President Joe Biden is indicating a harsher Western stance on display with Russia over pressure designed
to deter Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine in a strategy that nonetheless risks accelerating a dangerous cycle of escalation. picks up.
The White House pivot now comes under pressure from Republicans to show more force in the confrontation with Biden and comes a week after he was heavily criticized for hastily backtracked on comments that sought to split NATO from Russia. The leader's expectations were played out.
Several Republicans accused the president of showing weakness and appeasing Putin on Sunday's talk shows. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a jarring tone, describing the Kremlin strongman as a "very talented politician" who knew how to use power. GOP criticisms of Biden overlook the party's tolerance of former President Donald Trump to the Russian leader, and some have been accused of using the national security crisis to politically damage Biden ahead of the 2022 midterm election and the 2024 presidential election. appeared as an attempt.
A series of moves, comments and signals from Washington and Europe over the weekend underscored the deep danger of the situation at a time when there appears to be little meaningful diplomatic activity to stem its rapid decline.
The State Department said on Sunday it was authorizing the departure of non-essential staff and family members from its embassy in Kiev and warned that its ability to help Americans in the country would be limited in the event of a Russian invasion. In another significant development, administration officials said the president had discussed options that include deploying between 1,000 and 5,000 troops as well as planes and ships to US allies in the Baltic states and Eastern Europe. And on CNN's "State of the Union" earlier in the day, Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that if a single Russian entity entered Ukraine it would trigger a "sharp, serious and united response from the US and Europe." ".
Meanwhile, Britain has warned that it has intelligence that Putin is trying to install a puppet leader in place of democratically elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. And the chief of Germany's navy was forced to resign after comments sympathetic to Russia in a play that suggested an attempt to cover up deep divisions within the West over how Putin was handled .
A Possible US Strategic Shift
So far, the US has focused on portraying dire consequences, in the form of debilitating sanctions it says would effectively cut Russia off the Western economy in the event of an invasion. But the latest tactical decisions darkened an already foreboding environment when Biden said last week that he believed the decision to invade Ukraine was simply Putin's dilemma. Talk about deploying troops also came up as a direct challenge to the Russian leader, while at the same time clearly designed to protect Biden's political side at home.
While the State Department said it was acting very cautiously, the reduction of embassy staff is also a classic act of diplomatic symbolism indicating a worsening crisis. Officials said any move to strengthen NATO factions would be aimed at "providing deterrence and reassurance to allies". It was not immediately clear whether the deployment would take place before or after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But even talking about such moves, Putin notes that the entire premise of his hostage hold on Ukraine – forcing NATO to withdraw troops from ex-Soviet states – would backfire.
Yet increasingly strong Western gambling is also a risk. This may give Putin confidence that he is right to warn that Russian security from the West is at risk. At least it could have given him a propaganda excuse to invade Ukraine. And Biden should consider whether high-profile military deployments could make it harder for Putin to back down without securing a tangible payment for building up his military before any impending US invasion.
The latest US signals came after Russia mobilized more than 100,000 troops to Ukraine's borders and launched a new deployment of forces in Belarus, around its former Soviet client state, and the government in Kiev said Moscow's The passes will soon have enough forces for a full one. -Scale attack. But Biden's latest moves will not satisfy Republicans, who have called for more aggressive US mobilization and are using the crisis to paint Biden as an innocent leader.
Top Republicans: 'Weakness invites aggression'
Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, urged the White House on Sunday to use sanctions against Russia before any aggression, as requested by Ukraine's government.
"If we don't do something strong now, I'm afraid he's going to invade Ukraine, which will have global implications here," the Texas Republican said on CBS's "Face the Nation."
But Blinken rejected such an approach, warning that it would reduce the likelihood that concerns about the consequences could influence Putin's decision. "When it comes to sanctions, the purpose of those sanctions is to deter Russian aggression," Blinken said on "State of the Union." "And so, if they're just turned on, you lose the deterrent effect."
McCall also spoke to Biden on the administration's chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan last summer, saying he had reassured the Russian leader that the United States would not stand up for its own interests.
"I think it all started ... with Afghanistan, and the Taliban's unconditional surrender when it saw weakness. Weakness invited aggression," McCall said on CBS. "We are being seen as weak right now... because of President Biden." (The administration argues that the evacuation from Afghanistan was a major success, but the initial debacle rattled American allies, leaving some to question America's global commitment and helped influence the president's approval ratings). The administration countered the GOP's criticism by saying that the Trump administration reached a deal with the Taliban that offered no option but to leave the country.
Pompeo stressed to Fox that the previous administration had won Putin's respect by being strong, a result that he "did not use coercive activity to try to push back NATO." It is true that some members of the Western Coalition increased military spending following Trump's complaints against the US by their allies – although perceptions of the growing Russian threat and their hostility towards the idea of protecting the allies also contributed. . And the former president allowed Ukraine to send deadly US aid, unlike former President Barack Obama. But his desire for Putin's approval often seemed to undermine the policy of his own administration. His withdrawal from Syria, continued condemnation of NATO allies and refusal to hold a Russian election added to Putin's foreign policy goals.
Pompeo: We must 'respect' Putin
But Pompeo also praised the wisdom of the Russian leader, who seems strange today because he is an anti-American who is currently threatening an armed takeover of democracy backed by Washington.
"We respected him and his power. He's a very talented politician," Pompeo said on Fox. "He has so many gifts. He was a KGB agent for good. He knows how to use power, we must respect him."
The idea that the United States should honor a leader who rules with an iron fist, who trampled on democracy and freedom of the press, imprisoned political opponents and presided over a corrupt economy that was dominated by oligarchs Empowers, notable coming from a former secretary of state.
Foreign policy experts are often divided over the question of whether Putin is playing a freshly tough hand or whether his international gangsterism is the work of a weak leader fearful of legitimate opposition and coerced from power. It is also questionable whether it is the behavior of a "talented politician" to gather troops on the fringes of a weakened democracy and make NATO quirky demands.
And any argument that Putin was intimidated by Trump of using coercion against the West is confused by US intelligence assessments that Moscow interfered in US elections. The then-president stunned the US spy community by dismissing Putin's assessment of 2016's interference when he appeared side by side with him at a press conference in Helsinki. Cyber attacks originating from Russian soil also occurred throughout the Trump presidency, including the SolarWinds operation, which violated US federal agencies when the former president was in power. According to the UK government, respect for the US did not prevent Russian agents from using a biological weapon to poison a protester on British soil.
Despite these heavy blame on Trump's record, the GOP's willingness to criticize Biden shows that for many of its members, with few exceptions such as McCall, politics takes precedence over national security in the pursuit of future power. Such an approach only widens the divide Putin trusts as he seeks to tarnish American prestige.