Ukraine has for months been asking the Biden administration for permission to use long-range US, British and French weapons to strike deeper in Russian territory, which would be a clear escalation in the war. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that the move would cross a red line for him, and recently announced that he was loosening Russia’s nuclear doctrine for using nuclear weapons.
Despite the risks of such escalation—and a lack of evidence that it would shift the war in Ukraine’s favor—Biden’s public reluctance to loosen his limits has been met in the war-hungry media primarily with derision.
Lowering The Bar
The US, Britain and France have all supplied Ukraine with long-range missiles, including Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS). But Biden has thus far limited their use to border areas. Britain and France are following Biden’s lead on range limitations.
Last month, in response to further advances by Russia into Ukraine, Ukraine launched a surprise invasion into Russian territory in Kursk. Since then, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pressed the US for more and longer-range missiles, Putin has increasingly raised the specter of nuclear retaliation.
Under its 2020 nuclear doctrine, Russia could respond with nuclear strikes to nuclear or conventional attacks it deemed a “threat to its existence,” if they came from a nuclear power. His new doctrine lowers the bar, so that a “critical attack” on Russia carried out with the “participation or support of a nuclear power” would be grounds for launching a nuclear response—including against the supporting power.
In other words, if Ukraine used long-range missiles supplied by a NATO power to launch an attack on Russia that it deemed “critical,” Putin could respond with a nuclear strike, against either Ukraine or against that NATO country.
Dismissing The Nuclear Risk
In the opinion pages of US corporate media, the risk of nuclear war or other retaliation by Putin was quickly dismissed, as outlets pressed Biden for further escalation.
The Washington Post editorial board (9/22/24) urged Biden to acquiesce to Zelenskyy under the headline, “Ukraine Needs Long-Range Missiles Before Winter’s Onset.” The board argued that since Putin has issued “red lines” in the past that could prompt nuclear war, and “has not followed through on his threats,” therefore
there’s no reason to think now he would risk a wider war with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization at a time when his forces are already severely depleted.
The board suggested that Putin is more likely to “align himself with Iran or its proxies to strike at US forces in the Middle East.” Though it deemed that “a risk worth weighing,” it didn’t discuss it any further. It concluded: “Mr. Biden needs to give permission and set the ground rules quickly.”
Politico editor-at-large Matthew Kaminski (9/18/24) called Zelenskyy’s request “a fair ask.” He made a similar argument to the Post editors that Putin’s “threatening noises” after each “allegedly escalatory step” from the US never turn into actions.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board (8/28/24) simply dismissed worries of escalation out of hand:
The Biden administration fears Mr. Putin might escalate his war if Ukraine puts more of his military at risk, but the war isn’t winding down. Ukraine has been attacking Russian targets with domestically produced drones, and on Sunday President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the “first successful combat use of our new weapon—a Ukrainian long-range rocket drone” designed “to destroy the enemy’s offensive potential.”
The Hill published a column by Joseph Bosco (10/1/24) that sneered, “Biden is clearly intimidated by Putin’s threats of retaliation, as stated again last week regarding Zelenskyy’s request for longer strike authority.” Apparently readers were supposed to just dismiss those threats, because Bosco didn’t even try to make an argument about them.
Barely Bothering To Justify
When it came time to justify the escalation, pundits seemed content to make noises about the need for victory, barely bothering to offer actual arguments about why long-range missiles in particular would achieve that goal.
The Journal editors wrote that Biden’s “latest bad excuse” for not giving Zelenskyy what he wants “is that such strikes wouldn’t make much of a difference.” They cited the neoconservative, military industry–funded Institute for the Study of War, which suggested that even if Russia has already moved 90% of its military aircraft out of reach of those missiles, as Biden officials argued, there were plenty of other things a trigger-happy military could hit. The Journal concluded with the vague claim that “the US can strengthen Ukraine’s position and make negotiations to end the war more likely.”
The Post also cited the ISW, and wrote weakly that the long-range missiles “could” hit Russian “arms depots, air fields and military bases,” which “perhaps…might force Mr. Putin to draw back his deadly cache further from Ukraine’s borders.”
Politico‘s Kaminski simply argued that Ukrainians need “a morale and momentum shift,” and “lowering the restrictions on missile use could help.”
