January 8, 2024 - 10:00am
If one were seeking an illustration of growing divisions within America’s government, one need only look to the hospitalisation of US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Admitted on 1 January for what the Pentagon later described as “complications following a recent elective medical procedure”, US media reported that he was in intensive care. However, despite the gravity of the situation, officials told Politico that neither the President nor National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was informed until 4 January.
This may seem bizarrely secretive on Austin’s part, but actually reflects a wider fracturing within the American high command. Such fissures have been especially apparent regarding the Ukraine war. Assessing the factors that led to Kyiv’s stalled counteroffensive, the Washington Post found there had been vastly different expectations and assessments within the US administration. Last February, as departments tried to find a consensus on what joint advice to give Joe Biden, the Pentagon’s optimism stood in stark contrast to the CIA’s warnings of vast Russian defences and prediction of a 50% chance of success at most.
For its part, the Pentagon was frustrated by spooks’ cynicism, claiming intelligence officials found it “safer to bet on failure” and reminding spies of their incorrect assessment that Kyiv would fall within days of the invasion. Tribalism played a role — having overseen the programme to arm Ukraine, the Pentagon eagerly stressed the impact the new weapons would have in winning the war.
Internal division is also becoming apparent regarding US policy on the Israel-Hamas war. On 3 January, seventeen Biden campaign staffers published a letter urging the administration to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. Condemning the US response as “fundamentally antithetical” to American values, the letter claimed that campaign volunteers have “quit in droves” over Biden’s stance and — fuelling existing concerns that the President’s support for Israel will lose him votes among key young, Left-wing, Muslim and Arab-American demographics — that it “could cost [the Democrats] the 2024 election”.
Meanwhile, on the same day, Education Department official Tariq Habash resigned over what he described as the US government’s “blind eye to the atrocities committed against innocent Palestinian lives”. Biden’s support for Israel will be harder for him to justify now, in the face of both a mounting Palestinian death toll and the public knowledge that even figures within the US administration have strong reservations.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will also gleefully amplify these criticisms — he has used US assistance to Israel and the resulting Palestinian casualties as a tool to undermine America’s image in the Global South as he looks to strengthen ties with those countries.
While Austin committed to “doing better” in future after his clandestine hospitalisation, the issue is more significant than one man’s actions. As conflicts flare in Gaza and Ukraine and as Iranian-backed proxies attack American forces in the Middle East, the US President somehow did not know his defence chief was absent, reflecting poor internal communication and a leadership vacuum. Coming at the start of an election year, such a revelation is likely to leave voters concerned that Biden is not at the helm of a well-functioning administration. For his part, Austin can at least recuperate safe in the knowledge that the febrile nature of current affairs means he is likely to be kept in his post for now.
With Donald Trump already riding high in the polls, the news will not help Biden cast off the “Sleepy Joe” moniker bestowed on him by his rival of an ageing, passive and out-of-touch commander-in-chief. Republicans have already seized upon the incident to say it “erodes trust in the Biden administration”, while it also suggests dysfunction within the Pentagon itself — Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks reportedly did not know of Austin’s hospitalisation even when assuming some of his duties.
Meanwhile, as Ukraine and the US collaborate on a new battlefield strategy, any repeat of the differing assessments which developed within the American administration last year risks adding confusion to what is already likely to be a challenging year for Ukraine. The furore over Austin’s ill health is the latest symptom of a greater malady.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeI really find this report quite illuminating. It puts in clear perspective the rank intelligence failures (supporting Ukraine in a failing war, deploying aircraft carriers to fight guerrillas in tunnels) and rogue behaviours (bombing Nordstream) that too many blinkered analysists have excused away, or attempted to ascribe to 4D chess play no of us can understand.
The reality is depressingly more pedestrian and terrifying: No one is steering the ship right now. It chugs along because of its sheer weight and momentum, crashing into little fishing boats and perfectly able to hit an iceberg.
