RedState published a proposal to send NATO-owned fighter planes, mainly Polish MiG-29s, to Ukraine a few days back. The deal was canceled due to logistical and training issues.
Apparently, Poland and possibly other countries involved were still willing to go along until they ran into Joe Biden.
On Saturday, Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president participated in Zoom calls with US senators. One of the subjects of discussion was NATO fighter transfer. What was revealed is that it wasn’t apprehension from the Poles that scuttled the deal. It was actually opposition from the United States.
My source says the problem is there are no clear parameters for what is an act of war, what triggers article 5 – saying “it’s frustrating because it is all irrelevant with Putin – he wasn’t provoked to go across the border, he didn’t get provoked to blow up pediatric hospitals”
— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) March 5, 2022
I’m not sure what confusion there actually is over what triggers NATO’s Article 5. The Article 5 triggers it technically. Rather, it’s something that is invoked by a member nation as the result of a direct, hostile attack. For example, if Germany is the victim of a cyberattack it will be up to them whether or not they invoke Article 5. However, Russia’s incursion in a NATO member would be eligible.
Regardless, despite all the tough-guy rhetoric and claims of credit for “uniting” our allies against Putin, it is once again Joe Biden who is standing in the way. Earlier in the week, the White House signaled it would oppose a bipartisan Senate plan to sanction Russia’s oil and gas industry. We now learn that Biden also opposes sending significant lethal aid for the Ukrainians.
That’s not to say that the president’s move isn’t completely defensible. It is worthwhile to try and keep Ukraine’s current conflict in check. The last thing the world needs is another world war, and if Russia is provoked into an act that would lead to the invocation of Article 5, that’s exactly what would happen.
Still, I’m not sure Biden’s cautious tip-toeing is really doing much. Already, we are sending to Ukraine anti-aircraft weapons and anti-tank weaponry. I’m not sure that allowing some NATO nations to send fighter jets represents any more of an escalation at this point. Putin will not militarily attack any NATO country when his forces in Ukraine are fighting. Russia will need to have a much larger number of people and material over the coming months in order to entertain such an idea.
Given that, I’d say this is more an example of Biden being feckless in his attempts to appease the Russians than it is a savvy diplomatic move to stave off a wider war. That’s not exactly surprising, though.
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