Posts published in “Russia’s War on Ukraine”

Biden Should Use his State of the Union Address to Declare Economic War on Russia

Biden Should Use his State of the Union Address to Declare Economic War on Russia

By John R Guardiano on February 26, 2022

America and NATO have the means to force Vladimir Putin from power and reverse the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Note: President Biden is scheduled to deliver the annual State of the Union Address to Congress Tuesday, March 1. In light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, here is what the President should say.

Madam Speaker, Madam Vice President, members of Congress, my fellow Americans, and concerned people across the globe, especially the brave people of Ukraine:

This evening, I was planning to deliver the annual State of the Union Address. However, you will forgive me for parting from tradition and doing something different.

Tonight, I would like to address a much more pressing and urgent matter: the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the response from America, NATO, and the free world.

Russian Invasion. As you know, last week, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin launched a wholly unprovoked military assault against the free and sovereign nation of Ukraine. Putin’s aim: to conquer and subjugate Ukraine and make it an indissoluble part of a new and more expansive Russian empire.

America and its NATO allies have armed the Ukrainian military and we will continue to do so. A free and sovereign people deserve the right to fight for themselves, to fight for their freedom and independence. The United States of America will never be indifferent to their pleas for help and to the cause of liberty.

However, we will not wage a military war against Russia. We will not send American ground troops to Ukraine.

The time to do that, candidly was a year or more ago, before Russia invaded, when U.S. troops could have deterred Putin and prevented this military war from happening. That opportunity, sadly, has been lost.

But while a traditional military war in not something we will partake in, we will embrace every measure short of armed conflict, and short of “boots on the ground,” to ensure that Ukraine remains a free and sovereign state.

This means that America and NATO are launching an economic war against Russia. Our aims are clear and just:

First, as I mentioned, we will arm the Ukrainian people with as much military aid as possible as quickly as possible. America once again will be the arsenal of democracy, and our support for the brave people of Ukraine will continue for as long as they wish to fight.

Second, we will destroy the Russian economy through economic boycotts, sabotage, and cyberwar. This is necessary to force Russia to change course and to change its government.

Putin serves at the pleasure of a rich and cosseted Russian mafia oligarchy that has plundered Russia and stolen blood and treasure from the Russian people. By squeezing Russia economically, we will force that oligarchy to come to terms with the economic wreckage wrought by Putin’s misrule and his reckless invasion of Ukraine.

Costs. This economic war will not be cost-free for America and its NATO allies. We will suffer economic hardship and deprivation. In the short-term, certainly, the price of gas will rise dramatically. Disruptions to our electrical grid and Internet connectivity will occur.

But these will be temporary and transitory problems that I assure you we will overcome. America is rich in fossil fuels and energy abundance, and I will be unleashing the full power of our nation’s energy sector.

Our cyber capabilities, likewise, are second to none and not to be tampered with. Silicon Valley, after all, is an America creation and we will retain dominance in the cyber domain, while protecting our networks from attack.

Third, by means of economic warfare, we aim to force Putin from power, so that we can constructively engage a new Russian government that respects its neighbors and acts in accordance with international norms and international law.

We seek peaceful and constructive relations with Russia. And we are confident that, when Russia has a new government worthy of its history and its people, we again can have harmonious and mutually beneficial relations.

But this can only happen when Putin is removed from power and Russia has a new leader and not an international gangster at the helm who holds free and sovereign nations hostage.

Fourth, we demand the withdrawal of all Russian troops from Ukraine, Belarus, and Georgia; the restoration there of freely elected democratic governments; and the end of Russian meddling in the internal affairs of these and other countries.

Ukraine, Belarus, and Georgia were granted their freedom and independence in 1991 at the conclusion of the Cold War. However, all three countries have since seen their sovereignty undermined and taken by Russia at the behest of Putin.

This cannot stand. The nation-state, its territorial integrity, self-rule, and self-determination are pillars of the international order. Yesterday it was Georgia and Belarus; today it is Ukraine; and tomorrow it will be the Baltic states and Poland.

