Michael Carpenter, a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense and a key adviser to ex-U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden, hopes that Secretary of Defense James Mattis in Kyiv this week will be in a position to correct some of the Obama administration’s mistakes on Ukraine.
One of the key mistakes, in Carpenter’s opinion, was the refusal of U.S. President Barack Obama to supply Ukraine with modern defensive weapons to help it prevail against the war that Russia launched in 2014 with the takeover of Crimea and invasion of the eastern Donbas.
“It’s unfortunate that we didn’t provide weapons to Ukraine,” Carpenter told the Kyiv Post in an interview ahead of Mattis’ visit to Ukraine. “In effect, it places a de facto arms embargo against Ukraine, just as (the U.S. refusal) after Russia’s war against Georgia in 2008. It sends the wrong message that if you are the victim of Russian aggression, NATO countries will be reluctant to provide you with weapons to defend yourself.”
But the signs that U.S. President Donald J. Trump will reverse Obama’s decision are not looking good.
The U.S. Defense Department’s statement on Mattis’ upcoming visit on Aug. 24 signals no major policy announcement, but rather mostly a symbolic show of support by attending Ukraine’s 26th Independence Day parade in Kyiv.
Mattis’ visit to Ukraine, coming after stops in Jordan and Turkey, will “underscore the U.S. commitment to a strategic partnership and support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” according to the statement, which says that the defense secretary will “also highlight the U.S. train, equip and advise efforts to build the capacity of Ukraine’s forces.”
Carpenter said that, with Trump as president, supplying Ukraine with weapons is an even tougher sell than under Obama.
“The primary consideration now is the Trump administration’s desire to cozy up to Vladimir Putin and to Russia, to forge some sort of cooperative relationship,” Carpenter said. “Obviously provisions of weapons to Ukraine would get in the way of that. We know the Kremlin is vehemently opposed to that.”
The main sticking point for Obama, Carpenter said, was the former president’s concern that supplying weapons to Ukraine would provoke military escalation by Russia.
Carpenter didn’t find the argument persuasive.
“There were a number of folks, myself included, advocating for this (supplying weapons) and making the argument this would not be escalatory – that this would be stabilizing if certain types of weapons were carefully selected, such as anti-armor weapons that would provide Ukraine with cover down on the line of contact to prevent incursions,” Carpenter said. “We tried the best we could. At the end of the day, the buck stops with the president and he decided against it.”
‘Greater leverage’ over Moscow
Improving Ukraine’s defensive capabilities also “provides us with greater leverage” with the Kremin, Carpenter said. “The U.S. and Normandy countries (Germany and France) lack leverage against Moscow” to end its war against Ukraine.
“In studying Russian military aggression along its periphery, one of the things most provocative is the demonstration of weakness or lack of resolve. That is what encourages Russia to undertake further military action,” Carpenter said. “I think we have to be leaders. If the U.S. decides to provide Ukraine with defensive weapons, a lot of NATO allies would follow suit.”
Moreover, he said, Russia has “by and large saturated the Donbas with weapons already.”
Specifically, Carpenter said that he would not favor supplying Ukraine with offensive weapons — combat aircraft or a large number of tanks, which could provoke a tougher Moscow response.
“Ukraine’s military needs longer-range counter-battery radars, anti-tank and anti-ship missiles, more secure communications, advanced UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) that can better resist Russian jamming measures, and more Humvees and MRAPs (mine-resistant ambush protected) for better battlefield mobility, among other things,” Carpenter wrote on Aug. 2 in Defense One, a website devoted to defense and security issues.
“I don’t think that Russia would respond to the transfer of these weapons by launching some sort of mini-military offensive,” Carpenter told the Kyiv Post.
Carpenter also thinks that the U.S. should be directly involved in the peace talks to end Russia’s war and not leave it to the Normandy format of Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia. A step in that direction came with the appointment of Kurt Volker as the U.S. special envoy to Ukraine.
Roadmap, deadlines for Minsk agreements
“I think the U.S. should develop a roadmap for implementing Minsk and set certain dates by which actions need to be accomplished — actions that Russia needs to take on front end and political actions that Ukraine needs to take on the back end,” Carpenter said. The consequences for Russia’s continued aggression “would be ramped-up sanctions.”
Obama’s other mistake, in Carpenter’s view, was not visiting Ukraine during eight years in office – the first president since Ronald Reagan not to do so.
“I think he should have gone to show solidarity with Ukraine at a time when it was suffering from Russian aggression and at a time when it was embarking on difficult set of reforms,” Carpenter said.
Nonetheless, Carpenter credits the Obama administration with establishment of U.S. training programs that improved the capabilities of Ukraine’s military and started reforms in the defense sector.
