In his marathon news conference on Wednesday, President Biden attempted to place his first year in office in perspective for the nation and the world. As was expected, he touted his achievements and sought to dismiss his critics. The President spun all the current hot button issues—from COVID management to pending voting rights legislation to the failed Build Back Better domestic spending bill--in his favor. Biden also dove into the challenges that the Democratic Party is facing as its anxieties about the mid-year elections intensify. The one positive outcome Biden did achieve, considering that the President took questions for almost two hours, was to relieve some of his skeptics who had been suggesting that he was evidencing diminished physical health and stamina. As for the President’s rambling and long-winded answers, these have been a Biden trademark throughout his political life.
There was one very significant and troubling issue that emerged from the press conference which has received extensive coverage throughout the country and around the world: the President’s commentary about the Russian challenge towards Ukraine. Considering that President Biden has long been seen as an especially knowledgeable leader on global affairs, his declaration of how the U.S. and the West would respond to Russian military moves in Ukraine was extremely weak. It sowed serious confusion and created heightened anxiety from all perspectives, except for the Russians.
Vladimir Putin has never accepted the territorial hegemony that Russian lost with breakup of the Soviet Union. Not only has he resented all the democratizing efforts made by many of the former Soviet satellite states but even more, he has pushed back at the independent directions that have been accomplished by the former Soviet Republics. Especially now as Putin is facing so many domestic economic challenges—plus the undisclosed ravages of COVID in Russia—he wants to exploit his belief that President Biden is unwilling or unable to effectively mount a credible challenge to Putin’s aggressive moves. As Chairman Nikita Khrushchev tested President John Kennedy in Vienna, with the 1961 Berlin airlift, and during the Cuban Missile Crisis, so too Putin appears to be assessing the leadership and strength of President Biden. Putin appears prepared to challenge Biden’s determination to stop Russia’s efforts to return Ukraine to Russian control.
The Russians recognize that the West has been inwardly focused on the coronavirus, with Iran and global economics as their only major international issues. Boris Johnson’s Government in Britain is teetering over internal political scandals and malfeasance. While one can assume the Conservatives would remain in control, no new Tory Government will want to jump into a major global confrontation as it struggles to avoid being dragged into new elections.
The new German Government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz is still organizing itself and hardly needs to initiate or even encourage a major possible military confrontation along its borders. President Emmanuel Macron is facing the first round of the French national elections on April 10. Poland, Belarus, Romania, Hungary, Moldavia and Slovakia certainly have no interest in engaging in a conflict across their borders within Ukraine. The NATO alliance appears impotent except for its rhetoric. Putin recognizes that the West is not prepared nor interested in rallying to Ukraine’s defense, as there is no groundswell in the United States for a military response—even a defensive one--in support of Ukraine.
All of this comes down to a very unimpressive sense of control and management from the Biden White House. The President can bring his national security team with him to Camp David for the weekend, but no one is expecting these meetings to produce a more serious, energized response from the President. (Trump may have been an ignorant and uninformed leader in foreign policy, but he spoke as if he had power—even when he had no power to act. In addition, Trump’s relationship with Putin was always clouded in suspicion.)
The President and his advisers have permitted the Ukraine crisis to escalate so that the region is on the verge of a Russian invasion. They need to devise a clearer and more definitive set of goals vis-à-vis Russia. President Biden needs to cease dancing around and assert a strong, unified position together with its NATO allies. Finally, Biden must devise an off-ramp for Putin, or the Russians will invade, even if only first by pushing political change.
Comments