We must stop and reverse Russian military imperialism before it further unravels the world order and imperils America and the West.

Victory. Make no mistake: we will prevail. Because of Putin’s economic mismanagement and oligarchic plundering, Russia today is a poor country that has failed to realize its potential. Russia’s economy is smaller than the economy of South Korea and smaller than the economy of Italy.

And we are not acting alone, but instead in concert with allies who span the globe—from Europe to Asia, North and South America, Africa and the Middle East. Literally dozens of nations are joining us to reverse Putin’s dangerous assault on international norms and the international order.

Some Americans, I know, will say: why us? Why is Ukraine’s problem our problem? Why is Europe’s danger our danger?

Because, my fellow Americans, we live in a world in which America and Americans are deeply engaged, commercially and politically. Thus our well-being as a nation is inextricably and irreversibly linked to what happens far beyond our borders.

Our ability to travel and do business abroad, in all corners of the globe, will suffer mightily if Russian military imperialism is left unchecked.

And of course, as we’ve seen, Putin’s attacks have extended far beyond Ukraine. He has launched cyber attacks on America and Europe and waged a war of discord and disinformation on the West. He has undermined peace, stability, and freedom worldwide.

This will not stand. We are in an economic position to stop Putin and we will.

The path ahead will not be easy and it is not without risk. But previous generations of Americans have encountered far worse and triumphed over much greater odds. With your help and with God’s blessing, we will prevail. Freedom will be restored and justice will be done.

Thank you. God bless America and God bless the people of Ukraine.

Feature photo credit: President Biden (L) and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin (R), courtesy of Al Arabiya.

Did NATO Provoke Putin?

Did NATO Provoke Putin?

By John R Guardiano on February 23, 2022

Prominent commentators on both the Left and the Right have created a false narrative that blames America and NATO, at least in part, for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. They’re wrong.

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has been nothing but transparent about his objectives in Ukraine and Eastern Europe—what he seeks and why he seeks it. Frighteningly, Putin seeks the dissolution of Ukraine and other sovereign countries and their incorporation into a more expansive Russian empire.

Yet, prominent commentators—including, for instance, the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman and National Review’s Michael Brendan Dougherty—insist on ignoring, or at least downplaying, what Putin actually says, so that they can blame America and the West, at least in part, for Russian imperialism.

NATO Expansion. Their main charge is that by expanding NATO eastward after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States and Western Europe threatened legitimate Russian security interests and thereby “inflame[d] the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russia…”

That last quote is from George Kennan in 1997, and both Friedman and Dougherty cite Kennan as prophetic. “The mystery,” writes Friedman, “was why the U.S. …would choose to quickly push NATO into Russia’s face when it was weak.”

Because of NATO expansion, writes Dougherty, Putin’s attack on Ukraine was “not just predictable, but predicted… Putin, [consequently], has shifted his strategy of trying to deter NATO and Ukraine to one of compulsion.”

George Kennan. Kennan, of course, is the American diplomat who wisely and brilliantly devised the Western strategy of containment at the onset of the Cold War. But while he is rightly credited for that achievement, he was not infallible.

Anne Applebaum points out that “Kennan was wrong about a lot of things… [He] was somebody who saw the world through Russian eyes,” not the eyes of Europeans threatened by Soviet communism and Russian imperialism.

Thus even at the onset of the Cold War, in 1948, as the Soviets were installing puppet governments in Eastern Europe and threatening Western Europe, Kennan opposed the creation of NATO.

“He believed its creation would solidify the [European] continent’s division and put an end to the possibility of reunifying Germany and Europe,” explains Christopher Layne in a 2012 piece in the The National Interest.

Russian Aggression. In truth, as Applebaum observes, and as is plainly obvious, NATO expansion decades later was not the cause of Russian aggression.

Instead, Russian aggression precipitated an intense desire by the East Europeans to join NATO—just as it had precipitated a desire by the West Europeans to create NATO in the first place back in the late 1940s after World War II.

The East Europeans, like the West Europeans decades earlier, feared Russia, and for good reason. Thus they sought the protective umbrella of NATO.

