The United States and other NATO allies should provide arms to help Ukraine ward off Russian aggression, according to a report released Monday by a panel of experts that includes former diplomats, Pentagon officials and the alliance’s former supreme commander in Europe.
“Assisting Ukraine to deter attack and defend itself is not inconsistent with the search for a peaceful, political solution — it is essential to achieving it. Only if the Kremlin knows that the risks and costs of further military action are high will it seek to find an acceptable political solution,” says the report, released jointly by the Atlantic Council, the Brookings Institution and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
Among the authors of the report are Michele Flournoy, undersecretary of defense for policy in President Obama’s first term, former U.S. ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder and retired Adm. James Stavridis, former NATO supreme allied commander in Europe.
Stavridis’ successor as NATO commander, Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, backs the idea, the New York Times reported Monday, and other administration officials are leaning in that direction.
The Obama administration has so far resisted pressure to arm Ukraine from some lawmakers, particularly Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., preferring instead to limit assistance to “non-lethal” items such as body armor, medical supplies, radar equipment and vehicles.
But pressure on Ukrainian forces from the breakdown of a September ceasefire deal between Kiev and Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine, and persistent reports that Russian troops are actively engaged in the fighting, have caused administration officials to consider changing their minds, the Times said.
“Russia’s actions in and against Ukraine pose the gravest threat to European security in more than 30 years,” the report’s authors wrote. “The West has the capacity to stop Russia. The question is whether it has the will.”
