Sam Greene
Hello, good afternoon. Welcome to the Center for European Policy Analysis. My name is Sam Greene. I’m the Director of the Democratic Resilience program here at CEPA. It is my honor, privilege, and pleasure to welcome all of you to this on-the-record briefing and conversation with my colleague, Lieutenant General Steph Twitty. At what is, I think not anymore a cliche to say, a critical juncture in our engagement with the war in Ukraine. It has obviously been said at a number of occasions over the past 18 or 20 months that we have reached a juncture of importance, but the decisions being made or rather, in some cases not being made right now here in Washington and elsewhere, will have profound consequences for not only the outcome of this war, but for peace, security, and prosperity in Ukraine and Europe and indeed here in the United States for years and probably decades to come.
With that in mind, it is a great fortune that we have the ability to have this conversation today. Very happy to be joined by all of you and of course by again Lieutenant General Steph Twitty, a Distinguished Fellow and Member of the International Leadership Council here at CEPA. Over 36 years of distinguished military service. General Twitty commanded units in nearly every echelon and served five combat tours in Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Iraq, where his valor and service won him the Silver Star. Served as well on the joint staff and in the army staff in US European northern and central command and completed his service as Deputy Commander of the US European command in Stuttgart. Steph now advises on strategic and operational planning in the government, corporate, academic, and nonprofit sectors as a Senior Advisor at the Roosevelt Group and a National Security and Military Analyst at MSNBC.
This conversation is for you and so I will invite everybody to chip in to ask questions to engage in the conversation either by using the raise hand function here on Zoom or by submitting your question via chat, which will make its way to me and I will read it out. And again, as a reminder, we are on the record. So anything you say and indeed anything that General Twitty and I say, can and will be used against us in the court of public opinion. With that, I think the question that’s been on the tip of everybody’s tongue, is how we should be thinking about what we at some point referred to as the summer offensive, as we now get into the beginning of winter. In Ukraine, it’s often talked about as as a disappointment, and I wonder if you can help us put that in some perspective, what, in fact, has been achieved, if anything? And how should this be shaping our thinking about the future of this war as we head into 2024?
Stephen Twitty
Yeah, thanks, Sam. And thanks for all you joining in today. I don’t want you to think of the counteroffensive as being a disappointment. I’ve spent over 40 years in uniform; what I will tell you is war is extremely unpredictable and uncertain. The offensive, because we were giving them all this equipment, many felt that they would win the war within weeks. Quite frankly, I never thought that they would win the war within weeks. What we should be thinking about is how we continue to resource the Ukrainians to ensure that they can absolutely win this war. What you saw over the summer were tactical gains and tactical wins. I’ll define that here in a second. Throughout the summer with the tactical wins, the Ukarains picked up various villages, hamlets, many needed terrain features down in Zaporizhzhia. They crossed over the left bank of the Dnipro River. They seized terrain north of Bakhmut. So those are tactical victories.
However, they did not accomplish a strategic victory. In this case here the strategic victory would have been to break the land bridge between Russia and Crimea in order to seize key terrain to prevent the Russians from maneuvering throughout the South. Those are strategic victories, that did not get accomplished. But they have positioned themselves throughout the summer fighting to be able to accomplish that mission in a follow-on offensive in my view. Again, war, because it’s uncertain, it takes time, and we shouldn’t put the Ukrainians on a clock, like many have done. I believe that if we continue to resource this fight, continue to support them, get them the equipment that they need, that they could become victorious, sometime in the near future. And notice, I did not put a timeframe on them. Back over the you, Sam.
Sam Greene
Okay, there’s a lot to pick up in there. There’s a tension between patience and speed. Right, which we’ll, which we’ll come back to. But you mentioned equipment, you mentioned giving them the tools that they need to make progress in this fight both the things we’ve already given them, but the things that they may need going forward. I imagine it’s not just a question of of more of the same. There are things that we’ve been talking about F-16s, other sorts of missile systems. Do you have a Christmas shopping list for Ukraine?