Friedman, then, is factually and historically wrong: NATO expansion was not caused by an American desire to “push NATO into Russia’s face when it was weak.” NATO expansion was caused by the East European’s desire to push back when Russia became belligerent and threatening well after the Cold War ended in 1999 and 2004.

Hungary, Poland the Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999. The Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia joined the alliance in 2004.

False History. Dougherty, meanwhile, presents a falsified version of more recent history in which, he argues, Putin tried to constructively and peaceably engage Ukraine only to be stymied by a NATO hellbent on expanding eastward.

But of course, Ukraine is not a member of NATO and never has been remotely close to becoming a member of NATO. (Although in recent years, because of naked Russian aggression and Russian imperialism, Ukraine’s desire to join NATO has intensified, just as it did for the East Europeans in the late 1990’s and early aughts.)

Dougherty also ignores Putin’s own quite explicit desire to subsume Ukraine and make it an indissoluble part of Russia.

“Ukraine,” Putin said, “is not just a neighboring country for us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space… Modern Ukraine was entirely and fully created by Russia, more specifically the Bolshevik, communist Russia.”

In other words, Ukraine as a free, sovereign, and independent state is an historical fiction that must be erased.

As David French points out: “Vladimir Putin’s core problem with Ukraine is not with its western alliances, [or its potential membership in NATO], but with its independent existence.”

Ukraine is Not Russia. In truth, although Ukraine and Russia share deep historic roots, they are two distinct countries.

“Ukrainian identity politics and nationalism have been irritants in Russia since the feudal czarist times that predated the Russian Revolution,” observes the New York Times.

Ukraine, moreover, voted resoundingly, in a 1991 democratic referendum, to leave the Soviet Union.

How resoundingly? Well, 83 percent of Donbass residents in Eastern Ukraine bordering Russia voted for Ukrainian independence, as did 54 percent of the residents in Crimea, reports former Ukrainian official Oleksandr Danylyuk in Politico.

Today, according to a February 2022 CNN poll, two-thirds of Ukrainians reject the notion that Ukrainians and Russians are one people.

“No region of Ukraine, and no age group,” reports CNN, “has a majority where respondents say Russians and Ukrainians are one people.

Even in eastern Ukraine, which borders Russia and is partially controlled by Russian-backed separatists, fewer than half (45%) of respondents said they agree that Russians and Ukrainians are one people – a score much lower than in Russia.

More to the point:

Ukrainians overwhelmingly feel Russia and Ukraine should be two separate countries, with 85% saying so, 9% saying they should be one country, and 6% responding that they did not know.

The bottom line: Ukraine is not Russia, and NATO expansion eastward clearly and obviously did not cause Putin to invade Ukraine.

The truth is quite the opposite: Ukraine and Russia are two distinct countries with different national aspirations. And, to the extent Ukraine is looking to the West and to NATO for protection, it is because of persistent Russian threats and aggression.

In short, America and NATO are not the problem; America and NATO are the solution to the problem, which is Russian imperialism. That’s how the Ukrainians and East Europeans see it; and about that, there can be no honest debate—Friedman and Dougherty to the contrary notwithstanding.

Feature photo credit: the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman (L) and National Review’s Michael Brendan Dougherty (R), courtesy of a Charlie Rose YouTube video screenshot and a Breaking Points YouTube video screenshot, respectively.

The Critical Military Strategy to Stop Putin and Save Ukraine

The Critical Military Strategy to Stop Putin and Save Ukraine

By John R Guardiano on February 13, 2022

Economic sanctions are not enough. Russians must be killed on a daily basis in a sustained insurgency financed and supported by America and NATO.

According to the Daily Mail, one prominent Russian official said yesterday that Vladimir Putin “doesn’t give a s**t” about the risk of Western economic sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine.

That official, Viktor Tatarintsev, Russia’s ambassador to Sweden, told the Aftonbladet newspaper: “The more the West pushes Russia, the stronger the Russian response will be.”

That’s probably true, especially since the economic sanctions that would hurt Russia’s ruling oligarchic elite the most are off the table.

