The Biden administration cannot undo the leaks of US classified intelligence on Russia’s war against Ukraine; nor can it easily mitigate its immediate fallout — the potentially compromised sources and the fact Russia has gained a much better understanding of Ukraine’s vulnerabilities.
What it can and indeed must do, however, is respond forcefully to the leaks’ core revelations.
If Ukraine’s stocks of anti-air defenses are running low, send more.
If the Ukrainian military is suffering from “force generation and sustainment shortfalls,” step up and fill the relevant gaps. And if our “critical defense partner” Egypt is seeking to supply Russia with 40,000 rockets and conceal it from Washington and other Western capitals, hold the regime to account.
Damaging as these leaks objectively are, they must also serve as a wake-up call.
For months, President Biden has presented the American public an optimistic picture of our unwavering support for Ukraine and, more broadly, of America “being back” on the global stage after some flirtation with isolationism during the Trump years.
Many Republicans have played right into this narrative by criticizing Biden not for doing too little, too late, but by questioning our international commitments and claiming US interests would be better served by withdrawing behind our own borders.
The leaks tell a very different story. They confirm the suspicions US and European support has not been sufficient to help Ukraine achieve victory — and also show a shocking degree of cynicism and disdain for US leadership from governments that have been dependent on the United States.
The basic political fact about these unflattering revelations is that Biden owns them.
If he indeed runs in 2024, he will have to defend them together with his disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. Time may be running short, but it is still possible to change course.
With ATACMS, F-16s and other NATO-grade arms along with NATO training, the Ukrainians can make sizable and rapid breakthroughs, like they did in September last year.
Rein in Egypt
The United States has provided Egypt with $50 billion in military assistance and $30 billion in economic aid since 1978.
There may have been good reasons to do so, but the hefty annual check to the otherwise-dysfunctional country gives us considerable leverage that American governments have used only sparingly — looking away, for example, when Abdel Fattah el-Sisi took power in a brazen coup in summer 2013.
In the Biden administration’s third year, the ranks of those keen to mess with us, and to do so openly, have only grown — from Iran’s mullahs and the Taliban, to Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and to tinpot autocrats such as el-Sisi and Viktor Orbán.
This has to stop. If, for whatever reason, Biden fails to provide the international leadership this moment calls for, his political challengers must step up.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has questioned the value of our assistance to Ukraine, though he has recognized the importance of confronting China.
Events of the past month, including Xi’s visit to Moscow, China’s outreach to European leaders, as well as the recent intelligence leaks, show that elements of America’s global role cannot be compartmentalized from one another.
If we appear weak in Afghanistan or in Ukraine, our adversaries — or indeed our more opportunistic “partners” — will take advantage of the situation.
Be a superpower
Mind you, our global role is not about charity — being the world’s only superpower generates concrete benefits for American people.
But it also involves hard work managing our relationships as well as wisely applying our soft and hard power.
This means 2024’s foreign-policy debate cannot revolve around the question of trying to preserve the status quo in the world (as Biden does) or doing even less.
A choice between empty moralizing and “summits for democracy” on the one hand and abandoning our allies on the other is no choice at all.
The debate America needs, the Ukraine leaks remind us, is a difficult, grown-up one: Are we willing to do what it takes to regain initiative in the world, including by committing some real resources to that goal, or not?
Dalibor Rohac is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Twitter: @DaliborRohac.