Stephen Twitty
Yes, first and foremost, they need what’s called air superiority. In other words, they need to be able to own the skies in which they’re fighting under. And the Russians clearly own the skies now, you’re seeing on all the bombing that’s going on civilian infrastructure. You’ve seen the bombings that’s taken place on Ukrainian air defense systems and Ukrainian military installations. If the Ukrainians had air superiority, these attacks would not happen to the degree that we’re seeing. I was fortunate enough in all the wars that I fought to have air superiority by the great United States Air Force. And so, when I conducted breaching operations, when I attacked in Baghdad in 2003, we had air superiority, so I did not have to worry about breaching while also worrying about Iraqi aircraft flying over me. This is what largely is hindering the Ukrainians. So first of all, air superiority, F-16s will help.
The second thing that will help them is advanced mine clearing equipment. The Russians have put out significant amounts of mines along the 600 mile defensive belt in the south. And if you’ve looked at the pictures, and saw the news clips on TV, and so forth, the Ukrainians are using antiquated equipment to breach these minefields. So, they need advanced equipment. And then the third thing is, they need to have the ability to strike deep targets, not just drone strikes, but also the ability to strike deep with high Caliber munitions such as ATTACMs to go after Russia’s ammunition depots, communication notes, and air defense systems. Those are things that they need. And finally, when the US military goes on an offensive attack, we attack at a three to one ratio. That’s our doctrine…our US military doctrine. So if the Russians are at the one, then we’re attacking with a three upper hand ratio, what we really like to do is be at least a ratio of five. In this case, the Ukrainians are pretty much attacking at a one to one ratio, and so they will have to do something about that, obviously, but those are the big four things that I see out there that they need help with.
Sam Greene
That is a significant set of investments. A number of challenges, I think involved in getting that we see the picture on on Capitol Hill, we see the struggles that the administration has had to get the next supplemental through we see the competing interests we’ve seen development in the Middle East. We hear talk, people talk about the Taiwan Strait again, well, we’ll come back to a lot of it. But one of the things that we sometimes hear and I know you hear from people on Capitol Hill in particular is the sense that the American people may not fully understand why this is a war that the US needs to think up to a certain degree as, as its own. I wonder, you know, what is it that as you talk to people, I know you travel the country as, as well. What do people need to understand what do people need to hear and see about this war that they may not be hearing and seeing at the moment?
Stephen Twitty
Yeah, so I’m going to take you back to World War II, because I really think that this is the part that really, the American people need to understand. World War II was one of the bloodiest wars that the US has ever fought. Over 400,000 US servicemen died in World War II, that’s pretty significant. And you think about the blood that was shed in Europe, to make Europe, the continent that it is today. On top of that, we ushered in a plan called the Marshall Plan. We built NATO, and we built a lot of the democratic institutions that you see in Europe today. And out of that, came a prosperous and stable Europe, with Western values that were primarily built on the backs of the United States of America.
Oh, by the way, after World War II, we stayed there and guarded Europe against the Soviet Union, we had somewhere in the neighborhood close to 300,000 thousand servicemen and women during the aftermath of WWII. After the wall came down, we continued to stay in Europe and we remain there today in much smaller military numbers. So, there’s been significant blood and treasure invested in Europe by the US. Make no mistake about it, this war is not just about Ukraine, it is about peace and security of the European continent. In 2008, Russia invaded Georgia, in 2014 they seized Crimea, in 2022 they invaded Ukraine, the next years ahead, who will be next Moldova, maybe the Balkans? Maybe the Baltics? We don’t know. But what we do know is Russia continues to be a threat to the European continent, and an existential threat, not only to the European continent, but also to the US, and that’s why we have much that’s at stake in this conflict.
Stephen Twitty
So it’s not simply about righting a wrong, it’s about deterrence.
Stephen Twitty
It’s about deterrence.
Sam Greene
I mentioned a moment ago, distractions and this comes up a lot. Ukraine has in a lot of cases, including some of the media that I see represented on this call have fallen out of the headlines to a certain extent, obviously, resources are limited as, as is time in the day. So I guess my question is, you know, is it is it a problem that we’re not talking about Ukraine as much now that we’re talking more about Israel and, and Gaza, and Hamas? But also, you know, how do developments in the Middle East change your analysis of what the war in Ukraine means?
