MORE THAN JUST BRADLEYS: The $3 billion military aid package announced by the Pentagon Friday, the 29th drawdown from U.S. stocks, is not only the largest but in many ways could be the most consequential as the war in Ukraine reaches a one-year inflection point.
It marks a sharp departure from the largely “defensive weaponry” provided in the past to a long list of essential armaments designed to assist the Ukrainian forces as they press their advantage on offense. “We are positioning Ukraine to be able to move forward and retake territory,” said Laura Cooper, deputy assistant defense secretary for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, at a Pentagon briefing. “This is the right time for Ukraine to take advantage of its capabilities to change the dynamic on the battlefield.”
The package is tailored to Ukraine’s plans to mount a major spring ground offensive and includes 100 M113 armored personnel carriers, 55 MRAPs (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles), 138 Humvees, 18 self-propelled Howitzers, 36 towed Howitzers, and significantly, 50 Bradley Fighting Vehicles armed with tank-killing TOW missiles.
“The Bradley vehicles will further enhance Ukraine’s ability to conduct complex maneuvers in almost all-weather conditions and terrain, especially in the south and the east of the country,” said Cooper. “We believe that through the combined arms training, they will better be able to integrate all of their different capabilities — that includes artillery, all range, all types of fires, as well as maneuver to be able to make greater progress on the battlefield — and really push back on these Russian positions.”
BIDEN TEAM ANNOUNCES $3.75 BILLION IN UKRAINE MILITARY AID, INCLUDING ARMORED VEHICLES
‘VERY POWERFUL’: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was exultant in his Friday night video address as he hailed the announcement of the latest weapons pledge as exactly what Ukraine needs.
“Today, a new package of US defense assistance for our country was announced — and a very powerful one,” Zelensky said. “For the first time, we will get Bradley Fighting Vehicles — this is exactly what is needed. New guns and projectiles, including high-precision ones. New missiles. New drones. It’s timely and strong.”
Meanwhile, according to British intelligence, the Russians are girding for an attack in southern Ukraine, massing troops and bolstering defensive fortifications in the Zaporizhzhia region, where its forces hold a crucial nuclear power plant.
“A major Ukrainian breakthrough in Zaporizhzhia would seriously challenge the viability of Russia’s ‘land bridge’ linking Russia’s Rostov region and Crimea; Ukrainian success in Luhansk would further undermine Russia’s professed war aim of ‘liberating’ the Donbas,” said the U.K. Defense Ministry in a tweet. “Deciding which of these threats to prioritize countering is likely one of the central dilemmas for Russian operational planners.”
US SANCTIONS IRANIAN OFFICIALS AS WEST UPGRADES UKRAINIAN DEFENSES
‘FOR PUTIN, DEFEAT IS NOT AN OPTION’: Likely one of the most widely read analyses of the state of play in the war came over the weekend from former Secretary of State and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and former Defense Secretary and CIA Director Robert Gates, warning the West not to underestimate Russian President Vladimir Putin’s staying power and his willingness to accept horrific casualties to achieve his goals.
“For Putin, defeat is not an option,” Rice and Gates wrote in an essay published Sunday in the Washington Post. “We are convinced he believes time is on his side: that he can wear down the Ukrainians and that U.S. and European unity and support for Ukraine will eventually erode and fracture.”
The veteran national security officials, both of whom have firsthand experience dealing with the Russian leader, said Putin is on a “messianic mission” and that “if he cannot be militarily successful this year,” he will attempt to retain control of his current positions as “future jumping-off points” in offensives. “Count on Putin to be patient to achieve his destiny,” they warned.
“The only way to avoid such a scenario is for the United States and its allies to urgently provide Ukraine with a dramatic increase in military supplies and capability — sufficient to deter a renewed Russian offensive and to enable Ukraine to push back Russian forces in the east and south,” Rice and Gates argued, calling the U.S. commitment to send Bradley Fighting Vehicles “commendable, if overdue,” and adding, “These capabilities are needed in weeks, not months.”
Videos on social media appeared to show the Bradleys already moving through Bulgaria en route to Ukraine.
“It is better to stop [Putin] now, before more is demanded of the United States and NATO as a whole. We have a determined partner in Ukraine that is willing to bear the consequences of war so that we do not have to do so ourselves in the future,” they said. “The only thing that’s certain right now is that the fighting and destruction will continue.”
THE LONG WAR: WHY PEACE IS UNLIKELY TO COME TO UKRAINE THIS YEAR
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HAPPENING TODAY: President Joe Biden is in Mexico for the North American Leaders’ Summit with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The welcome ceremony for what’s been dubbed the “Three Amigos” summit is being held at the National Palace in Mexico City at 4:30 p.m., with talks getting underway at 5. Immigration is expected to be high on the agenda, but the White House said the three leaders will also discuss strengthening supply chains, joint security, and joint actions to address the fentanyl crisis.
