The US President Joe Biden (R) met NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House, Washington, June 13, 2023

If only the US President Joe Biden had a time machine as in the post-apocalyptic science fiction novella by H. G. Wells, he should have used that vehicle or device to travel purposely and selectively backward through time all the way to 1999 when it was that the US lost the plot on European security and Russia’s perennial quest for mutual security with Europe.

At that defining moment of the post-cold war era 24 years ago, George Kennan was prophetic to warn the Bill Clinton administration that US-Russia relations would be irreparably damaged if the western alliance expanded to include the former Warsaw Pact countries. His advice was ignored. It is generally accepted today that the war in Ukraine is the culmination of the NATO’s relentless advance to the borders of Russia.

Agreement on Measures to Ensure the Security of the Russian Federation and Member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation would require that NATO members commit to no further enlargement of the alliance, including in particular to Ukraine, and the related issues concerning the alliance’s deployments, which impacted Russia’s core security issues.

Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Security Guarantees. Taken together, the two drafts represented an opening bid by Moscow for serious negotiations but it led to no engagement since the Biden administration simply stonewalled that the US and Russia cannot cut a deal over the heads of Europeans and Ukrainians!

As the National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan famously said, “nothing about you [Ukraine] without you.” It was a lame excuse, for the Kiev regime installed in power through the US-backed unconstitutional, armed and bloody coup in Ukraine in 2014, was a mere tool of Washington.

The Biden administration thought it was cornering Moscow and setting a bear trap as Russia was damned either way — whether it passively accepted the reality of NATO presence right at its doorstep, or chose to resist through coercive means. When Russia’s special military operation began in February 2022, Strobe Talbott who was the mastermind in the Bill Clinton administration pushing through the doctrine of NATO’s eastward expansion into the former Warsaw Pact territories, tweeted congratulating the Biden Team for cornering the Russians!

Several US analysts triumphantly wrote that Russia was going to be bogged down in a quagmire with dire consequences to the country’s regime and its very existence. The western narrative gained ascendancy for a while. The rest is history.

However, in one of the great turnarounds of history in modern times, Moscow eventually prevailed in the battlefields decisively and irreversibly.

Against such a historical backdrop, Biden’s remark on Saturday that the US is “not going to make it easy” for Ukraine to join the NATO can only be seen as a retrogressive journey into the past. Biden underscored that Ukraine will be required to meet the “same standards” as any other member of the bloc, implying that Ukraine must conform to the so-called Membership Action Plan or MAP, which requires a candidate nation to make military and democratic reforms, with NATO’s advice and assistance, before a determination of membership can be made.

The MAP process can take years. Macedonia took 21 years. Biden’s remark is not only a signal to Kiev but comes at a time when there is a groundswell of opinion within the alliance that Europe and the US must provide Ukraine clear-cut NATO security guarantees, which is important for the future of European security.

In fact, Biden spoke only 4 days after meeting with Jens Stoltenberg, NATO secretary-general, at the White House last Tuesday, where, reportedly, the latter sought to simplify the accession process for Ukraine on the plea that Kiev had already made significant progress toward membership.

What prompted Biden to take a hard line? Poland’s President Andrzej Duda declared, in the run-up to his talks in Paris on June 12 with France’s President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the Weimar Triangle format, that Ukraine would like to have “a very concrete perspective … of joining the North Atlantic Alliance.” Duda hoped that the NATO summit in Vilnius will “send a positive message to Kiev, …that Ukraine’s future membership in NATO is clearly visible.”

Apparently, there was consensus amongst the Weimar Triangle members also that Ukraine should receive security guarantees. Scholz declared: “It is evident that we need something like this, and we need it in a very concrete form.” Macron endorsed, calling for a rapid agreement on “tangible and credible security guarantees.”

Indeed, there have been threatening noises too that if there is no concretisation on Ukraine’s membership in Vilnius, some of the “hardcore” allies may take things into their own hands, and the renegade undertaking – at the national level –- could also include stationing of troops from NATO members in Ukraine.