Stephen Twitty
Yeah, I wouldn’t call it a problem because at the end of the day, all these folks are in the media have a job to do, and they have to go to the news, wherever it is. And oh, by the way, I’m one of those folks now that I’m under contract with MSNBC. So, I fully understand that. But here’s what I will tell you, we have to ensure that everyone understands that we need to be all behind and supportive of this war. That’s the key to it. I don’t care whether it’s the media, whether we’re talking about think tanks, whether we’re talking about the Hill, we have to be all in and here’s why. Russia, China, North Korea, Iran view this war, this war being Ukraine, as a US War…as a NATO war. If Russia wins this war, those four countries will say the West lost, the US lost, you bet on Ukraine, you’ve lost this war. No doubt about it. So, we have to ensure that we win this war because if we don’t win this war, think about China. think about Iran, and our other adversaries. We have a lot at stake here.
You asked me about the Israel tie to this. Quite frankly, many people view this war tied to Russia and Ukraine; I personally do not. The only tie I see here would be the resources piece from the United States. If you think about it, we’re resourcing in three areas right now, that should all give us concern. We’re resourcing Ukraine, with the things that they need. We’re resourcing Israel, with the munitions that they need. And then we have to ensure that we do not cut the resources to our own national security or give away our resources for our own defense of the United States, and our interests abroad. So, our policy makers, the folks in the Pentagon, they’re making all these hard calls have difficult decisions to make. First and foremost should the resourcing for our own national security, obviously, then there’s hard decisions out there how we continue to resource Ukraine and Israel. So I’m not making those decisions, but I do know that they are hard decisions.
Sam Greene
Well, again, I invite everybody on the call to want to chip in with with questions, but while you’re finding your raise hand and buttons and your keyboards. You mentioned that this is going to be expensive, right? There’s a lot of investment here. I wonder, and I’ll come to Brian Harris in a second. Burden sharing, something that gets raised a lot in in the conversation. What’s your evaluation of the status of transatlantic burden sharing in this context?
Stephen Twitty
That’s great. That’s a great question. For those of you who don’t know, I spent seven years of my military career as part of NATO. I’m in pressed on multiple fronts with NATO now. You know, many people thought that NATO was now an irrelevant organization. Once the wall came down, that’s all you heard out there by many folks…there was no need to have NATO it’s irrelevant. However, I think NATO has demonstrated their relevance as a result of this war. You have 32 countries that are ironclad in their support. And yes, there’s some wavering on different things, but for the most part, they’re ironclad in their support of the Ukrainians. You also have countries that we’ve really criticize over the years for not meeting their defense funding and not truly living up to burden sharing that have stepped up pretty significantly during this war. You know, I applaud countries like Germany for what they’ve done, Italy, Spain, and others. Our Baltic countries have stepped up in a mighty way, Poland as well. And so, I truly believe that as we look at NATO today, they have demonstrated not only their ability to work together and support the Ukrainians, but also support them funding wise and from a military hardware perspective.
Sam Greene
Thanks. Bryant Harris from Defense News.
Bryant Harris
Hey, thank you so much for doing this. I have a couple of related questions. One when President Zelenskyy made the rounds in DC in September and visited Capitol Hill, you know, one message he really tried to hammer home to lawmakers is if the foreign aid to us stops, we will lose the war. So I’m wondering what that means for this $61 billion dollar package Congress is debating right now, if they don’t pass it, like can Ukraine still win? And two on the flip side of that, you know, a lot of hesitancy you see, for more and more sceptical lawmakers, is that, you know, the publicly stated victory conditions are we’ll do this as long as it takes until Ukraine reclaims all its sovereign territory, but that doesn’t necessarily look achievable to a lot of people. S what is like a definable win state here that could get the public on board beyond the standard talking points we’ve heard from the administration so far? Thank you.