“The most important thing we did in the Obama administration was to provide training to the Ukrainian military and also help them with a roadmap for reforms,” Obama said.
‘A long way to go’
“The Ukrainian military started out in an absolutely atrocious state when the war began,” Carpenter said. “It was hollowed out by two decades of mismanagement and corruption and an utter failure to reform to deal with modern military threats. Of course, it did not consider Russia to be a threat to their territorial integrity.
“They’ve come a long way. There’s been dramatic improvement,” Carpenter said. “There’s still a lot of capability gaps: no air defense capability, no maritime naval force capable of defending long flanks in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov. There are a lot of equipment deficits. In terms of structure, there are also deficits…Ukraine has a long way to go.”
The U.S. experience with the Ukrainian military in Yaroviv, near the Polish border in western Ukraine, has also taught Western forces valuable lessons. The U.S. military has learned “how Russia prosecutes its hybrid warfare” and how to develop techniques to counter it.
‘A recipe for corruption’
Another weakness that makes Ukraine vulnerable is corruption in the defense sector.
“Because the defense sector is public and so large, there are many avenues for corruption within the existing system. Ukraine has taken some good steps for curbing corruption in procurement, but a lot more that needs to be done in that regard,” Carpenter said. “The U.S. Defense Department has a very open procurement system.”
Greater transparency in how public money is spent ensures money and defense equipment is “delivered where it needs to go,” Carpenter said. “In Ukraine, there are too many cases of equipment provided by foreign countries and being procured, but not getting to the front. That is disastrous for defense capabilities.”
One big problem is with Ukroboronprom, Ukraine’s giant state-owned arms dealer with some 80,000 employees spread over 130 enterprises.
“Ukroboronprom is too opaque, too convoluted. It’s essentially a middleman’s organization, which is always vulnerable to corruption in every sector of the economy, particularly in the defense sector,” Carpenter said. “It needs a wholesale root and branch overhaul – a new board of directors, a management strategy and then you do an audit of the whole conglomerate and figure out how you can break it down in the most business-friendly way.
“It’s a recipe for corruption, the way it’s structured,” Carpenter said. The set-up “breeds suspicion of corruption” and political influence “and that prevents a lot of Western investment from flowing in” to the defense sector, he said.
A Joe Biden role
Carpenter has found a new professional home as senior director at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, led by the former vice president, who is being touted as a Democratic Party presidential contender in 2020.
A Biden presidency would be welcomed by many Ukrainians, who became familiar him through his six visits to Ukraine and his “tough-love” style of supporting Ukraine against Russia’s war, but also openly pushing Ukraine’s political leaders to do more in combatting corruption.
Ukraine remains a major interest for Biden, whom Carpenter served as a foreign policy adviser, and the think tank associated with the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Carpenter this month, for instance, wrote a detailed policy prescription for Ukraine ahead of Mattis’ visit for the Defense One news website.
What’s needed now, Carpenter said, is a Western leader “who will press Ukrainian leaders to keep faith with the reform process. You see some backsliding and see some stasis. Right now there is, unfortunately, nobody playing the role that Biden was playing when he was in office, either from the U.S. or from our European allies.”
He said the National Anti-Corruption Bureau in Ukraine “in theory is an excellent institution in combatting corruption and can be effective. But it has to be empowered to do its job. There can’t be senior politicians putting a monkey wrench in its efforts and work.”
The “crucial next step” for Ukraine is to reform the judiciary and create an independent anti-corruption court. “But unless Western leaders keep pushing for this, it doesn’t seem like there’s enough momentum,” Carpenter said. “There are corrupt special interest from all political persuasions that benefit from sweetheart arrangements and deals that have existed for years and decades. It’s difficult to overturn politically. It takes courage and sometimes pressure. Sometimes Ukrainian politicians, especially ones that want to see progress, like the pressure when it comes from the West.”
Expect more attacks
Ukraine will have to intensify its military capabilities and its anti-corruption fight to become less vulnerable to Russian pressure in its 2019 elections, Carpenter said.
He is worried that Russia will continue its assassinations of key targets in Ukraine, as well as cyberattacks and sabotage operations.
In 2019, when Ukraine holds presidential and parliamentary elections, Carpenter expects Russia will be “pouring a lot of dirty money into Ukrainian politicians over the coming year. If they are able to be successful in the United States of America (in interfering with the 2016 presidential election), they have a lot more incentives and resources to do it with Ukraine. It will take a lot of anti-corruption efforts to reveal what’s going on.
“Ukraine will have to harden its defenses against this aspect of this hybrid fight,” Carpenter said. “This is probably the most vulnerable area Ukraine has right now.”