Now, Biden has ignored these demands from Old and New Europeans. He is confident he can shift the goal post. Maybe, Macron and Scholz are only playing to the gallery? We may never know.

The heart of the matter is that Biden realises that the ongoing Ukrainian offensive is heading for a train crash and the decimation of Kiev’s remaining army. It is uncertain how long Kiev will be able to recruit enough soldiers. The two figures whom Washington had groomed for precisely the sort of Plan B in Kiev that it needs now — commander of the armed forces Gen. Valeri Zaluzhny and spy chief Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov — are out of reckoning, having been put out of action summarily by recent Russian missile strikes.

Don’t rule out an insurrection in Ukraine if war deaths become unsustainable for the society. Biden also sees that there is continuously shrinking approval in America for his war policy, which could possibly endanger his re-election. Biden pointed out to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky during his last visit to Kiev that the funds that Washington could provide were limited. And CIA chief William Burns separately left a message with Zelensky that continued American military assistance beyond July is problematic.

Suffice to say, if Putin’s harsh remarks last week (on Tuesday and Friday) are anything to go by, the Kremlin leadership has zero trust or confidence in Biden or his European allies. Meanwhile, the plain truth is, 90 percent of Ukraine’s resource base lies in regions under Russian control. Which means that the rump state is going to be a huge drain on US resources, while Russia is showing no signs of exhaustion.

Biden has not said anything new. Biden senses that the US lost the proxy war but he must not and cannot admit it. So, in the absence of a time machine, which could have taken him all the way back to 1999when the NATO’s expansion began unfolding, Biden simply walked back to the default position of the 2008 NATO Summit at Bucharestwelcoming Ukraine into the alliance via the MAP route — as if that moment fifteen years ago is now the past and cannot be pulled back to the present. Russia is not going to accept it.

Russian President Vladimir Putin: Kiev has lost 186 tanks, 418 armoured vehicles, losses mounting, St. Petersburg, June 16, 2023  (TGP screenshot)

With the Ukrainian offensive underway for a fortnight, all eyes are on the battlefields, and, crucially, Russia’s options ahead. In a little over three weeks from now, NATO will be holding a summit in Vilnius and the West has choices to make too. We are arriving at a fork in the road. 

NATO expected the Ukrainian forces to punch through key Russian fortifications by now. In reality, they are struggling to get anywhere near the sprawling layered fortifications and in that desperate attempt, are taking massive losses, entrapped in minefields and taken to pieces by Russian artillery and missiles and the dreaded multi-role attack helicopters known as Alligator.

The signposts are best seen in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin press conference on Tuesday, lasting over three hours, with war correspondents. In just a week’s time after Ukraine’s offensive began, “25–30 percent of the supplied equipment (from NATO) has been destroyed,” Putin said. 

Putin underscored three things. First, the goals set for the special military operations are “fundamental for us” because “Ukraine is part of the effort to destabilise Russia.” What does that mean? 

It means Russian operations will not end without realising the twin objectives of “demilitarising” Ukraine and uprooting the present neo-Nazi regime in Kiev. The security and welfare of the Russian population also remains a cardinal objective — no more pogroms. Putin said Russia is going about realising these objectives “gradually, methodically.”

Second, Putin flagged: “The Ukrainian defence industry will soon cease to exist altogether. What do they produce? Ammunition is delivered, equipment is delivered and weapons are delivered – everything is delivered. You won’t live long like that, you won’t last. So, the issue of demilitarisation is realised in very practical terms.” 

Third, the Kremlin’s preference so far has been to continue to grind down the Ukrainian military, whilst giving “selective responses” whenever any red lines were crossed — eg., Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy system, the destruction of the headquarters of the Ukrainian military intelligence. By the way, in that Kiev strike, Russia claims to have seriously injured Ukraine’s spy chief Kyrylo Budanov, the poster boy of Western media. 

Going forward, Putin said “everything will depend on the potential that is left at the end of this so-called counter-offensive. This is the key question.” After taking such “catastrophic losses,” it is up to the leadership in Kiev to rationally think about “what to do next,” Putin said. 

