Examining the U.S. response options to the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Judy Woodruff:

As we reported earlier, NATO is increasing its troop presence in Eastern Europe. And the United States announced today that it is putting 8,500 troops on high alert to deploy to the region.

To discuss the details of today's developments, we're joined by two experts.

Andrea Kendall-Taylor is a former senior intelligence official who focused on Russia and Eurasia. She is now the head of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center For a New American security, which is a bipartisan national security and defense policy institute. And Phillip Karber served as an adviser to the secretary of defense under the Reagan administration. He is now the president of The Potomac Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan policy research group.

Judy Woodruff:

And we welcome both of you to the "NewsHour."

Andrea Kendall-Taylor — excuse me — to you first.

How much of a change in posture is this for the Biden administration to be making this announcement about troop readiness? And what is your sense of how meaningful this troop deployment could be?

Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Center For a New American Security: So, I think this signals a shift in the way the Biden administration is approaching the conflict.

So far, they have been talking a lot about deterrence and laying out the cost for Putin if he should take action. To me, this signals that they see that conflict is becoming more likely in the coming weeks. And so they're shifting to a more proactive footing to help prepare for that conflict.

I think, at this point, the key for the Biden administration and its NATO allies is to ensure that this conflict, should it happen, remains contained to Ukraine. And so they're starting to preposition forces and take these steps to prepare for scenarios in which conflict could potentially spill over or tax NATO member states.

So, I think this is a real shift in their footing and how they're thinking about the likelihood of conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Judy Woodruff:

So, how would the presence of U.S. troops in the region, in addition to NATO forces, keep the — any conflict contained to Ukraine?

Andrea Kendall-Taylor:

So, I think the key is kind of preparing for scenarios in which conflict between Russia and Ukraine could spill over into NATO member states, particularly Poland and Romania.

We want to be prepared for those possibilities. I also think a key goal and objective of prepositioning forces like this is to signal alliance resolve. I think we want to be crystal clear with President Putin that the alliance has the resolve to respond, so that he doesn't look to test any other NATO member states.

And I will just say, I also think there is one broader audience, and that is Xi Jinping. And I think he and China is going to be watching very closely to see the United States' ability to marshal a coalition to respond. And this is signaling the United States' willingness to move beyond sanctions and to change the security environment in which any revisionist actor would face.

So, I think, for all of those reasons, to shore up the credibility of the alliance and to prepare for potential scenarios, these steps by the Biden administration and NATO allies are important ones and welcome.

Judy Woodruff:

So, signals to NATO, to Russia, and, as you say, to China as well.

Phil Karber, let me bring you into this.

How do you see these troops, were they to be deployed, being used? Where would they be? What exactly would they do?

Phil Karber, President, The Potomac Foundation:

Well, I agree with everything my colleague said.

But the response so far has been kind of underwhelming. I mean, what they announced today is that we're preparing to lean forward, get units ready to deploy, but we haven't deployed anything yet.

So, to answer your question, I think the options, the most effective options would be to move air units, particularly fighters, into Romania, Poland, perhaps F-18 fighters with Harpoon anti-ship missiles into Bulgaria, and get more AWACS aerial surveillance, so that the Ukrainians, who are basically blind and in terms of having a long-distance identification of where attacks might come from, could get — that we would pass that intelligence to them.

So those would be the most significant and fastest things we could do. But, so far, they haven't left yet. Then, of course, there's the option of having a ground forces, but the most I think they're talking about is one brigade unit. And that's not very much.

So it's — has a limit. Lastly, there is an ongoing naval exercise that we're participating in, in the Mediterranean. So that's helpful. And the Danes are sending some naval units to the Baltic to try and shore up them.

Judy Woodruff:

So, Phil Karber, just stay with you for a moment, so air surveillance, sending in air — potentially air support, sending in naval support in — what, surrounding Ukraine?

I mean, how do you see this geographically playing out?

Phil Karber:

So, that's the problem. I do not see a naval forces going into the Black Sea. I think that would be — it's just too dangerous and too outnumbered, frankly.

But having AWACS flying in over Ukraine and being able to give them early warning of the impending attack and also help their air respond, their small air force respond to a much larger Russian attack, would be enormously helpful, and also having our fighters there to protect the AWACS, so they aren't taken potshots at.

And that sends a very strong message. Our airpower is our strongest message-sender in terms of military capability. And yet it's still in a defensive posture deployed into NATO countries. And it also gives them a sense that — people say, oh, trying to assure the allies.

Well, when you talk to the allies, they say, we don't want assurance. We want deterrence. If this war comes to our border, we're not looking for speed bumps. We want real help. So I think that's the key.

Judy Woodruff:

Just quick questions. One is, how quickly do you see this kind of support being deployed and making a difference, because it clearly would have to integrate with what else is on the ground there with NATO?

Phil Karber:

So, in terms of the air, we could probably get a number of squadrons, maybe a couple of wings, within three to seven days. And that would be very, very quick and very powerful.

The ground forces take, obviously, a lot longer. We have prepositioned equipment in Germany and Poland.

Judy Woodruff:

Right.

Phil Karber:

But whether the Germans would allow us to fall in on that equipment and then move it across Germany, who knows.

Likewise, it takes time to move troops from essentially Western Poland to anywhere near the Belarusian border or Ukrainian border.

(CROSSTALK)

Phil Karber:

I'm sorry?

Judy Woodruff:

No, I was just going to say, and other one other question, in terms of military balance.

These numbers are a lot smaller than the 100 — or more than 100,000 troops the Russians have around there. So, in terms of military balance, you see them making a difference?

Phil Karber:

The air could seriously make a difference over Eastern Ukraine, and give the Russians a real second thought about whether they want to launch a major air offensive, which a lot of people are warning about, flying in over Belarus, over the Mediterranean, hitting Ukraine from all sides.

If we had strong AWACS early warning and also strong fighter capability, I think that would give them severe warning.

One other thing that should be noted is, we just sent some supplies to Ukraine. Those supplies had been ordered and purchased by Ukraine as part of their military aid literally months ago. So we haven't sent any new stuff yet to Ukraine. And we really — that — everything we send right now is helpful.

Judy Woodruff:

And final quick last question to Andrea Kendall-Taylor.

Is this — what the U.S. and NATO are announcing today, is this likely to change Putin's thinking?

Andrea Kendall-Taylor:

I don't think so.

I mean, I think, at this point, if he's going in — and, of course, we should note that only Putin knows the answer to that. He keeps us on our toes because that works to his strategic advantage. But I would say, kind of given senior Russian official statements, and certainly the continuing buildup of Russian forces on the Ukrainian border, it does appear that we are headed towards conflict.

And so I don't think that we are going to deter the conflict. So, then what we're looking to do, I think, at this point is through sanctions and changes in our U.S. force posture, is to make this as costly an action for Putin as possible.

He is taking a great risk here. And we need to do everything we can to raise the costs for his actions, to reassure our allies, and, again, to make sure that this conflict stays contained to Ukraine. So I think that's the shift that we're seeing from this administration, moving towards just deterrence to recognizing that we're going to have to kind of manage and navigate the situation, thinking about refugee flows and prepositioning humanitarian aid.

Judy Woodruff:

Right.

Andrea Kendall-Taylor:

So I think the conflict is coming. We're getting closer.

And the steps that the administration is talking about doing, I think, signals where their thinking is, that we're getting closer to conflict.

Judy Woodruff:

Sobering.

Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Phil Karber, thank you both very much.

Andrea Kendall-Taylor:

Thank you for having me.