The Latest from the Prospect
 â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â
Â
View this email in your browser
**APRIL 20, 2022**
Kuttner on TAP
****
****
****
****
****
****
****
**** Send Zelensky What He Needs
Otherwise, this is a slow-motion humanitarian catastrophe and a Putin
victory.
A month ago, on March 22, I wrote a piece titled "Magical Thinking About
Putin's Invasion
." I
criticized Western policy for giving Ukraine's President Zelensky just
enough weaponry to stave off imminent defeat but not enough to prevail.
I wrote:
The West, out of fear of wider war, has allowed Putin to define what
counts as a NATO war with Russia. Thus, the Biden administration has
gotten into hair-splitting exercises, in which supplying the West's
most sophisticated anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons does not count as
a war with Russia, but supplying planes does.
This is dangerous sophistry. It has led to a proxy war between NATO and
Russia, in which the West is willing to fight to the last Ukrainian, but
in a limited way that doesn't allow Ukraine to prevail or even to
survive. ...
Despite Ukraine's battlefield successes, NATO's strategy has been
behind the curve at every stage of Putin's escalation. The West has
provided Ukraine with just enough defensive weaponry to prevent an
outright Russian military victory, but not enough to stave off a
humanitarian catastrophe.
Well, every word is even truer today.
After the piece ran, some of my colleagues and readers wondered if I had
turned into some kind of warmonger, courting World War III. Now another
month has gone by, millions of Ukrainians have fled, thousands more
Ukrainian troops and civilians are dead or injured, Putin has reduced
the city of Mariupol to rubble, and his troops are about to seize
what's left of it.
Meanwhile, weaponry that seemed like too much of a provocation just a
month ago-howitzers, antiaircraft systems, anti-ship missiles, armed
drones, helicopters-is being rushed to Ukraine. And the hair-splitting
continues. (Why drones and helicopters and not planes?)
Putin, predictably, issues ambiguous threats that keep the West from
giving Zelensky the help he needs. Putin's latest pronouncement warned
that Western provision of the "most sensitive" weapons systems could
produce "unpredictable consequences." He is playing the West for fools,
and succeeding.
NATO policy was behind the curve a month ago, and it is still behind the
curve. NATO is in a proxy war with Russia, and we should stop kidding
ourselves and give Zelensky what he needs.
I know, national-security experts a lot better informed than I, with
access to the most sensitive intelligence, precisely calibrate these
questions. Except that the calibrations about what weapons would risk
wider war mutate from week to week (why would howitzers risk World War
III in March but not in April?), and Putin is still winning. Except that
all of my adult life, which spans the disasters in Vietnam, Iran, Iraq,
Afghanistan, and now Ukraine, the best and the brightest kept getting it
wrong.
Send Zelensky planes.
~ ROBERT KUTTNER
To receive this newsletter directly in your inbox, click here to
subscribe.Â
Follow Robert Kuttner on Twitter
[link removed]
The Trade Fight That Could Doom Biden's Industrial Policy
A long-awaited bipartisan bill on domestic manufacturing could run
aground because of House-Senate differences over its trade
chapter-reflecting intense corporate lobbying. BY DAVID DAYEN
The Plight of Mills College Should Be an Alarm for American Higher Ed
The school is being devoured from the inside by its own administrators.
BY MATTHEW D. HENDRICKS
California Oil and Gas Industry Leans on Political Heavyweights to Drill
Wells
New well count rises as governor appoints oil lobbyist to top role. BY
AARON CANTU
[link removed]
Â
Click to Share this Newsletter
[link removed]
Â
[link removed]
Â
[link removed]
Â
[link removed]
Â
[link removed]
YOUR TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION SUPPORTS INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM
The American Prospect, Inc.
1225 I Street NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC xxxxxx
United States
Copyright (c) 2022 The American Prospect. All rights reserved.
To opt out of American Prospect membership messaging, click here
.
To manage your newsletter preferences, click here
.
To unsubscribe from all American Prospect emails, including newsletters,
click here
.