He added, “We will wait and see what the situation is like and take further steps based on this understanding. Our plans may vary depending on the situation when we deem it necessary to move. That includes NATO equipment.” 

Given these stark realities, Kiev should roll back the offensive. But that is not going to happen. Kiev is under immense pressure from Washington to claim some dramatic success. That said, the Ukrainian reserves are not infinite, either. Around 35,000 to 40,000 strong Ukrainian reserves are facing a massive Russian deployment manifold stronger in numbers (in hundreds of thousands) and advanced weaponry, and enjoying air superiority. There is a  distinct possibility that at some point, the Russian forces may go on the offensive too. 

Against this backdrop, the West claims that the NATO Allies are “looking at an array of options to signal that Ukraine is advancing in its relationship” with the alliance, to borrow the words of the US ambassador in Brussels Julianne Smith. Andres Rasmussen, former NATO chief and presently official advisor to Ukrainian President Zelensky, has threatened that a group of NATO countries may be willing to put troops on the ground in Ukraine if member states including the US do not provide tangible security guarantees to Kiev at the Vilnius summit.

Specifically, Rasmussen claimed that “Poles would seriously consider going in and assembling a coalition of the willing if Ukraine doesn’t get anything in Vilnius. We shouldn’t underestimate the Polish feelings, the Poles feel that for too long western Europe did not listen to their warnings.” The rhetoric took a heightened tone lately at the meeting of Heads of State and Government in the format “Weimar Triangle” (France-Poland-Germany) on June 12 in Paris where a consensus emerged that Ukraine should receive some security guarantees. 

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared, “It is evident that we need something like this, and we need it in a very concrete form.” French President Emmanuel Macron also called for a rapid agreement on “tangible and credible security guarantees.” 

Indeed, this is all bluster. The idea of Poland “putting boots on the ground” is so patently absurd. The Polish military will wither away in a confrontation with Russia. But what such theatrics show is that nerves are on edge as the spectre of defeat in Ukraine is endangering NATO’s unity.

So, Jens Stoltenberg, NATO secretary-general, stepped in to inject some realism into the discussion, pointing out that for the present what matters most is that Ukraine survives as a nation. Stoltenberg stated: “I believe it’s not possible to give precise dates (for Ukraine’s admission as NATO member) when we are in the midst of a war… the most urgent task now is to ensure that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent nation… because, unless Ukraine prevails, then there’s no membership to be discussed at all, because it’s only a sovereign, independent, democratic Ukraine that can become a NATO member.” 

Stoltenberg took the cue from Washington. In fact, he was speaking while on a visit to Washington, in an interview with PBS. 

Russia is not taking the eyes off the battlefield. In reality, Moscow is shoving down the western throat a historic strategic defeat. The choice for the West narrows down to negotiating with Russia on its terms, or to expect a military solution, which might mean the obliteration of Ukraine as a nation and the eviction of NATO. 

Make no mistake, Russian offensive plans have been drawn up. There is talk among opinion makers in Moscow about creating new facts on the ground —  a De-Militarised Zone along the Polish border. Now, that entails Russian forces crossing the Dnieper and liberating Kiev as well as liberate Kharkov and Odessa, two other Russian cities historically. Russia has no interest in annexing the western regions of Ukraine, which is hostile territory that Stalin annexed. 

But western Ukraine has other neighbours — Poland included — who would have unfinished business of partition of their historical lands to settle. The unresolved nationality question is explosive, as Poles still remember the killings by the Ukrainian nationalists aligned with the Nazis. Historians say that more than 100,000 Poles, including women and even the smallest children, perished at the hands of their Ukrainian neighbours in a nationalist drive in areas that were then in southeastern Poland and are mostly in Ukraine now. To put it mildly, what remains of Ukraine under the weight of a crushing military defeat no one can predict.   

The Kremlin will exercise its options depending on the exigencies of the situation. Moscow seems to have concluded that there is no real alternative to a military solution. It will not allow Ukraine to remain a chronic wound infected by the microbial species from the transatlantic universe. Cauterisation of the wound is necessary, albeit with potential risks.