Stephen Twitty
Yeah, Bryant, that’s a great question and I actually think that the real win that we’ll get, not just the US, but across Europe as well, on board with long term funding, and backing for the Ukrainians, the real win, and my view is to break the land bridge between Russia and Crimea. If you think about it, if you break the land bridge in the south, then you have essentially stopped the military flow to Crimea, the transportation and goods flow to Crimea by the Russians. So, if get that initial victory, that strategic victory, and hold that, then you can get everyone on board in my view with the long term commitment to not only resource the Ukrainians, but also get behind total victory. The next part of it obviously, will be to kick the Russians out of Ukraine, but you have to have a significant strategic victory. I think cutting that land bridge will do it. I have to also tell you Bryant, in my view, they’re in a position to perhaps do it coming out of this coming winter season, given that they’re on the left bank of the Dnipro River. If they get the assets and can sustain the people, they’re actually in a pretty good position to cut the land bridge during a future offensive.
Stephen Twitty
Okay, there was also a question in there about end state, right. What’s the achievable end state you mentioned, essentially, you know, taking back the entirety of Ukrainian territory is that in fact, the only available goal? Is it available?
Stephen Twitty
Well, we go back to everyone wants to support President Zelenskyy. And out of his mouth, he said, not an inch of Ukrainian terrain to Russia. And so that’s the goal and everyone’s behind that. And I’m not in his seat right now. Nor am I in Ukraine. But I truly believe that from everything that I’m hearing out of NATO, they’re sticking with that goal. There’s been rumors about negotiations and trying to reduce those aspirations and so forth, but I think that’s mostly rumors to be quite honest with you.
Sam Greene
Okay, Cristina Maza from the National Journal.
Cristina Maza
Hi, thank you so much for doing this. Um, I wanted to ask about what you mentioned about air superiority. So my understanding is that EU countries so far have pledged around 32 F-16s to Ukraine, but some of those aren’t even going to arrive until 2025. So how many F-16s do they need exactly? Can they get air superiority without more F-16s and if there is such an urgent need for air superiority, why is it taking this long to deliver F-16s?
Stephen Twitty
Yeah, Cristina, that’s a great point. IYou hear a lot about F-16s and why it’s taking so long to get them to the Ukrainians. First of all, the Ukrainians had the find the English speaking pilots, and they only have a few. Most of the pilots that are going off to conduct the training, they have to go through language training first, then on to pilot school because there are very few. And then the second thing is F-16s, you just can’t find F-16s sitting all over the place, although there are plenty F-16s in Europe, and there are plenty F-16s in the United States. However, I go back to the point that I made…all nations should focus on their own national security first, then whenever they can give things up without taking risks to their own national security that’s always good for the Ukrainians. In the case of fighter jets, that’s a pretty significant decision, and so we’ve been able to take jets from various countries, the Netherlands, Norway, United States to cobble together, I think 32 aircraft. And then the other piece that has taken time is the actual language training and then the training of pilots. And so you’re going to see this stagger of aircraft to the Ukrainians into ’25. Cristina, even if they do not receive air superiority with what they’re getting, at least they’re getting air fighters that will make a significant difference on the battlefield. None of the equipment that they are receiving alone will be the Holy Grail. It is the combined arms effort of all this equipment, tanks, armored vehicles, fighting jets, mine clearing equipment that will collectively make the difference. And so, to tie this together, it is the combined arms team with the right equipment that can assist the Ukrainians in making significant progress going into next year.
Sam Greene
So we’ve talked about the-
Stephen Twitty
I want to make sure I answered Cristina’s question.
Cristina Maza
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, that was very helpful.
Stephen Twitty
Okay, thank you.
Sam Greene
So we’ve talked about the air and the land. Um, Alice Scarsi from the Daily Express asks about the sea and writes, Ukraine has been incredibly effective in scaring off the Russian Black Sea Fleet despite not having a navy of its own. Is there scope for Western countries to provide Ukraine with warships and would that give Kyiv an appreciable advantage in Crimea, I might add, just in terms of reestablishing freedom of navigation, which has important economic consequences, both for Ukraine and for world food markets.
Stephen Twitty
Yeah, the Black Sea, you know, being able to control portions of the Black Sea. So, to answer your question, the Ukrainian Navy, you’re exactly right, I’m glad you brought that up. When you start looking at the long-term viability of Ukraine, economic viability, they will absolutely need a thriving Navy to be able to control sea lanes in the Black Sea and to protect their shorelines and their grain shipping. All this needs to be taken into account as we look to rebuild Ukraine, and as we look to modernize their military for a potential invite into NATO. They will need to meet NATO standards across all their military capabilities to ensure that they can defend themselves as an independent country but also to support NATO.
