And suddenly things went very fast with the F-16s. Last Tuesday, the British government reported that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had agreed with Prime Minister Mark Rutte that the United Kingdom would forge an “international coalition” with the Netherlands to “provide Ukraine with air combat capability”.
Last Friday, white smoke immediately came from US President Joe Biden: the US agrees to train Ukrainian pilots. From the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan made it clear that the training be the prelude to the delivery of combat aircraft. “As training gets under way in the coming months,” Sullivan said, “we will work with our allies on when planes will be delivered, who will deliver them and how many.”
Neither President Biden’s announcement nor Security Adviser Sullivan’s remarks made reference to the delivery of U.S. F-16s by the United States. American air force. Sullivan said he expects Ukraine to abide by the “fundamental starting pointthat US weapons should not be used for attacks on Russian soil. Biden insists he wants to avoid war with the Russians.
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Biden’s agreement is crucial: without the green light from Washington, NATO countries will not be allowed to export the American F-16s. But the decision came sooner than expected. Just last February, Biden said he would “temporarily” rule out sending F-16s to Ukraine. European NATO countries that had already hinted that they were willing to supply fighter jets (such as the Netherlands) have not been caught making firm commitments in recent months.
Argument against delivery
Behind the scenes, however, some pressure has likely been exerted on Washington. For example, a report from the US Air Force was leaked this week, in which, based on the evaluation of the skills of two Ukrainian fighter pilots, it is concluded that the training for the F-16 no more than four months need to last. This effectively negated a commonly used argument against delivery – the training would take too long.
It is not the first time that Europe – and not Washington – has led the way. Of course, with over $43 billion (according to data from the Kiel Institute for Weltwirtschaft) the US provides more military aid than all European allies combined. But where the Biden administration has shied away from arms deliveries in some areas, the Europeans have pressed ahead. For example, it was the European NATO countries that ensured that Ukraine has dozens of Western tanks at its disposal for its counteroffensive, such as the Leopard-2 and the Challenger 2.
The 31 Abrams tanks that superpower America will make available before the end of the year are a bit poor compared to that. Although the US military has thousands of Abrams in inventory, the Pentagon does not want any vehicles with standard depleted uranium armor to be delivered to Kyiv. Washington therefore only wants to make available the export version of the Abrams (with conventional armor) and there are not many of these available.
supplications
The Americans have also surpassed the Americans in other areas. In recent months, Washington has donated large numbers of precision weapons, such as HIMARS rocket artillery. But the White House has so far been reluctant to supply long-range missiles such as the ATACMS (which can reach up to 300 kilometers) – despite months of pleas from Kyiv.
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Earlier this month, London suddenly announced that it would deliver the advanced Storm Shadow cruise missile (range of up to 250 kilometers) to Ukraine. Last week, British minister Ben Wallace reported that the Ukrainian air force had already deployed the weapon “successfully”. According to Moscow, the missile was used in an attack in the center of Luhansk – a city that was until now a safe distance from the front. Last Friday there were also heavy explosions in occupied Mariupol – well beyond the range of the American HIMARS missiles.
For example, after a year and three months, the ratios seem to have reversed. Before and immediately after the start of the war, Biden and the members of his cabinet were behind the allies. Now the White House often reacts with a certain delay. Security Adviser Sullivan said the Americans are always looking at what is needed at this stage of the war. After the anti-tank weapons of the first phase, the artillery and ammunition in the battle in the Donbas, now is the time for the fighters, Sullivan said.
The calming of the White House may be related to a diminishing sense of urgency at home. Republican voters, in particular, are increasingly responding to poll questions that the war is “too expensive” for Americans. More than half of them now believe that the war in Ukraine also involves American security interests.
The same is true of a small but influential minority of Republican politicians. Representative Anna Paulina Luna wrote in an email to The New York Times“I just came back from a meeting with the Ukrainian parliament in Poland, where they asked for F-35 fighter jets and expressed the view that every American should pay 10 dollars a month to finance their war.”
Biden is currently engaged in tough negotiations with the Republican majority in the House of Representatives over the increase in the debt ceiling and the cuts the Republicans are demanding in return. Incidentally, aid to Ukraine has not been put on the list by the Republicans. The Republican leader in the House, Kevin McCarthy, who is leading the negotiations, has previously said that he believes the US should not write “a blank check” to Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the usual menacing language sounded from Moscow. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Grushko said on Sunday that “Western countries are still on the path of escalation” and that there are “colossal risks” in return. However, the minister did not announce concrete countermeasures.