The number of immigrants streaming across the U.S.-Mexico border has skyrocketed during the Biden administration, exceeding 2 million for the first time in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.
IMMIGRATION ISSUES TO DOMINATE BIDEN’S ‘THREE AMIGOS’ SUMMIT IN MEXICO
BIDEN UNEASY BORDER VISIT: After two years of Republican rebukes for ignoring the crisis at the southern border, where illegal migration has reached record levels, Biden made an ever-so-brief visit to El Paso, Texas, only to be buffeted from all sides,
Upon his arrival in Texas, Biden was hand-delivered a letter from Gov. Greg Abbott, almost as if he was being served with a summons. “His trip is $20 billion too little & 2 years too late,” Abbott said in a tweet. “I’m calling on Biden to do his constitutional duty to protect our nation.”
“This chaos is the direct result of your failure to enforce the immigration laws that Congress enacted,” he said in the letter. “Your open-border policies have emboldened the cartels, who grow wealthy by trafficking deadly fentanyl and even human beings. Texans are paying an especially high price for your failure, sometimes with their very lives, as local leaders from your own party will tell you if given the chance.”
Later during his tour of border facilities, Biden told reporters, “I haven’t read it yet.”
“Biden spent three hours on the ground in El Paso, where he met with various immigrant rights advocates at a county-run shelter, learned how federal officers at the ports of entry inspect vehicles for contraband or illegal immigrants concealed in vehicles, and heard from Border Patrol agents responding to more illegal immigrant encounters in El Paso than ever before,” reported Washington Examiner Homeland Security Reporter Anna Giaritelli. But he didn’t actually see any immigrants.
“Biden did not tour government facilities where migrants are held and processed after crossing illegally,” she said. “He rounded out the visit with a 40-minute stop by the El Paso County Migrant Services Center, where immigrants who have been let out of federal custody can make travel arrangements and get a free meal and place to rest.”
BIDEN PLEDGES HELP DURING BORDER VISIT THAT GOP DISMISSED AS ‘FAKE PHOTO OP’
WALTZ: TARGET THE CARTELS: In an interview with Fox News, Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) said former President Donald Trump has the right idea in calling for U.S. military assistance in fighting Mexico’s powerful drug cartels.
“The cartels are running our border. The cartels are destabilizing our neighbor, the entire Mexican government. We need to go on offense against them,” Walz told Maria Bartiromo, host of Fox’s Sunday Morning Futures. “I plan to introduce legislation to authorize the use of military force against these cartels.
“Look, Maria, they’re defeating the Mexican army,” Waltz said. “These are paramilitary entities with billions and billions at their disposal. The Mexican army sent battalions against them. They killed over — killed or wounded over 50 Mexican soldiers.”
“I’m not talking about U.S. troops. But I’m talking about cyber, drones, intelligence assets, naval assets,” Waltz said, comparing the assistance to Plan Colombia, the successful effort in the early 2000s to combat Colombian drug cartels. “We have done this before. … We had special operations training, not in combat, but providing those military assets that we need because these are paramilitary entities.”
TRUMP’S ACTION PLAN: Over the weekend, Trump released a proposed seven-point “action plan” that he said would “destroy the cartels.”
“The drug cartels are waging war on America — and it’s now time for America to wage war on the cartels,” Trump said in a Truth Social posting and video address. “The drug cartels and their allies in the Biden administration have the blood of countless millions on their hands. Millions and millions of families and people are being destroyed. When I am back in the White House, the drug kingpins and vicious traffickers will never sleep soundly again.”
His plan:
- Restore his previous border policies
- Use the U.S. military to impose a full naval embargo on the cartels
- Order Pentagon to make “appropriate use of special forces” cyber warfare and other covert and overt actions to inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure, and operations
- Designate the major drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations
- Cut off the access to the global financial system
- Obtain cooperation of neighboring governments to dismantle the cartels, or else fully expose the bribes and corruption that protect these criminal networks
- Ask Congress to impose death penalty on smugglers and traffickers
THE LAST TIME TRUMP WANTED TO TARGET CARTELS: Back when he was president, Trump had this idea that the U.S. should covertly launch a missile attack on Mexican drug labs and then deny it had anything to do with it.
Then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper described the episode in his memoir, A Sacred Oath, calling the idea “nonsense, plain and simple.”
