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Russia-Ukraine War: Lessons that Biden Failed to Learn and Ukraine Paid Hefty Price For

Ukrainian servicemen cry near the coffin of their comrade Andrii Trachuk during his funeral service on Independence square in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Dec. 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Ukrainian servicemen cry near the coffin of their comrade Andrii Trachuk during his funeral service on Independence square in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Dec. 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
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Russia-Ukraine War: Lessons that Biden Failed to Learn and Ukraine Paid Hefty Price For

Ukrainian servicemen cry near the coffin of their comrade Andrii Trachuk during his funeral service on Independence square in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Dec. 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Ukrainian servicemen cry near the coffin of their comrade Andrii Trachuk during his funeral service on Independence square in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Dec. 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

As we welcome the New Year and the Russia-Ukraine conflict is approaching its second anniversary, many on both sides of the Atlantic are wondering whether the biggest war in Europe since World War II will come to an end this year. After all, Washington already has supplied to Kiev more than $113 billion in cash and high-tech weaponry, and US President Joe Biden is trying to strongarm Congress into approving another $67 billion. Regretfully, the answer is a resounding “No.”
Contrary to the hopes of many, not only will 2024 not bring peace, it will likely see more bloodshed, as the key warring parties – Russia, Ukraine, and the United States (by proxy) – are all postured for an endless war. None of the conflict participants appear to be interested in ending the hostilities. To the contrary, all three are incentivized to keep going.
Russian President Putin is increasing the maximum number of Russian armed forces by 170,000 servicemen, to its full-strength of 1,320,000 personnel. He also has recently approved a major increase in military spending. In 2024, expenditures on defense and security combined will reach 40 percent of Russia’s budget, a 70 percent increase from 2023. Russia’s 2024 revenue target of $391.2 billion is based on high oil prices. The Russian government is attracting new recruits by offering a staggering sum of money for signing to serve in the military. Contract soldiers who join the so called ‘elite combat division’ get paid a whopping one million rubles (around $11,000 ).
Despite the ultimate failure of the summer counter-offensive, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky refuses to give up. Zelensky announced a “new phase of war” on November 30, having acknowledged persistent shortages of weaponry, shriveling forces, and the risk of losing the flow of security assistance and military hardware from the United States and Europe, as the Israel-Hamas conflict has overshadowed the Russia-Ukraine war.
“Look, we are not backing down, I am satisfied,” Zelenskyy said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press in Kharkov in northeastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian comedian-turned- president, continues to plead the White House for more American greenbacks, having sent a delegation of his top officials to Washington last week.
“Nobody believes in our victory like I do. Nobody,” Zelensky told TIME magazine in October, despite the fact that his own top general recently admitted that the war was unwinnable. The commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, in an interview in The Economist on November 1st , said "there will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough," speaking about the conflict’s stalemate.
Although it is clear to any serious intelligence analyst that Ukraine has no military path to victory, President Biden continues to repeat his 'as long as it takes' mantra, which pretty much summarizes the misguided and failed policy of his Administration towards the Russia-Ukraine conflict. On December 6, at the virtual meeting of the G7 nations -- comprising Japan, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and the European Union -- Biden reiterated America’s commitment to support Ukraine for “as long as it takes.”
“Do not let Putin win,” Biden implored Republicans on the same day, urging them to approve additional funding to Kiev. The US Senate blocked the $110 billion aid package for Ukraine and Israel because Republican lawmakers refused to support it without major changes to Biden’s border policy, as foreign migrants have been flooding the United States through its Southern border.
