Biden’s SOTU should have braced us for a long fight in Ukraine

This year’s State of the Union was a missed opportunity by President Joe Biden to reinforce the message to the American people why the fight in Ukraine matters, to prepare the country for a longer fight and to explain how this war could well end. 

One year into the war, this clarity of communication and reinforcement of the message is of even greater importance. While foreign policy is typically less of a priority in the annual speech, and the president clearly wanted to focus on his domestic agenda, Americans would benefit from renewed clarity on these most important of issues. In last year’s address, the president admirably highlighted this message and would have done well to do so again.

If you get outside of Washington or New York and speak to the average American, there are increasingly vocal questions as to why the United States is continuing its apparently expensive support to Ukraine. After one year of the war, they are asking why we are still sending money over there when there are problems and challenges at home. This in and of itself is not a new phenomenon, but in a conflict where allied political support, led by Washington, is critical to long-term victory, it takes on more pressing importance. In the absence of clarity from the White House and America’s elected officials, those questions are echoed, reinforced and seized upon by political opportunists. Asking questions is not in and of itself a bad thing, but providing the right answers is of paramount importance.  

The fight in Ukraine is at its core about the preservation of a country’s independence. Kyiv has enjoyed its sovereignty for over 30 years, something that the West assumed was taken for granted in Europe, even after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, which prompted only a limited response from the West. The defense of this order is at the heart of America’s global leadership and role as the guarantor of international stability. Why this fight matters to not just Europe, but the United States should be made abundantly clear — instability abroad leads to instability at home. 

Indeed, as President Biden rightly said Tuesday night, “For such a defense matters to us because it keeps the peace and prevents open season for would-be aggressors to threaten our security and prosperity.” 

More importantly, it is not the United States alone that is supporting Ukraine, but NATO and a global coalition of partners who are supporting Kyiv’s territorial defense and national survival — a point of which the White House would do well to remind Americans. 

More broadly, America’s support for Ukraine is about the preservation of the rule of law against outdated concepts of spheres of influence. While Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, has his own ahistorical understanding of the relationship between his country and Ukraine, his geopolitical worldview is decidedly animated by his assumption of the right of the strong to dominate the weak. Pushing back against this in Ukraine sends a signal to other autocrats or authoritarians who would wish to do the same. The West’s response to Russia’s invasion is as much about sending a signal to China over Taiwan, but due caution must be exercised when following this metaphor to its logical conclusion. Beijing is learning far more from the West’s response than the West is learning from Moscow.  

Beyond why the United States is supporting Ukraine, the president should have better prepared the American people for the likelihood that this conflict will not end in the near future and could well continue beyond 2023. In his 2022 State of the Union address, the president said, ”the next few days, weeks, and months will be hard on [the Ukrainians],” and “This is the real test, and it’s going to take time.” He was not wrong then and his message is equally valid now, but Americans should be reminded that this will be a long fight. There may, in fact, not be a clearly defined or satisfying end as most Americans would expect.  

Russia is digging in along its front, fortifying its positions, and deploying the bulk of forces mobilized at the end of 2022. There are also rumors that Putin may launch another mobilization of forces, though how politically palatable this is remains unclear. Russia is also moving to more of a wartime economy, leveraging its financial reserves to stave off the West’s economic sanctions. Moscow is preparing for anticipated spring offensives which could well recapture some territory and put Ukrainian forces on the backfoot — a position in which they have not found themselves since the opening days of this war.  

Indeed, many of the recent gains achieved by the Ukrainian Armed Forces have been against severely degraded, and poorly-trained and poorly-equipped Russian forces, while bypassing many fortified positions. This is not to detract at all from Ukraine’s success, merely to note that this will likely not be the case going forward. The days of (relatively) easy victories are likely over. Sustained Western support will become of even greater importance in the days ahead.  

The State of the Union was an opportunity to prepare the American people for what could well appear like setbacks on the battlefield. What happens when the first images of a destroyed British Challenger II or German Leopard tank appear on Western screens? Or, much later, an Abrams tank? While not operated by personnel from their countries of origin, it will certainly be seized upon by Russian propagandists for maximum impact. If the Ukrainian momentum stalls, could Western aid become jeopardized? It may become much more difficult to sustain that political will in the face of Russian advances if the American people are not prepared for the inevitable information war that escalation that will follow.  

The president’s speech was also an opportunity to explain to the American people how this war could end or to what end the West was working. It is no longer sufficient to simply say “it is up to Ukraine” as if Washington, London, Brussels, Paris and Berlin do not have agency in the outcome. The provision of increasingly complex and advanced aid demands that hard questions be asked, even if the answers are as of yet unclear. Where do America’s ultimate interests lay?  

The real art of statesmanship is not only rallying the people to a cause but conveying to them why that cause matters. This year’s State of the Union was a missed opportunity to reaffirm the importance of the mission to the American people, reinforce the message as to why we’re supporting Ukraine, and articulate how the war may well proceed. 

If America’s political resolve is to be sustained, the White House needs to do more to reaffirm the country of the vital importance of this fight.

Joshua C. Huminski is the director of the Mike Rogers Center for Intelligence & Global Affairs at the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress. There he co-chairs the center’s program on strategic competition, with a specific focus on Russia and the Euro-Atlantic. He is also a book reviewer for the Diplomatic Courier and a fellow at George Mason University’s National Security Institute. He can be found on Twitter at @joshuachuminski.