It is to be expected when you have a president suffering from brain rot.
“…Republicans have already seized upon the incident….”
I didn’t realize Unherd linked to the New York Times.
The left’s media arms, usually called the mainstream media, favor the use of “pounced”. The word “seized” is an outlier at this point, but I don’t discount its potential.
Russia might still win, but given that it only holds about 18% of Ukraine, and doesn’t even control all of the territory that it claims to have annexed, things ain’t looking good for it. Slava Ukraini!
Unfortunately, I think you’re living in la-la land. Ukraine can no longer win this fight. They will never reoccupy the portions of Eastern Ukraine that they have lost, and the longer the war continues, the more the Ukrainians will lose both in terms of people, materiel and land. Right now, the Ukrainians would do well to negotiate an appropriate peace settlement and agree never to be part of NATO. And incidentally had they agreed never to be part of NAO in the first place, this war would never have occurred.
and what of the long-term? You think the war will ultimately strengthen Russia and weaken the Ukraine? I suspect that it’ll further poison their credibility, to say the least; just as the the Vietnam/Iraq II wars did for the Americans. Unlike the Americans, I’m not sure that they can afford the loss.
Like Rasputin, strange, potent Russia can take a lot, but only so much.
That’s nonsense. Putin has repeatedly stated that Ukraine, all of Ukraine, is part of the Russian patrimony. Supposed NATO expansionism is just his way of teasing the credulous.
And why would you imagine that a peace agreement would last any longer than it takes Putin to rebuild his army and restock his arsenal’s?
Russia has already won. It also has no designs on the remaining 82% of Ukraine your math alludes to. The only question left is how many more Ukrainians must die to satisfy the keyboard warrior class.
You’ve clearly never listened to any of Putin’s speeches or read his writings. He has explicitly and repeatedly stated that all Ukraine is part of the greater Russia.
The Russians clearly want Odessa, and some other regions. Leaving the Ukraine landlocked is logical from a Russiaian point of view
“Coming at the start of an election year, such a revelation is likely to leave voters concerned that Biden is not at the helm of a well-functioning administration.”
I always like to start my day with a good a humorous story. The above statement sufficed such that my loud laughter scared the cat.
I’d suggest to the author that many voters in America, a surprisingly strong majority of whom already don’t want Joe to pursue re-election, came to that conclusion about the time of the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, and only had their opinion reinforced since then.
The current administration is a disaster, and the only bright spot is that the U.S. economy–at present– is still managing to recover from the ravages of the mismanaged COVID pandemic despite the best efforts of President Biden and Congress to ensure the opposite.
I do hope your cat has recovered but I fully appreciate how it happened.
The botched Afghanistan withdrawal was the military’s way of kicking the politicians for cancelling their gravy train.
So Biden is supposed to micro-manage every aspect of the withdrawal strategy?
Let’s be clear; he’d struggle to manage a microwave.
Do let us know why you believe otherwise.
What a marvelously astute and pithy barb!
Team Biden puts the fun in dysfunction and let’s ease up on Joe. He’s not running anything and everyone knows it. He’s barely up to the task of figurehead, able to do little more than blather on about “saving our democracy” and warning about “extremist MAGA” people.
Decades ago, Ronald Reagan more or less won election with one simple question: are you better off today than you were four years ago? Outside of the plutocrats and insiders, a vanishingly small number of Americans can say that. But that’s what happens when an administration enacts a series of policies that are antithetical to the self-interest of the public it allegedly serves.
None of this means that re-electing Trump will cure everything. The ship of America has taken on more water than any single candidate or administration can bail. Responsible governance is hard. It requires making tough choices and sticking to them. It requires accepting that life involves trade-offs, not solutions. And it requires more than the tribal, blinkered red/blue, right/left thinking that clouds the nation’s vision.
Is it possible that nobody mentioned it because it was “complications following a recent elective medical procedure” and no one wanted to talk about a face lift or tush tuck?