"If Putin takes Ukraine, he won’t stop there," said Biden, likely aiming to frighten everyone that Putin would attack a NATO ally. Biden threatened the possibility of American forces having to fight Russian troops, if Ukraine runs out of money. This scare tactic contradicts Washington’s own narrative that the Russian military is so weak and incompetent that it couldn’t even topple Kiev and Zelensky. Does Biden truly believe that Putin is a idiot, or a suicidal lunatic? An attack on a NATO country would trigger the Article 5 “collective defense” clause, putting Russia in a direct kinetic clash with the US and NATO forces that are conventionally superior to Moscow’s military. Unlike Biden, Putin – although a ruthless leader -- is a rational thinker and highly intelligent. Putin’s primary goal is to restore Russia’s strategic security buffer, by ensuring that no former Soviet state, other than the Baltics, will become part of NATO. Moscow finds the risk of the adversarial alliance stationing forces, bases or military hardware in close proximity to Russia’s borders unacceptable, just as Washington would find the presence of China or Russia’s military assets in Canada or Mexico equally unacceptable.
Biden may be surprised to learn this but Vladimir Putin already has won the war in Ukraine, based on his definition of victory. Putin invaded Ukraine to enforce his red line, keeping Ukraine out of NATO. He has accomplished this goal. So long as Ukrainian forces are engaged in a protracted fight with the Russians and Kiev does not control all of Ukrainian land, Ukraine does not meet the admission requirements – sovereignty, territorial integrity and absence of an on-going conflict.
Moreover, Ukraine is no longer a viable country as it cannot exist independently, without foreign financial support. Once called the “bread basket of Europe,” today, Ukraine is in ruins. Its agricultural base is destroyed and industrial foundation, including critical infrastructure, is severely damaged, as its urban centers and rural areas have been pounded, relentlessly by Russian missiles and artillery strikes, during almost two years of ground combat. To crown it all, Ukraine, the largest country on the continent, is being depopulated, with casualties approaching a quarter of a million dead or severely wounded, and millions of citizens displaced.
This unconscionable humanitarian tragedy is a result of Washington’s strategic incompetence and President Biden’s naïve and incompetent foreign policy towards Russia and Ukraine. Only historically illiterate bunch would think that inviting Ukraine -- on which Russia relied, for centuries, for its security – was a brilliant idea. Incredibly, the “experts” of Washington, the birthplace of the Monroe Doctrine, failed to anticipate that Putin who is in charge of “the second (best) army in the world,” according to Zelensky’s own admission to the Associated Press.
President Biden failed to learn from the Afghanistan fiasco that money and technology do not win wars. Strategy does. Team Biden never bothered to develop one. As a former senior official in the US Defense Intelligence Agency and one of the top three analysts on Russian doctrine and strategy in the intelligence community, I personally briefed President Obama’s White House national security staff on Putin’s plans and Russia’s war-fighting strategy multiple times. I also briefed countless top US military commanders and Pentagon officials, as well as NATO ministers and military leaders.
As vice president at the time, the go-to person on Ukraine policy, and the architect of the failed Russia "reset" strategy, Joe Biden had to be made aware of those briefings. President Biden and his team, many members of which, including his then-national security adviser and current Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, joined him in his administration, must have received similar briefings prior to and during his presidency, given Russia’s ranking by the US intelligence community as a Tier 1 threat to US security.
The US president had ample time to act to deter Putin, negotiate a peaceful solution, prevent Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and avoid the exorbitant outflows of US taxpayers’ earnings to Kiev for what has become an unwinnable war. Instead, Biden has chosen to have Ukrainians pay for his failures with their blood. Alternatively, and quite possibly, Team Biden intentionally prolonged the Russia-Ukraine war by flowing weaponry to Kiev, in order to weaken Russia’s military and economy – just as Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin stated a few months ago.
With Russia's population being more than three times of Ukraine's and Putin’s preparedness to throw more and more bodies at the problem, it looks like Washington will be fighting Moscow until the last Ukrainian – all in the name of upholding "freedom and democracy.”

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Toufic Sultan Recalls to Asharq Al-Awsat Mutual Hatred between Hafez al-Assad and Yasser Arafat

Arafat and Assad during a celebration of the Libyan Revolution in Tripoli in 1988. (AFP)
Arafat and Assad during a celebration of the Libyan Revolution in Tripoli in 1988. (AFP)
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Toufic Sultan Recalls to Asharq Al-Awsat Mutual Hatred between Hafez al-Assad and Yasser Arafat

Arafat and Assad during a celebration of the Libyan Revolution in Tripoli in 1988. (AFP)
Arafat and Assad during a celebration of the Libyan Revolution in Tripoli in 1988. (AFP)

Journalists sometimes hear shocking statements—ones they lock away in their memory, fearing their repercussions. Some are too violent, too damaging, or too costly to repeat. Others risk swift denial from those who made them.