“We could just shoot some Patriot missiles and take out the labs, quietly,” Esper quoted Trump as saying, “No one would know it was us.” Aside from the fact that Patriots are an air-to-air defense system, not a ground-to-ground offensive weapon, Esper found the whole thing preposterous.
“If I hadn’t seen the look on the president’s face, I would have thought it was all a joke,” Esper wrote. “I was speechless.”
“This would be an act of war, Mr. President, and there would be no way to keep it quiet,” Esper replied. “I had seen Trump spin his own reality before, so I had no doubt he was confident in his ability to persuade people we had not launched the attacks.”
“I was troubled. This was not rational thinking.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The Rundown
Washington Examiner: Biden team announces $3.75 billion in Ukraine military aid, including armored vehicles
Washington Examiner: US sanctions Iranian officials as West upgrades Ukrainian defenses
Washington Examiner: Russia shells Kramatorsk and Kherson ahead of unilateral Christmas ceasefire
Washington Examiner: ‘Less problems and slyness’: Russia’s Medvedev happy to forgo Christmas ceasefire
Washington Examiner: Opinion: Why did Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev become an ultra-hawk?
Washington Examiner: Pentagon begins ‘full implementation’ of renaming Confederate-named bases
Washington Examiner: New documents show US knew botched Afghan strike killed civilians within hours
Washington Examiner: Biden pledges help during border visit that GOP dismissed as ‘fake photo op’
Washington Examiner: Abbott hand-delivers Biden a letter on El Paso tarmac denouncing his border ‘failure’
Washington Examiner: Texas Republican slams Biden for border invite snub: ‘I’m not this crazy extremist’
Washington Examiner: Immigration issues to dominate Biden’s ‘Three Amigos’ summit in Mexico
Washington Examiner: Mayorkas says Abbott ‘not collaborating’ with federal government on border crisis
Washington Examiner: Natural gas prices fall to lowest since 2021 in major reversal post-Ukraine war
Washington Post: Decisive year looms for Russia’s war in Ukraine
AP: Russia claims deadly attack, but Kyiv denies anyone killed
Reuters: Taiwan Condemns China For Latest Combat Drills Near Island
CNN: War Game Suggests Chinese Invasion Of Taiwan Would Fail At A Huge Cost To US, Chinese And Taiwanese Militaries
Bloomberg: U.S. Cuts Naval Transits Through Taiwan Strait Even As China Steps Up Military Pressure
PBS: U.S. Marine Corps Compelled To Allow Sikh Americans To Begin Basic Training With Turbans, Beards
New York Times: A Korean War Wall of Remembrance Set Hundreds of Errors in Stone
Miami Herald: Large Group Of Cuban Migrants Lands At NAS Key West
Marine Corps Times: Camouflage Combat Utility Uniforms OK’d For Pentagon Marines
Military.com: Get Ready for Fort Liberty: The Pentagon Begins Changing Confederate Base Names
Dallas Morning News: Gen. David Berger: It’s Time For Conversations About The Value Of Military Service
Forbes: Opinion: The Navy’s Plan To Modernize Military Sealift Makes Sense. Congress Needs To Keep It Funded.
Calendar
MONDAY | JANUARY 9
9 a.m. 3613-3625 Canal Rd. NW — Georgetown University Walsh School of Foreign Service Center for Contemporary Arab Studies conference: “Towards Sustainable Peace and Democracy in Yemen.” https://yemendcconference.net/index.php/register-now
2 p.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW — Center for Strategic and International Studies report launch: “The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan,” with co-authors Mark Cancian, Matthew Cancian, and Eric Heginbotham, along with a panel discussion: with retired Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula; Becca Wasser, senior fellow, Center for a New American Security; and William Murray, professor, U.S. Naval War College https://www.csis.org/events/report-launch
TUESDAY | JANUARY 10
8 a.m. 2799 Richmond Hwy, Arlington, Virginia — Surface Navy Association annual National Symposium with the theme “Sharpening Our Competitive Edge,” with Adm. Michael Gilday, chief of naval operations, delivering keynote address at 4 p.m. https://www.navysnaevents.org/national-symposium
9 a.m. — German Marshall Fund of the United States virtual discussion with Moldovan Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu https://www.gmfus.org/event/conversation-moldovan
11 a.m. — Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies virtual discussion, beginning at 11 a.m., with former Air Force Gen. Tod Wolters, former commander of the U.S. European Command and former NATO supreme allied commander Europe https://mitchellaerospacepower.org/event/aerospace-nation
1 p.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW — Center for Strategic and International Studies discussion: “Enabling an Economic Transformation of Ukraine: Recovery, Reconstruction, and Modernization,” with former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor, vice president of Russia and Europe at the U.S. Institute of Peace; former Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky; Sergiy Tsivkach, CEO of UkraineInvest; Michael Polsky, founder and CEO of Invenergy; and former U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, vice chairman and president of strategic growth at Mastercard https://www.csis.org/events/enabling-economic-transformation
