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To see a list of previous articles, enter “Ukraine” in the Search Box on the upper right, on The Trenchant Observer web site, and you will see a list in chronological order.

Dispatches

1) Greg Miller and Catherine Belton, “Russia’s spies misread Ukraine and misled Kremlin as war loomed,” Washington Post, August 19, 2022 (7:00 a.m.);

2) Yasmeen Abutaleb and Tyler Pager, “Chinese leader asked Biden to prevent Pelosi from visiting Taiwan; The trip exposed tensions between the House Speaker and administration officials, who had warned of China’s potential response. Pelosi felt the trip was an important statement to make,” Washington Post, August 20, 2022 (6:00 a.m. EDT);

Analysis

The White House is once again trying to conduct foreign policy by leaks to the press and manipulation of the narrative.

It is a poor substitute for effective foreign policy decisions.

More distressingly, it reveals the incompetence of President Joe Biden’s foreign policy team, once again.

Now the White House is behind an article in the Washington Post that tries to spin Biden’s disastrous failure to forcefully intervene to stop or postpone House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, in order to make Biden look good to a domestic audience.

This is pathetic.

At the same time, the whiz kids on Biden’s foreign policy team have authorized the release of highly classified information about Russian intelligence failures. These orchestrated leaks have no apparent purpose other than to make U.S. intelligence services look good, in what is essentially a chest-thumping exercise.

Why would the Biden administration orchestrate this massive leak of highly classified information? There are a number of pieces that would appear to expose sources and methods. These revelations would make a good book, but not until after the war is over.

Who authorized these leaks? Was it the same whiz kids who were behind leaking the information on the close collaboration between U.S. intelligence services and Ukrainian armed forces, including the release of targeting information?

A great concern is that top U.S. policymakers think we can win this war by leaks to the press and manipulating the public narrative, instead of undertaking the hard work necessary to prevail.

That hard work includes:

1. An all-out, all-of-government drive to win over the fence-sitting countries in “the South” to condemn the Russian invasion and to join the sanctions regime.

a) E.g., suspension of U.S. participation in “the Quad” if India persists in taking part in joint Chinese-Russian military maneuvers in the next few weeks.

b) E.g., refusal by Ukraine’s allies to take part in any G-20 meetings so long as Russia participates. Withdrawal from the G-20 and setting up a new organization of democratic and civilized countries dedicated to defending the U.N.Charter and international law.

2. A massive build-up of war production and the supply of munitions to Ukraine on a much-accelerated basis, with the goal of “victory”–not merely avoiding defeat.

3. Relaxation of restrictions on the use of U.S. and NATO-supplied weapons, so that Ukraine can engage in self-defense by striking targets in the Crimea and other tsrgets  from which missiles and other weapons  are launched, even in Russia and Belarus. The provision of long-range artillery shells for the HIMARS artillery pieces.

This U.S.-orchestrated, massive leak of classified information is baffling. There appears to be no serious purpose that it would serve. It just sounds like administration and intelligence officials bragging and thumping their chests about how good they are.

Incidentally, we seem to be losing the war. See,

Ukraine War, August 18, 2022: The military outlook: Russian advances continue, as Western aid lags; Ukraine and allies are losing the war

The Trenchant Observer

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