That was the case in late January 1987, when Kuwait hosted the fifth Islamic Summit.

Among the leaders in attendance were Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd bin Abdulaziz, Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, Lebanese President Amin Gemayel, and Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat.

I had requested an interview with Arafat, and he agreed to meet. After an exchange of pleasantries, he delivered a series of startling remarks.

“What’s happening in Beirut?” he asked.

“You know the country is grappling with the aftermath of the war of the camps,” I replied.

“No, Ghassan,” he shot back. “This is not the ‘war of the camps.’ The real name is the ‘war on the camps.’ It was personally ordered by Hafez al-Assad. Regrettably, the Amal Movement, led by Nabih Berri, is carrying out the decision, aided—unfortunately—by the Lebanese Army’s Sixth Brigade.”

Arafat must have noticed my surprise at his bluntness, because he raised his voice in anger.

“Assad is trying to finish what Ariel Sharon started in the 1982 invasion but failed to achieve. This is a continuation of Sharon’s mission to eliminate the PLO,” he charged.

Veteran Lebanese politician Toufic Sultan speaks to Asharq Al-Awsat. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Assad: A Souk Al-Hamidiya merchant

I pointed out that his accusations were grave, targeting Syria’s head of state. His frustration only grew.

“Assad is not Syria’s president,” Arafat fumed.

“He is a merchant from Souk al-Hamidiya. If only he focused on reclaiming the Golan instead of blocking Palestinian independence to please America and Israel. Mark my words: time will prove me right. Hafez al-Assad does not recognize Palestine, nor Lebanon. He loathes Iraq under the guise of hating Saddam Hussein.”

Stunned, I listened as he went on.

“What they call an ‘uprising’ within Fatah is a conspiracy orchestrated by Assad and funded by [Libyan leader Moammar] al-Gaddafi. Assad’s only dream is to turn the Palestinian cause into a bargaining chip and to dominate Lebanon.”

As Arafat’s anger subsided, our conversation shifted to other topics.

A few days ago, I met with veteran Lebanese politician Toufic Sultan—a man who carries the collective memory of two cities. Born in Tripoli, he has also witnessed Beirut’s political twists and turns, having been a close associate of Kamal Jumblatt and his son, Walid, as well as former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri and his son, Saad.

He maintained ties with Arafat and participated in meetings with Assad and other Arab leaders. His recollections are rich with pivotal moments, particularly from his time as deputy leader of the National Movement, a coalition of leftist and nationalist forces led by Kamal Jumblatt.

Rocky start: Assad and Arafat’s strained relationship

Arafat’s relationship with Damascus was troubled from the outset. After a bloody internal dispute within Fatah, he was briefly detained in Syria, where the defense minister at the time was Hafez al-Assad.

Following the violent clashes between Palestinian factions and the Jordanian army in 1970, Assad came to view the presence of armed Palestinian groups as a source of chaos. This belief shaped his stance toward Arafat and the Palestinian resistance movement for years to come.

Assad grew uneasy when Palestinian factions relocated to Beirut and forged a broad alliance with Lebanon’s leftist parties and nationalist forces. He closely monitored Arafat’s rise as the dominant player on the Lebanese scene.

Despite Syria’s attempts to control the Palestinian file, Damascus struggled to rein in Fatah’s overwhelming influence and Arafat’s growing stature. His power extended to Lebanon’s southern border with Israel, where he effectively held decision-making authority.

Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, Sultan recalled: “Hafez al-Assad never truly respected the idea of Palestinian resistance. I heard it from him directly and from those around him. His prevailing view was that there was no real resistance—just armed groups operating in coordination with intelligence agencies. The divide between Assad and Arafat was clear from the start.”

Sultan recounted an episode that underscored the deep divide between Assad and Arafat.

