Russia-Ukraine war: What do we know about the actual war aims of the US and NATO?

I've been willing to cut the Biden Administration some slack on their handling of the current Ukraine crisis. We're nearly five months into a de facto proxy war between the US and Russia and we haven't had a nuclear war yet. So that counts a some kind of success.

There have been some worrisome moments that are looking even more worrisome now. There was Biden's supposed "gaffe": "For God's sake, this man [Putin] cannot remain in power." (Anthony Zurcher, Why Biden's off-script remarks about Putin are so dangerous
BBC News 03/27/2022)

And there was Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's statement, "We want to see Russia weakened to the point where it can’t do things like invade Ukraine." (Dan Sabbagh and Helen Livingstone, US pledges extra $713m for Ukraine war effort and to weaken Russia Guardian 04/25/2022)

Now Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky is giving the New Cold Warriors a thrill by saying things like this:I know that the Democratic establishment must be in shock because they put Mississippi Congressman Bennie Thompson in charge of the January 6 Committee, because he's showing them that Democrats actua

Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky assured Friday that his country will rebuild everything destroyed by Russian troops, while Russian society "will remain paralyzed for generations" by the invasion of Ukraine. ...

In this sense, Zelenski predicted that the Russian society "will remain paralyzed for generations", alluding to the attacks on Ukraine perpetrated by "so many murderers and executioners", and added that it is the "fault" of the country itself.

"There are no words in normal human language that can describe the state to which the Russian state has degraded," the Ukrainian president said, referring to the attack by Russian forces early Friday on two universities in the southern Ukrainian city of Mikolaiv.

I know that the Democratic establishment must be in shock because they put Mississippi Congressman Bennie Thompson in charge of the January 6 Committee, because he's showing them that Democrats actually can fight for their own side and also do great political messaging around it and do both in the context of doing a substantial investigation of a serious problem.

So the idea that they should actually be holding hearings to educate themselves and the public about what is actually going on with American policy toward Ukraine would likely send them into hysterics.

But the public in the US and other NATO countries and the rest of the world for that matter really should be getting some better statements of what the US war aims actually are. Most people would be willing to cut Zelensky some slack on over-the-top rhetoric, because most people can figure out that the Russians know that Zelensky and Ukraine don't have the ability on their own to retake their lost territory, much less to lay waste to Russia "for generations."

But is that United States policy? German policy? French policy? Because we're already at a point where it's urgently timely to ask, Has the Russia-Ukraine war blown up the global nuclear order? (Lauren Sukin Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 06/28/2022) Sukin notes:

Philip Taubman, the former Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times, tells me: “I think it’s impossible to over-state the pathetic performance of the Russian military during the initial stage of its invasion in Ukraine. Combine that with the American rhetoric about degrading the [Russian] military to the point where they can no longer pose a threat, and you are inevitably pushing the Kremlin toward nuclear weapons. That is the singular danger of this war, more than anything.” Even a limited nuclear strike on an isolated military base or in a remote area would do irreparable and long-term environmental damage, shatter expectations around civilian immunity and the non-use of nuclear weapons in warfare, and even potentially spiral out of control.

Unlike most of the American Pod Pundits, Sukin is actually looking at some nuclear realities, and not just about weapons. At that includes taking account of some reckless actions by Russia:

Unfortunately, even if Putin refrains from using nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the course of the war has already contributed to eroding the nuclear taboo, or the tradition of the non-use of nuclear weapons. Russia’s nuclear threats and its attacks on nuclear facilities, including the Chernobyl exclusion zone and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, represent major departures from the norms that guided previous conflicts. Rebuilding these norms will be a critical global challenge moving forward.

