adam zivo: biden only wants ukraine to draft younger men to save his failing legacy
the ukrainian army needs weapons. lowering the conscription age from 25 to 18, as the u.s. wants, will only set more soldiers up to fail
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newly recruited soldiers attend a ceremony as they celebrate the end of their training at a military base close to kyiv, ukraine, monday, sept. 25, 2023.
efrem lukatsky/ap photo
the biden administration is urging ukraine to lower its conscription age to 18 — a significant drop from the current minimum of 25 years old — in a bid to quickly increase the size of kyiv’s military. were the ukrainians better armed, this recommendation would have been sensible, but it is difficult to ask people to fight without proper equipment. top white house officials, however, are suddenly claiming that ukraine has enough weapons and only lacks soldiers — which is simply untrue. it thus seems that president biden’s team is using its last gasp of power to throw ukraine under the bus, lest posterity judge the democrats for failing to adequately support kyiv. evidently, legacy matters more than accountability.
it’s true that the ukrainians have been outnumbered since the beginning of the war, as is inevitable when a nation defends itself from an adversary that is over three times more populous. yet the fact that ukraine was able to gain the upper hand in 2022, liberating large swathes of its land in the process, shows that this handicap has been surmountable.
although ukrainian successes during the first three months of war were clearly a product of moscow’s overconfidence, it quickly became apparent, as russian forces reorganized, that western weapons, not the size of ukraine’s military, would decide kyiv’s fate. when these weapons were delivered in sufficient volumes, ukraine gained the upper hand. whenever shipments were throttled, russia marched forward.
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the enormity and sophistication of the united states’ arsenals has meant that the outcome of this war has always rested in american hands. ukraine has always had the capacity to win, if armed properly.
russian president vladimir putin clearly understands this, and has repeatedly threatened nuclear war to deter western aid. the biden administration understands this, too: insider reports confirm that the white house has avoided helping kyiv too much, for fear that a prospective ukrainian victory might push russia into desperate escalation or state collapse.
though ukraine’s position has recently deteriorated, victory remains possible. this has been implicitly acknowledged by president-elect donald trump, whose peace plan is reportedly premised on the notion that putin still fears a flood of american aid, and that this fear can be used to coerce him to the negotiating table.
but if western, particularly american, weapons are the main determinant of ukraine’s success, then their absence is also the most plausible explanation for the country’s failures. it is therefore unsurprising that, as kyiv slowly inches towards defeat, a growing chorus of voices are condemning biden for mishandling the war.
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critics argue that, much like former president barack obama, biden grossly misread russia and took putin’s nuclear threats too seriously. a cautious approach may have been warranted at the very beginning of the war, when new norms had not yet been established, but the white house should have pivoted to a more aggressive strategy once it realized that putin’s “red lines” were empty threats.
whenever the west promised new weapons to ukraine, russia reliably sabre-rattled about nuclear retaliation only to quietly back down once its bluffs were called. putin and his allies are not apocalyptic jihadists. they are just thugs who, like most mafiosi, value their comfortable lives.
somehow, the biden administration did not draw any serious lessons here. nor did it learn from over a decade of failed “escalation management” with moscow. paralyzed by caution, biden instead allowed himself to be bullied into giving ukraine the bare minimum needed to survive — as if a carefully managed limbo were any substitute for victory.
but after almost three years, this has tanked ukraine’s morale.
ukrainian men now generally know that, if they go to the front lines, they will be outgunned and underequipped. they know that for every shell fired toward russia, 10 more will be fired back. many feel that this will not change in the near future, and believe, quite justifiably, that the west has betrayed them — that the weapons needed to keep them alive, let alone liberate their homeland, are purposefully being withheld, even as russia enjoys the enthusiastic support of iran and north korea.
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many men are hiding in their apartments to avoid being drafted. desertions are rising as soldiers surrender to exhaustion and pessimism. who can blame them? the west is asking them to fight alone, with old weapons that have been limited by absurd restrictions for much of the war. it is hard to be brave if you believe that your allies are useless or have abandoned you. one can scrape together courage and hope, but there are limits.
ukraine’s population is aging, and its government has valiantly tried to protect the nation’s future by exempting its youngest men from conscription. the biden administration wants to change this, but lowering the draft age to 18 will not address the underlying reasons behind ukraine’s manpower shortages. filling and maintaining ranks will remain a challenge so long as many men feel that their sacrifices may be squandered.
even if recruitment were bolstered, would that be enough? if ukraine is so underresourced now that some soldiers are deserting, would a new wave of recruits not be set up to fail?
the white house, in its cowardice, has made a mess of this war. rather than take responsibility, its mandarins are now protecting their own reputations by shifting blame onto kyiv’s mobilization woes — even though they themselves made these problems inevitable.
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worse yet, by falsely claiming that ukraine is sufficiently armed, biden’s team risks undermining support for future aid, which means that western interests could be jeopardized for the sake of their petty glory.
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