Russian President Vladimir Putin is winning the narrative war against Washington and Brussels despite losing the kinetic war on the battlefields of Ukraine. As we recently noted, it is indeed a “Bizarro World” when it comes to 21st century warfare. Losing is winning, and winning is predicated upon the American and European people falling for Russian disinformation and propaganda.
There was a time in our country when we dismissed our enemies’ propaganda campaigns — think of Tokyo Rose’s broadcasts during World War II or “Baghdad Bob” of the Iraq War.
No longer.
Candidly, far too many Americans have become gullible and are falling for Russian disinformation. Many simply economically profit off of it in the social media “influencer” ecosystem. Likewise, many of our politicians are capitalizing on Putin’s propaganda because it fits their electoral platform and campaign and needs.
The extent to which this is happening has truly become a national embarrassment. Collectively, as a people, we are allowing our country’s national security imperatives to become subordinate to the national security goals of Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. We have warned of its spread before. Moscow and Beijing’s Manchurian candidates surround us and, knowingly or not, spew Russian and Chinese disinformation. Clearly, however, our warnings are going unheeded.
This deep nationwide abyss has many root causes. Crass partisanship, to be sure, is a huge factor. But the Biden Administration also bears great responsibility for giving Putin and his generals the window of opportunity they need to win this war. The president’s national security team — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and previously retired Gen. Mark Milley in his capacity as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — collectively provided the president advice that has put the country in this position.
Their collective fears of escalation have resulted in the very escalation they had hoped to avoid. We have witnessed this with Wagner mercenaries in Sudan and across the Sahel, with Hamas in Israel, with China’s continued bullying of Filipino shipping in the international waters of the Pacific, and of course now with the Iranian-backed Houthis attacking U.S. naval forces and global shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
It did not have to be this way, nor should it be. Ukraine has fought brilliantly and valiantly over the course of the 22 months of its war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his generals pulled off a masterclass in expelling Russian forces in and around Kyiv in the beginning months of Putin’s “special military operation.”
Ukraine has survived the Kremlin’s weaponization of winter. It has successfully parried attacks against its electrical grid, grain storage facilities, and civilian population. And, perhaps, most incredibly of all, it has pushed Putin’s Black Sea Fleet out of the Sevastopol Naval Base in Crimea, despite having no substantive navy of its own.
In short, Ukraine is winning the war on the ground, but Washington and Brussels are on the verge of losing it.
In Socratic terms, what odds would we have laid on Ukraine winning if, at the outset of the war, a time-traveler had told us Putin would lose nearly all of his invading Russian Army as then constituted? Nearly 100 percent odds, give or take a Russian nuclear escalation.
Yet that is exactly what has happened and continues to happen. U.S. intelligence officials estimate that Russia has essentially lost its entire original invading army — originally estimated at around 200,000 — along with another 115,000 for good measure.
So why are so many American politicians buying into Putin’s narrative that Zelensky and his generals cannot decisively win the war?
We have now seen 315,000 Russian casualties in Ukraine and yet still, Biden and his national security advisors refuse to go for the win. Since Biden’s trip to Warsaw in March 2022 when he professed Putin “cannot remain in power,” we have gone from “defend Ukraine for as long as it takes” to yesterday’s diluting it down to “for as long as we can.”
Imagine Russia and its smaller-than-Italy GDP outspending the mighty United States.
Even worse, Washington lacks the instinct to go for the win in Ukraine. Why are American politicians — Republicans and Democrats alike — willing to give Putin a win, even though he lost his army in the process? This invites the question of what Biden’s military advisors are telling him.
We have long prided ourselves on being apolitical in our national security analyses. Our focus has always been on policies that best serve U.S. national security. But now the nation’s zero-sum politics that are putting our country at risk and our servicemen and women in harm’s way.
Unless you want Putin to win, the hard partisanship forming around this issue on both sides poses an existential threat to our country. Either Washington gets it together and unites around our common interest, or we risk living in a world controlled by Putin and Xi.
Mark Toth, an economist and entrepreneur, is a former board member of the World Trade Center, St. Louis. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as a military intelligence officer and led the U.S. European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012 to 2014.