Russian attacks on nuclear power plants may also complicate the future of energy security. European states are now faced with an important conundrum. To reduce reliance on Russian oil and gas, they may need to revitalize their domestic energy programs, including nuclear power and renewables. But energy transitions can take decades. At the same time, Russia has long held a central role in the global construction of nuclear power plants, exporting nuclear technology and nuclear fuel as well as managing nuclear waste. Continued global development of nuclear power will be exceedingly difficult to do independently of Russia. Moreover, Russian actions have stressed one of the many possible risks of operating nuclear power plants. By attacking nuclear power plants and even forcing operators to work multi-day shifts at gunpoint, Russia not only violated a critical norm against warfighting at or near nuclear facilities but also emphasized the vulnerability of these facilities to terrorists, mercenaries, and foreign militaries. [Rose] Gottemoeller even likens Russia’s actions against Ukrainian nuclear facilities to “nuclear terrorism.” [my emphasis]

Meanwhile, the New Cold Warriors sound like they are hoping for a re-run of the Cuban Missile Crisis, only this time with an actual nuclear war. Anne Applebaum does some really good work on issues like the development of authoritarian governments and even on Russia. But in this article from May, she goes into Dr. Strangelove mode, The War Won’t End Until Putin Loses The Atlantic 05/23/2022:

The West should not aim to offer Putin an off-ramp; our goal, our endgame, should be defeat. In fact, the only solution that offers some hope of long-term stability in Europe is rapid defeat, or even, to borrow Macron’s phrase, humiliation. In truth, the Russian president not only has to stop fighting the war; he has to conclude that the war was a terrible mistake, one that can never be repeated. More to the point, the people around him—leaders of the army, the security services, the business community—have to conclude exactly the same thing. The Russian public must eventually come to agree too. [my emphasis in bold]

This is really just bluster. Defeat the Rooskies! No, defeat them even faster! Humiliate them! Paralyze them for generations!!

I'm sorry, but this kind of talk is foreign policy by beer-hall standards. For this stuff, we don't need articles in The Atlantic. We can just go listen to some Charlie Daniels or Toby Keith songs.

To be fair, she does include more reality-based talk about war-termination options. But the beer-hall parts leave the reader wondering what parts she takes seriously. And she actually seems to be totally on board with the Biden and Austin above:

Although saying so is considered undiplomatic [Applebaum is boldly speaking truth to power, folks!], the American administration clearly knows that the defeat, sidelining, or removal of Putin is the only outcome that offers any long-term stability in Ukraine and the rest of Europe. “Putin,” said Joe Biden in March, “cannot remain in power.” In April, Lloyd Austin said that he hoped “to see Russia weakened to the degree it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.” Both of these statements by the American president and his defense secretary were treated as gaffes or as policy mistakes—thoughtless remarks that might irritate the Russians. In truth, they were half-articulated acknowledgments of an ugly reality that no one wants to confront: Any cease-fire that allows Putin to experience any kind of victory will be inherently unstable, because it will encourage him to try again. Victory in Crimea did not satisfy the Kremlin. Victory in Kherson will not satisfy the Kremlin either. [my emphasis]

It's past time for the Biden-Harris Administration to state clearly whether removing Putin, wrecking Russia's offensive capabilities completely, and paralyzing Russia for generations are current US policy goals or not. Also past time for Democratic Senators and Representatives to be asking hard questions about the current policy.

The flimsiness of such a New Cold War argumentsis that it has to paint Russia as a ruthless, incorrigible, non-deterrable aggressor, while at the same time arguing that, come on, nuclear war is nothing to worry about, the ruthless aggressor dictator Putin is totally a sensible guy!

[Putin] understands perfectly well that NATO is a defensive alliance, because he has accepted the Swedish and Finnish applications without quibbling. His generals make calculations and weigh costs. They were perfectly capable of understanding that the price of Russia’s early advances was too high. The price of using tactical nuclear weapons would be far higher: They would achieve no military impact but would destroy all of Russia’s remaining relationships with India, China, and the rest of the world. There is no indication right now that the nuclear threats so frequently mentioned by Russian propagandists, going back many years, are real. [my emphasis]

What about all those Russian warnings especially since the Munich Security Conference of 2007 that NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine were red lines that Russia would not accept? Was there "no indication" that those might have been taken seriously by Putin and the rest of the Russian leadership?