Neither has true alliances that would compel them to defend another country, even if it runs counter to their own narrow national interests. You see that in Russia’s inability to rally a single other country, not even China, to contribute significant war material to their invasion. China knows that overtly aiding Russia would cost them economically. Meanwhile, China’s belligerent “wolf warrior” diplomacy has alienated every single one of its Asian neighbors except for North Korea, which serves China’s interest in having a buffer between its own border and democratic South Korea.
The U.S. does things differently. Our nation’s ability to defend its interests around the globe is based on multilateral treaty obligations. We’ve seen how worthless Russia’s security treaties are. Heck, Armenia learned that the hard way when the Russia-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization alliance refused to rally to its defense when Azerbaijan invaded several times over the past year.
A treaty is only as valuable as its participants’ ability to fulfill their obligations.
Several decades after being kicked out, the U.S. military is returning to the Philippines. Japan is shedding its post-World War II pacifism to more actively confront Chinese aggression. Australia is building new nuclear-powered submarines and working toward a stronger regional military presence. Even formerly hostile India is playing footsie with the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, increasing military ties as a counterbalance to China (take that, BRICS!). Even Vietnam is in the process of transitioning from former enemy to new ally.
All of these new and budding allies are watching how the U.S. handles the war in Ukraine. If they are going to place their eggs in the America basket, they need to know our nation will prove resilient and effective, even when the going gets tough. Why would the Philippines invite the U.S. back in if the U.S. would bail in a real confrontation? Vietnam shares a border with China—it wants to know that if it negotiates security guarantees with the U.S. and its regional allies, they’ll show up if Vietnam needs them to.
In Ukraine, the U.S. is confirming that it can be an honest and dependable friend and ally if it is ever needed in Asia.
Ultimately, it is clear that the best thing the U.S. can do to contain Chinese aggression is to reassure its Asian partners that it is a dependable ally, as well as defang Russia, thereby securing the European continent and allowing the Pentagon to focus its military might in defense of our Asian allies.
On its independence day, Ukraine staged a daring raid into western Crimea. This is from the Ukraine Armed Forces’ official Telegram account (translated by the app):
‼️ In occupied Crimea, a joint special operation of the GUR of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine took place with the support of the Navy
🤝 On the night of August 24, an operation of the GUR of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine took place in support of the Navy in temporarily occupied Crimea. Special units on watercraft landed on the shore in the area of Olenivka and Mayak settlements.
☑️ During the execution of the task, the Ukrainian defenders engaged in combat with the units of the occupier. As a result, the enemy suffered losses among personnel, enemy equipment was destroyed. Also, the state flag flew again in the Ukrainian Crimea
The operation targeted the western tip of Crimea, at a base which has long been thought to be the launching point for drone attacks against Odesa. While details remain sparse, this video of the retreating special operations forces shows a massive subsequent bombardment of the target:
Speculation is that the ground forces may have taken out radar and air defense facilities, opening up the base to drone and missile attacks.
Russia admitted the raid took place, but claimed a nearly naked guard stationed on the beach pinned down the Ukranians until a response force arrived to kill most of them.
Curiously, Russia had video of the guy getting dressed, but no video of the alleged dead Ukrainians.
This attack follows a spectacular mission yesterday in the same area to destroy a modern-generation Russian S-400 air defense battery:
It is curious that a Ukrainian drone, deep inside Russian-occupied territory, managed to hover over the air defense battery and capture the arrival of a missile, both of which this battery was supposed to be able to shoot down.
OMG, I see a Ukrainian combined arms operation!
I see artillery, mortar, armor, infantry, engineering (check out the line charge firing at 0:20 to clear a path through the minefield), and air support (drones).
It’s not a big assault, maybe platoon-sized. I count two tanks, two infantry vehicles, and about 20 infantry. Still, that’s how you learn this stuff. Over time, as they get practice and gain experience, perhaps they can operate combined arms with larger elements.
My big criticism? This well-executed assault was wasted north of Bakhmut, instead of taking ground on the actually important southern front. The OSINT folks have noted that this isn’t particularly fresh video, and Ukraine has likely held that position for a while. This unit, which seemed to perform well, is hopefully on its way to (or already at) the southern front.
Ukraine has finished replacing the Soviet emblem on the shield of the 62-meter-tall Mother Ukraine statue in Kyiv. It now sports a shiny new Ukrainian trident, all in time for Ukraine’s big Independence Day celebration today.
I’m curious: Given all the civilian targets Russia hits, why not target this one, for the obvious symbolism? I’m guessing they know they’d probably miss, and don’t want to become the butt of more jokes.
This sounds like great news!
Note: Just because Russian Telegram is freaking out, that doesn’t mean it’s actually happening. But let’s hope.
