Sending US Weapons to Ukraine is ‘Catalyst for Future Conflict’, Ex-Pentagon Adviser Warns

An open letter penned on 17 August by nearly 20 national security officers and former diplomats urging Washington to increase the amount of arms it is sending to the Kiev regime because US' "vital interests are at stake", was sharply criticized by retired US Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor.

Funneling more US weapons systems to the Kiev regime could dangerously escalate the conflict and ultimately cause irreparable damage to Ukraine itself, a senior Pentagon adviser to former president Donald Trump has warned.

“The hard truth is that introduction of new weapon systems won’t change the strategic outcome in Ukraine,” retired US Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor warned in The American Conservative.

The decorated combat veteran was responding to the recent open letter published by 20 national security officers and ex-diplomats where they called on President Joe Biden to further arm Kiev as the Russian special operation in Ukraine allegedly poses "a clear danger to US security and prosperity".

The former officials urged the US president to provide Kiev with more ammunition, spare parts, short and medium-range air defense systems and, most notably, ATACMS munitions fired by High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) "with the 300km range necessary to strike Russian military targets from anywhere in Ukraine" as well as in Crimea. Previously, the Biden administration ruled out delivering long-range munitions for HIMARS.

The authors of the open letter also cited the nuclear card as a possible option.

‘Flawed Strategy’

Macgregor emphasized that the Ukraine conflict had reached a decisive point and it was “time to end it”.

“Instead, the authors of the letter seek to reinforce failure. They are demanding a deeply flawed strategy for Ukraine that will lead in the best case to Ukraine’s reduction to a shrunken, land-locked state between the Dnieper River and the Polish border. These are results of misguided policies originating in the Nineties under the Clinton administration, which drove Russia into political isolation from Europe and forged Moscow’s alliance with Beijing,” Macgregor wrote.

The retired officer pointed out that the initial flood of equipment and ammunition from Washington’s European Allies to Kiev that began after Russia launched it special military operation in Ukraine on 24 February has been “reduced to a trickle.”

The Pentagon, however, on 8 August detailed the contents of a $1Bln assistance package for Ukraine provided under presidential drawdown authority. According to the DoD's official website, among the items included in the latest package are additional ammunition for HIMARS; 75,000 rounds of 155mm artillery ammunition; 20 120mm mortar systems and 20,000 rounds of 120mm mortar ammunition; munitions for the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, or NASAMS; and 1,000 Javelin and hundreds of AT4 anti-armor systems.

“Even if NATO’s European members, together with Washington, DC, provided Ukrainian troops with a new avalanche of weapons, and it arrived at the front instead of disappearing into the black hole of Ukrainian corruption, the training and tactical leadership required to conduct complex offensive operations does not exist inside Ukraine’s 700,000-man army,” he wrote, adding that there is an “acute failure to recognize that Moscow would react to such a development by escalating the conflict.”

Moscow has repeatedly warned of the dangers of such military assistance, which serves to prolong the conflict, and could even risk a direct confrontation with NATO.

Furthermore, Europol has already confirmed that there was evidence of firearms and military goods from Ukraine being offered on the black market, as well as evidence of illegal trade in heavy weapons.

Macgregor also discussed the issue of NATO expansion.

“Expanding NATO to Russia’s borders was never necessary and has become disastrous for Europe. The longer the war with Russia lasts the more likely the damage to Ukrainian society and its army will be irreparable. Neutrality on the Austrian model for Ukraine is still possible. If Washington insists on perpetuating Ukraine’s war with Russia, the neutrality option will vanish, NATO’s fragile 'coalition of the willing' will collapse, and Ukraine will become the new 'sick man of Europe' and remain a catalyst for future conflict,” Macgregor wrote in The American Conservative.