WEDNESDAY | JANUARY 11
7:30 a.m. 2799 Richmond Hwy., Arlington, Virginia — Surface Navy Association annual National Symposium with the theme “Sharpening Our Competitive Edge,” with Rep. Joe Courtney (D-CT) and Rep. Robert Wittman (R-VA) delivering remarks on the “View from Capitol Hill” and Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro giving keynote address at 11 a.m. https://www.navysnaevents.org/national-symposium
8 a.m. — Atlantic Council virtual discussion: “The Case for Ukraine Retaking Crimea,” with retired Army Gen. Wes Clark, former NATO supreme allied commander Europe; Leonid Gozman, Russian opposition politician and commentator; Debra Cagan, energy fellow at the Transatlantic Leadership Network; former Ukrainian Defense Minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk, fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center; and former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/event/the-case-for-retaking-crimea
9:45 a.m. — Intelligence and National Security Alliance virtual discussion on “ONI’s assessments of foreign naval capabilities and its application of naval intelligence to global geopolitical challenges,” with Rear Adm. Michael Studeman, commander, Office of Naval Intelligence, and Suzanne Wilson Heckenberg, INSA president https://www.insaonline.org/detail-pages/event
9:30 a.m. — Stimson Center event: “Voices from Japan: Japan’s Security Policy Transformation,” with Itsunori Onodera, the 12th, 17th, and 18th minister of defense of Japan https://www.stimson.org/event/voices-from-japan
4 p.m. — 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW — Brookings Institution Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology conversation: “Reflections on U.S. defense policy from Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA),” with Michael O’Hanlon, Philip H. Knight chair in defense and strategy, senior fellow and director, Strobe Talbott Center; and Melanie Sisson, fellow, Strobe Talbott Center https://www.brookings.edu/events/reflections
5 p.m. 2201 C St. NW — Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, and Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada joint media availability following a meeting of the U.S.-Japan Security Consultative Committee http://www.state.gov
THURSDAY | JANUARY 12
7:30 a.m. 2799 Richmond Hwy., Arlington, Virginia — Surface Navy Association annual National Symposium, with the theme “Sharpening Our Competitive Edge,” with Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Christopher Grady delivering remarks at 7 p.m. https://www.navysnaevents.org/national-symposium
8 a.m. 7920 Jones Branch Dr., McLean, Virginia — Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association Northern Virginia Chapter 2023 NOVA Army IT Day forum, with Army Undersecretary Gabriel Camarillo; Lt. Gen. John Morrison, deputy chief of staff of the Army for command, control, communications, cyber operations, and networks; Dovarius Peoples, chief information officer of the Army Corps of Engineers; Kenneth McNeill, chief information officer for command, control, communications, and computers/cyber, J-6, of the Army National Guard Bureau; Lt. Gen. Maria Gervais, deputy commanding general and chief of staff of the Army Training and Doctrine Command; Margaret Boatner, deputy assistant Army secretary for strategy and acquisition reform; Kimberly Buehler, director of the Army Office of Small Business Programs; Megan Dake, deputy assistant Army secretary for procurement; William Nelson, deputy assistant Army secretary for research and technology; and Maj. Gen. Christopher Eubank, commanding general of the Army Network Enterprise Technology Command https://afceanova.swoogo.com/ArmyITDay2023
6 p.m. — Economic Club of Washington, D.C., virtual discussion with U.K. Ambassador to the United States Karen Pierce https://www.economicclub.org/events/he-dame-karen-pierce
FRIDAY | JANUARY 13
TBA — President Joe Biden hosts Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for meetings at the White House https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room
12 p.m. 37th and O Sts. NW — Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service discussion: on “Displacement and Disabilities in Ukraine What’s Happened to Children with Disabilities in the Conflict?” with Eric Rosenthal, founder and executive director of Disability Rights International; Elizabeth Ferris, director of ISIM; and Quill Kukla, director of Georgetown’s Disability Studies Program https://www.georgetown.edu/event/displacement-and-disabilities
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“It is better to stop him now, before more is demanded of the United States and NATO. … The way to avoid confrontation with Russia in the future is to help Ukraine push back the invader now. That is the lesson of history that should guide us, and it lends urgency to the actions that must be taken — before it is too late.”
Former Secretary of State and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and former Defense Secretary and CIA Director Robert Gates urging “a dramatic increase” in military aid to Ukraine to deter Russian President Vladimir Putin