Dubious Experts
Establishment media’s news sections were sometimes little better than their opinion sections. The New York Times (9/12/24) splashed on its front page an article about the pressure on Biden to give Ukraine the green light that suggested a growing consensus among experts that Biden’s reluctance is nonsensical:
To a growing number of military analysts and former US officials, the administration’s reticence makes no sense, especially since, they say, Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk has yet to elicit an escalatory response from Moscow.
“Easing the restrictions on Western weapons will not cause Moscow to escalate,” 17 former ambassadors and generals wrote in a letter to the administration this week. “We know this because Ukraine is already striking territory Russia considers its own—including Crimea and Kursk—with these weapons and Moscow’s response remains unchanged.”
Two weeks later—and buried on page 9—the Times (9/26/24) reported quite a different story:
US intelligence agencies believe that Russia is likely to retaliate with greater force against the United States and its coalition partners, possibly with lethal attacks, if they agree to give the Ukrainians permission to employ US-, British- and French-supplied long-range missiles for strikes deep inside Russia, US officials said.
The intelligence assessment, which has not been previously reported, also plays down the effect that the long-range missiles will have on the course of the conflict, because the Ukrainians currently have limited numbers of the weapons and it is unclear how many more, if any, the Western allies might provide.
‘Silver Bullet Or Powder Keg’?
The same day, a USA Today headline (9/26/24) read, “Why Long-Range Missiles Could Be Either a Silver Bullet or a Powder Keg for Ukraine/Russia War.” The promised “silver bullet” never fully materialized in the text, but the paper’s sole quoted source—who was given several paragraphs—skewed the article entirely in that direction.
That source was Fred Kagan of the neoconservative, military industry–funded American Enterprise Institute. Kagan is also affiliated with the Institute for the Study of War (which was founded by his wife, Kimberly Kagan) and was an influential proponent of “surges” in both Iraq and Afghanistan—in other words, he’s about as hawkish as they come.
Under the subhead, “How the weapons could help Ukraine fight Russia,” the paper quoted Kagan explaining that long-range missile strikes could “reduce the effectiveness of Russian military action.” It also paraphrased an anonymous “senior Defense official” who, unlike their administration, seemed to favor the move, noting that one “strategic effect” would be that “the war would drag on even longer.” (The official presented this as a positive development, in that it would force Moscow to “to reconsider its costs.”)
USA Today also gave Kagan the last word, to argue that Putin’s threats are “hollow”:
“The burden thus far has been put on those advocating for allowing Ukraine to strike legitimate military targets in Russia,” Kagan said. “But I think the burden really needs to shift now to those who say that some fear of an unspecified escalation should continue to cause us to hold the Ukrainians back.”
Contrary Opinions Hard To Find
It’s been hard to find voices calling for restraint in major corporate media—with a few notable exceptions. One came in a Hill column (9/17/24) under a byline shared by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Donald Trump, Jr. They warned that “nuclear war would mean the end of civilization as we know it, maybe even the end of the human species.” The op-ed took the opportunity to plug candidate Donald Trump as the one “who has vowed to end this war.”
Trump, of course, argued in his televised debate with Kamala Harris that “we’re playing with World War III” in Ukraine. What he and his Hill proxies neglected to mention is that Trump, while in office, pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty with Russia, both of which greatly increased the likelihood of nuclear war or “World War III.”
Another pro-restraint take came from longtime Post columnist David Ignatius, who just over a year ago reported being compelled by Ukraine’s “moral argument” for using cluster bombs (FAIR.org, 7/8/23). Ignatius (9/30/24) struck a markedly less hawkish tone recently, writing that “the Ukraine conflict is probably as close as we’ve come to the brink of all-out superpower war since the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis.” He concluded: “We’re very lucky, on balance, that [Biden] doesn’t play a reckless game.”
Otherwise, one mostly had to look to outlets in the tank for Trump, or independent outlets like the Nation (9/18/24) and Current Affairs (9/25/24), for skepticism of military escalation.
As Current Affairs‘ Nathan Robinson points out, even if Biden resists the pressure,
with the foreign policy “blob” so willing to risk all of our lives, the next president, whether Trump or Harris, may well be less resistant to the pressures that push presidents toward taking extraordinarily risky gambles that imperil all of humanity.
We could sure use a media more skeptical of that blob, rather than one that gleefully joins in.
Research assistance: Elsie Carson-Holt.