Biden's Ukraine blunder

 National Review:

President Biden rounded out his first year in office inadvertently encouraging a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

His now-infamous comment that the Western response to an invasion would depend on whether “it’s a minor incursion” was remarkably, disturbingly candid, demonstrating that Washington and the West could well tolerate a limited Russian attack. Biden also said another unstated assumption out loud: that there’s no transatlantic unity on how to respond to the Russian military buildup. Effectively, he telegraphed to the Kremlin that the U.S. response to an invasion will only be as strong as what its most reticent ally will permit.

The president’s comments laid bare the fundamental problems with this administration’s handling of the situation in Eastern Europe so far. Washington is hesitant to do anything that might be interpreted in Moscow as an escalation. The White House is yielding to German economic interests over Ukraine’s interest in maintaining its independence. It’s taken a Model U.N., kid-glove approach to dealing with a kleptocratic thug who has shown a penchant for invading the democracies bordering Russia. And it has actively lobbied against measures — such as a Nord Stream 2 sanctions bill proposed by Senator Ted Cruz — that would bolster U.S. deterrence.

Biden ascended to the presidency pledging to support U.S. allies and partners. And, to his credit, the administration’s strongest performance throughout this crisis has been the marathon of meetings and calls U.S. officials have conducted with foreign counterparts. But even then, Biden’s “minor incursion” comment prompted an embarrassing, public backlash from Ukrainian officials, with President Volodymyr Zelensky criticizing it on Twitter. Beyond the social-media foibles rests a more important diplomatic fact: For everything Biden and others have said about supporting Ukraine, the president has yet to even nominate an ambassador to the country.

And the consequences of that lackluster approach were on full display last week. Even as U.S. diplomats met their Russian counterparts across a number of different forums in Geneva, Brussels, and Vienna, Moscow was surging forces to Russia’s border with Ukraine. As of now, Russia has the capability to quickly send forces into Ukraine from the north, east, and south of the country; there’s no doubting that Moscow would win any fight it picks decisively. Which is to say nothing of the possibility of a “minor incursion,” to which there’s likely not to be one unified Western response.

Antony Blinken and Sergei Lavrov concluded a round of talks on Friday, with the secretary of state saying he would reply in writing to Russia’s demands that NATO not permit any new members to join the alliance. They’re likely to hold another round in the near future. If Blinken deputy Wendy Sherman’s talks with Russian officials the previous week are any indication, any diplomatic compromise could result in new curbs on military exercises and missile placements.

As well as abandoning its belief that negotiations on Europe’s security architecture will lead Vladimir Putin to an off-ramp, the White House needs to dispense with the fiction that threatening tough U.S. sanctions in the event of an attack serves any sort of deterrent effect. That’s the approach that the administration and congressional Democrats are rallying behind, with a bill advancing such a policy on the way.

Meanwhile, the administration has been sending badly needed weaponry to the Ukrainians at a glacial pace. The White House just announced that it would deliver Mi-17 helicopters, marking the end of a months-long delay.

But the Ukrainians need more equipment, including Javelin anti-tank missiles and air-defense systems. And the administration should be complementing arms shipments with biting sanctions, starting immediately, not after Russia attacks.

The GUARD Act proposal put forward by congressional Republicans is a good alternative. That bill would immediately boost funding for transferring lethal weaponry to Ukraine, increase annual U.S. funding of Ukraine’s military forces, and impose sanctions to kill the Kremlin-backed Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Lawmakers should also revive another sanctions proposal that the administration successfully blocked from the annual defense bill — legislation targeting 35 oligarchs named by Putin antagonist Alexei Navalny.
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Is Putin's casus belli against Ukraine a response to NATO expansion?  How does NATO expansion threaten Russia unless Russia wants to bring Eastern Europe back into its orbit?  That actually sounds like a good reason to expand NATO and enlarge its defense capacity.  Ukraine is no current threat to Russia and even if it wanted to be, it lacks the capacity to attack Russia as was shown when Russia grab a portion of its territory earlier.

I suspect that Putin has taken the measure of Biden with his Afghan debacle and is taking advantage of a weak leader, who is joined by weak leadership in much of Europe.

See, also:

What does Russia hope to achieve in Ukraine? 

Putin hopes to assert Russian control in the region, keep the West off-balance and face no consequences