Why has Joe Biden delayed providing Ukraine with needed weapons, only to supply them in the end?

Whatever the reason, Russia is benefitting from the delay.

Joe Biden gives himself high marks for providing aid to Ukraine. I don’t. Biden’s approach to the Ukraine-Russia war has been marred by indecision, and his indecision has been hugely beneficial to Russia.

Brady Africk, writing in the Washington Post, explains the problem. His op-ed includes maps and aerial photos that illustrate it.

First, Biden dithered on the matter of supplying Ukraine with Western tanks. When Ukraine requested the tanks in September of last year, Russia had failed to fortify much of the Ukrainian it occupied.

By the time the tanks were provided in late January of this year, the fortification process was well underway, especially in the northern portion of the territory occupied by Russia. The Post’s maps and photos capture the “before and after” contrast.

Second, Ukraine asked for cluster munitions from the U.S. in November of last year. This followed the liberation of Kherson in southern Ukraine.

The Biden administration delayed. Russia didn’t. Anticipating Ukraine’s Spring offensive, the Russians fortified the southern portion of their occupied territory and basically completed the overall process of building a strong defense line of trenches, anti-vehicle barriers, and land mines.

Cluster bombs would have been a big help in countering this effort. But by the time the U.S. began providing them, the impressive fortifications were in place. They have slowed Ukraine’s offensive to a snail’s pace.

Third, Ukraine has been asking for long-range missiles with which to strike Russian command posts, staging areas, and supply depots behind the front lines. Once again, Biden is dragging his feet.

It would be one thing if Biden had serious objections to providing the weapons in question — e.g., fear of escalation or concern that we need to keep the weapons for our own military. But the fact that Biden ended up agreeing to supply tanks and cluster bombs, and is expected to relent on long-range missiles, shows that he doesn’t have serious, principled objections. He’s just dithering.

How to explain Biden’s dithering? Old age cannot be discounted.

However, I think the dithering is a symptom of a larger phenomenon that I call the lawyerization of security policy and warfare, and the apparatus that controls them. Old-fashioned military types are out to win wars. They want to throw everything we have into the effort or else not bother.

Lawyers are different. We like “nuance.” We’re trained to look for it and finding It makes us feel clever. Thus, we tend to look for a middle ground. Barack Obama epitomized this with his approach to the war in Afghanistan (and with Obamacare, for that matter).

In Ukraine, Biden is supplying Ukraine with weapons but not U.S. boots on the ground. That’s a middle ground and the right one.

But in supplying weapons, Biden is splitting the baby again. He’s providing Ukraine with weapons they request, but only after considerable delay.

To be fair, it’s better, in my view, that Biden has supplied the weapons late than if he had never supplied them. At the same time, Biden’s middle ground is incoherent. If you’re going to supply a type of weapon eventually, you should supply it when your ally can make the best use of it.

Biden hasn’t done so. As Africk concludes:

If the past year of the conflict has shown anything, it’s that this kind of vacillation is costly. It not only squanders additional Ukrainian lives, but it also makes a protracted, grinding conflict more likely.

Ukraine’s allies have long recognized the frantic pace at which Russia has been building defenses in occupied territory. But this realization had little bearing on the speed of their own decision-making. That needs to change. Instead of uncomfortably looking on as Ukraine’s counteroffensive devolves into a slow war of attrition, Western leaders should become more proactive.

Unfortunately, the relevant Western leader is Joe Biden.