By: Congressman Jake Auchincloss 

The United States must be the arsenal of the Ukrainian resistance

Last week I joined fellow Members of Congress to hear from President Volodymyr Zeleknskyy of Ukraine. His speech was a battle cry from the front lines of the free world. Greeted with a standing ovation, this hero implored us to do more to protect his people. Most powerful was his closing. Setting aside his interpreter, he addressed us – and President Joe Biden – in English. Lead the world, he said. Lead for peace.

 

How do we lead for peace? There is peace through strength: we must be the arsenal of the Ukrainian resistance. There is also peace through diplomacy. We must pressure Beijing to further isolate the Kremlin. And, noxious though it may be, we must offer an off-ramp to Russia to stop the violence.

 

Neither strength nor diplomacy should be partisan at this moment of crisis. Republican criticism of the president as being "dragged to lead" is a hypocritical attack. The President's statesmanship has turned the temperature down, while dialing the pressure up. Advocating a no-fly zone, furthermore, is premature and unhelpful to his efforts – and is not, in fact, popular with Americans once explained as an act of war.

 

The United States can punish Putin without waging another war on the Eurasian steppes. And the moral high ground is ours: Vladimir Putin caused this pain. He is responsible for the misfortunes of Russia, and any suggestions otherwise are misguided. America and its allies must continue to provide support for air defense, maritime, and ground operations. Whatever materiél and training Ukraine needs to close its skies and destroy Russian armor, artillery, and infantry, NATO should provide.

 

If that means airplanes and S-300s, then airplanes and S-300s we must send. But cyber and paramilitary support may be even more important. The United States can forward deploy electronic warfare (EW) units to impair Russian logistics and command-and-control (C2) nodes in Ukraine. As a former infantry officer and cybersecurity manager, the potency of these attacks resonate with me more than headline-grabbing debates about airplanes. Ground forces are taught to ‘shoot, move, and communicate’; U.S. EW units can make it maddeningly hard for Russia to move and communicate, without setting foot in Ukraine.

 

These attacks should be tactical and deniable. To contain the conflict, NATO should continue to refrain from cyber attacks on the Russian homeland, unless Russia should attempt to hack our infrastructure first.

 

Ukrainian special forces can take advantage of degraded Russian C2 to conduct raids that further degrade Russian firepower. Advised and assisted by U.S. paramilitary officers, Ukrainian special operations could become the main effort of a long resistance.

 

An occupation against well-trained, well-supported guerilla forces would be a nightmare for the Kremlin. Yet, it would be a nightmare for Ukraine, too. To save Ukraine from further death and destruction is the ultimate objective. To this end, the United States must double down on diplomacy.

 

Russia and Ukraine do not negotiate alone. Russia relies on China. Ukraine, on NATO. Publicly, NATO must amplify the threat of secondary sanctions against China for providing economic or military support to Russia. China is an order of magnitude more integrated and important in the global economy than Russia, so these secondary sanctions would cause hardship for the West. Yet we must be committed to following through. If we are credible, China is much more likely to privately deny Russia a lifeline. That would materially improve Ukraine's leverage at the negotiating table.

 

As China removes the lifeline, NATO and Ukraine can provide the off-ramp. This may include suzerainty for Crimea and parts of Donbas. It likely also includes neutrality for Ukraine, swearing off the 2008 Bucharest Summit Declaration and agreeing to neither host foreign forces nor engage in foreign conflicts. This non-alignment, though, must be buttressed by Western security guarantees that are not subject to a Russian veto in the U.N. Security Council, as the 1994 Budapest Memorandum is.

 

This is the painful path to peace. Through strength. Through diplomacy. But it does not end when the violence does. As Americans, we must be committed for the long haul, to the rebuilding of a sovereign, secure, democratic and prosperous Ukraine.

 

Jake Auchincloss represents the Massachusetts Fourth Congressional District in Congress where he is Vice Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.