Sam Greene
Um, Cristina asked about the speed of delivery of F-16s. I wanted to broaden that question out a bit and ask about the speed and the sense of urgency. In general the slogan has been ‘as long as it takes’ others and certainly the Ukrainians have asked for you know, as quickly as possible. The administration has come in for a fair amount of criticism from some at least about the deliberate and some would say, in some cases hesitant pace at which it has provided arms to Ukraine. But that, you know, comes from an armchair and a civilian perspective. I wonder how that looks from, from your perspective?
Stephen Twitty
That’s a good question. So, now I’m sitting in an armchair, I used to be sitting in the Pentagon or US European Command, and I can understand the hesitancy. And here’s why. Every single day in my last job as Deputy Commander, US European Command, I looked and studied Russia because that was my job. And my job was to ensure that we were not taking the US or the European continent into a war with Russia. And as you all know, Russia is an existential threat to the United States, simply because they have nuclear weapons. And in fact, they have the largest nuclear stockpile in the world, they have more than we do, roughly 6,000. So the Pentagon and US European Command and the President, they make these hard decisions to ensure no miscalculations, and to make sure that we do not make the wrong move which could provoke Russia into starting a nuclear war. So the decisions that they go through are agonizing to ensure that this doesn’t happen. And we know that Russia is a rogue nation, and we don’t really know whether Putin will push the button today or tomorrow, or whether he will really stay true to the arms agreement, the nuclear arms agreement that we’ve put in place with our two countries. He’s sounded off rhetoric about nuclear weapons several times, so these hard decisions are primarily based on those type of things. As you know, chemical weapons can harm many civilians, nuclear weapons, whether it be tactical nukes or strategic nukes can harm people. Those are the hard decisions that they have to make and that’s why they’ve been treading lightly on these decisions. They don’t want to push that red line that may be out there for Putin.
Sam Greene
Um, it is difficult, it is risky, it is expensive. Bryant, in his question and your response discussed the uncertainty of of what can be achieved and at what cost. In light of that people have been talking about some people have been talking about whether we should be looking for a negotiated solution and a way out of this war. Should we?
Stephen Twitty
Okay, so I’m going to give you my thoughts on negotiations. There are two ways to end this war. Number one, through negotiations, diplomacy. And number two, is there is a clear winner obviously. If you go after negotiations, at this point in time, you will probably get little to nowhere and here’s why. You want to go into negotiations when your opponent has a favorable advantage, because that’s what you want to use at the bargaining table. When they have a favorable advantage, you can sort of pose your will at the negotiation table. Hey, I’ve kicked your butt on the battlefield, now it’s time to negotiate kind of a deal. So that’s one way. The second is when you win out right, obviously, you clearly defeat the enemy and you can kick the remnants of that enemy out of your country. We’re not at the stage of negotiations yet because the Ukrainians do not have the upper hand here. We got to get them into position where they can be in the upper hand, and then we can go to the negotiating table with them looking favorably. My personal opinion is that as the Ukrainian’s come out of this winter, if they get the things that they need, they can sustain their human capital, because they’ve lost a lot of soldiers in this fight, they will perhaps be in a favorable position, to cut the land bridge some point next year. Does this make sense to you there, Sam.
Sam Greene
It does, it’s a difficult, it’s adifficult balance but that’s the situation that we are in. Any other questions out there from the audience? Going once, going twice, I won’t call three then and I will say this. If you would like to follow up with General Twitty in more detail in a one-on-one format, or if you would like to reach out to any of our other experts at CEPA, please do get in touch with my colleagues, Michael Newton and Sarah Krajewski at press@cepa.org Please do head over to our website, www.cepa.org, where you can find the full list of our experts, fellows, and staff as well as all of our long form and short form analysis on the war in Ukraine and related issues. All that remains then is for me to thank you for your time and attention at what I know is a busy time of year and to ask you to join me in thanking General Twitty. Thank you, stay tuned, and stay in touch.
All opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis.
