Will sending US contractors to Ukraine provoke Moscow?

Call it “slippery slope” or “mission creep”, America’s strategy for helping Ukraine defend itself against the Russian invasion has changed, adapted and expanded many times in the last 28 months. However, there was a golden rule laid down by President Biden almost on the first day of Russia’s aggression against its neighbour. There would be no “boots on the ground”, he said. No US troops would be deployed to fight the Russians. That Biden doctrine has not changed. And yet now there is serious consideration going on inside Biden’s national security team over whether to allow American contractors to go to Ukraine to help repair and service the multitude of advanced US weapons supplied in recent months, and the F-16 fighter jets which are being provided by European allies and are due to arrive soon. It is imperative to provide tender loving care to fighter jets to keep them safe and operational. While the Ukrainians have plenty of their own experience in servicing their Soviet-designed combat aircraft, the F-16 is a new beast for their ground crews and any help they can get from American experts alongside them would clearly be crucial for maintaining what could be a battle-changing firepower platform for the Kyiv government. However, Biden is not going to find it an easy decision to make. The counter-arguments are strong. The arrival of American contractors in Ukraine would be viewed by Moscow as a deliberate provocation and would, potentially, put American lives in harm’s way. Kyiv sent engineers as well as pilots to be trained in Europe on the F-16, so it’s not as if Ukraine’s air crews will be required to fly combat missions without adequate back-up. However, the proposal to send US contractors, not just for the F-16s, but also for weapons such as the long-range ATACMS missiles and M1A1 Abrams tanks, would guarantee a much-improved maintenance programme and help Ukraine to keep battle-winning systems in play. The Pentagon insists no decision has yet been made but military officials have been urging for some time for the president to take this step as am important, practical measure. Biden has shown reluctance ever since the Russian invasion in February, 2022, to go too far in helping Ukraine do more than defend itself. In the early stages, fighter jets, battle tanks, long-range rockets were simply not on the agenda. But they were always on President Zelensky’s agenda. Some Nato allies, including the United Kingdom, adopted a more robust approach earlier on. The UK sent air-launched Storm Shadow cruise missiles with a range of 155 miles in May 2023. The first American long-range ATACMS with a reach of 190 miles didn’t arrive until almost a year later, after much pleading from Zelensky. Biden was fearful of escalating the war by giving weapons to Kyiv that could be used to hit targets inside Russia. Even now, the longer-range systems have been sent with operational restrictions. However, it is clear the threshold vis a vis escalation concerns has been lowered significantly in recent months. Red lines have been fudged. The possibility of sending US contractors to Ukraine is the latest evidence of this. Moscow might think, American contractors today, combat troops tomorrow. In the war in Vietnam, “special advisers”, consisting of ex-CIA and ex-military, were sent to assist the South Vietnamese government in the 1950s. The first combat troops, US Marines, arrived in 1965. Civil contractors have played a significant role in the field in every US war in modern times. But the US is not at war in Ukraine. This is why Biden is hesitating about sending contractors to despite the huge benefits it would provide for the Ukrainian military. The same arguments are going back and forth over how far to go in offering Nato membership to Kyiv. The subject, vital to Zelensky, is top of the agenda for the next alliance summit, in Washington next month. Judging by the early signs of pre-summit preparations, Ukraine is to be offered a “bridge” to Nato membership. It’s certainly not what Zelensky was hoping for, and it sounds not unlike the sort of language adopted at the Nato summit in Vilnius in July last year. President Putin has made Nato membership for Ukraine one of his red lines. The peace settlement he offered recently said Kyiv would have to give up any thought of joining the western alliance. Washington’s position is: Ukraine will join the alliance, but not yet. As for sending US contractors to Ukraine, we await the conclusion of the internal debate now underway.