“One day, Assad told Arafat that Palestine did not exist—it was simply southern Syria. Arafat fired back, saying there was no such thing as Syria, only northern Palestine. There was an attempt to mask the exchange with humor, but the reality was that Assad genuinely viewed the issue through this lens,” Sultan said.

He explained that several Arab regimes sought to control the Palestinian cause, hoping to benefit from it without bearing its consequences.

“From the Baathist perspective, both in Baghdad and Damascus, there was a belief that the issue was too significant for the PLO to unilaterally determine its fate.”

Crackdown on Palestinian media

Sultan recalled a particularly tense moment in the PLO’s relationship with the Syrian regime.

“The organization operated a radio station in Syria. One day, it aired a segment quoting Arafat, including the phrase ‘There is water in my mouth’—a cryptic remark hinting at unspoken grievances. Syrian authorities responded swiftly, sending bulldozers to demolish the station and arresting several staff members.”

That night, Palestinian officials approached Sultan, urging him to speak with Kamal Jumblatt.

“Jumblatt suggested we arrange a meeting with Assad. It was Ramadan, so I contacted Hikmat al-Shihabi, then head of Syrian intelligence and our liaison,” recalled Sultan.

As the meeting neared sunset, Jumblatt sat across from Assad, with Sultan seated beside the Syrian president. The discussion quickly turned hostile toward Arafat.

“The conversation was filled with insults. Phrases like ‘We’ll bring him in’—implying they’d arrest him—and ‘We’ll flip him over’—a reference to how prisoners were beaten—were thrown around. Jumblatt, always polite and measured, stopped eating. Sensing his discomfort, Assad turned to me and asked me to intervene.”

Sultan responded: “Mr. President, the Palestinian fighters are not our schoolmates. We are committed to the Palestinian cause, and today, the PLO and Arafat represent that cause. These men have endured extreme hardships.”

Assad listened and then conceded: “Abu Rashid is right. Consider it settled, Kamal Bey.” The detainees were subsequently released.

A meeting between Kamal Jumblatt and Arafat attended by Toufic Sultan, George Hawi, Mohsen Ibrahim, and Yasser Abed Rabbo. (Courtesy of Toufic Sultan)

Deep-seated mutual hatred

Asked whether the animosity between Assad and Arafat was evident at the time, Sultan did not hesitate.

“Of course. It was well known,” he said. “One way to ingratiate oneself with Assad was to openly attack Arafat.”

He recalled a meeting with Walid Jumblatt, Assem Kanso—the head of Lebanon’s Baath Party—and Syrian Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam.

“When Arafat’s name came up, Khaddam abruptly declared, ‘Yasser Arafat is an Israeli spy.’ I remained silent. He turned to me and asked for my opinion. I simply said, ‘I heard you.’”

Khaddam pressed further: “What do you think?”

Sultan replied: “I respect your opinion, and this is your office. But if you want my honest view, it won’t please you.”

The atmosphere surrounding Assad was particularly hostile toward Fatah. Syrian authorities used every means at their disposal to infiltrate the group.

After years of effort, they succeeded in orchestrating major defections, the most notable led by Abu Saleh, Abu Musa, and Abu Khaled al-Omleh. Damascus provided these factions with logistical support, training camps, and other resources.

“Syria had the power to shrink or amplify political movements,” remembered Sultan.

Despite knowing that geography gave Assad a strategic advantage, Arafat was not an easy adversary.

He countered Syria’s animosity with his trademark defiance—flashing the victory sign and invoking phrases like “the Palestinian bloodbath” and “the longest Arab-Israeli war.”

These references underscored the resilience of Palestinian fighters and their Lebanese allies during Israel’s 1982 siege of Beirut, led by then-Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon.

At the time, many believed that Arafat’s relentless emphasis on “independent Palestinian decision-making” was aimed more at Assad than at any other party.

Damascus, in turn, saw Arafat as dismissive of the sacrifices made by the Syrian army during Israel’s invasion of Beirut.

Syrian officials also suspected that he was waiting for an opportunity to join peace negotiations with Israel—an option that had eluded him after he failed to follow in the footsteps of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in the late 1970s.