Economic Sanctions. The West, for instance, could bar Russia from the global banking system by denying it access to SWIFT, the international network of financial institutions that underlie cross-border trade and investment worldwide.

Such a move would devastate the Russian economy, but also hurt the West Europeans, who depend on Russian gas and commodities. Which is why, sadly, Russian SWIFT denial is off the table.

President Biden has unwisely ruled out the use of American ground troops in Ukraine. However, this doesn’t mean he necessarily has precluded any and all military options.

In fact, any deterrence strategy that is designed to stop Russian subjugation of Ukraine must have a military component. And that military component must be widely telegraphed and loudly trumpeted to have a full deterrent effect.

The West’s military strategy must be to maximize the number of invading Russians killed, maimed, and crippled on a daily basis over a period of years. To bleed Russia in an asymmetric war of attrition.

To wage a guerrilla war that saps the Russian will to fight and to occupy foreign lands. To send Russians home in body bags each and every day. To make their occupation of Ukraine, or any other free and independent state, a living hell.

This is eminently doable—especially with American military aid and assistance.

Russian, after all, was utterly incapable of subduing Afghanistan in the 1980s. American military aid to the Afghan mujahideen made the Russian occupation there untenable.

Too many Russian boys were coming home in body bags; and so, the Soviets gave up and abjectly withdrew. The price of occupation was too high; the cost too great.

A similar stiff-armed resistance to any Russian occupation would form in western Ukraine. Ukrainians there despise Putin’s Russia. They seek Ukrainian independence and to align their country with the West.

Ukrainian Insurgency. A “Russian invasion would be deeply unpopular and Kremlin forces would find themselves operating in a hostile environment ideal for asymmetric warfare,” writes Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian minister of defense who left office in 2020.

In fact, armed and capable militias already exist in western Ukraine and would eagerly take the fight to the Russians. American military advisers should work with these militias and other remnants of the Ukrainian military, so that Ukraine can wage an effective guerrilla war against Russia.

Of course, no one expects Ukraine to defeat Russia militarily, because it can’t. Ukraine is overmatched. But success in a guerrilla war depends on political success, not outright military victory.

Politically, Ukraine can win by ensuring that Russia pays a high, exorbitant, and ongoing price for invading and occupying their country.

The key to success lies in ensuring that, each and every day, Russians are killed, maimed, and crippled. The casualty and death toll matters, not battlefield victories.

Russia cannot sustain an unceasing daily death toll. Putin may be a dictator, but his legitimacy as the Russian ruler, and the legitimacy of his government, still requires popular acquiescence.

This acquiescence will quickly dissipate if Russians come home each and every day for months on end in body bags: dead, maimed, and crippled.

American Support. The good news is that, according to press reports, American Green Berets and other U.S. Special Forces have been working closely with their Ukrainian counterparts to prepare them for a guerrilla war against Russia.

The U.S. Sun reports:

Behind the scenes, several hundred US Green Beret special forces have been working with the Ukrainians to ensure Russia faces a bloodbath in the country.

The CIA has also been working on secret training that has taught the Ukrainians how “to kill Russians”, a former agency official has said.

And Ukrainian forces are already being equipped with anti-tank weapons by the UK, which guerrilla forces would use to create killing zones for massed Russian armoured forces.

“By combining serving military units with combat veterans, reservists, territorial defense units and large numbers of volunteers,”Zagorodnyuk writes,

Ukraine can create tens of thousands of small and highly mobile groups capable of attacking Russian forces. This will make it virtually impossible for the Kremlin to establish any kind of administration over occupied areas or secure its lines of supply.

Of course, the success of any Ukrainian insurgency depends in large measure on how much material support it receives from the United States and other NATO countries.

And the deterrent effect of any potential Ukrainian insurgency depends on how well that insurgency is trained and resourced, and how real or credible it appears to Putin and his generals.

The bottom line: the economic sanctions that America and NATO have conjured up likely will do little to stop or stymie Russian efforts to subjugate Ukraine.

But what might well cause Putin to say “nyet” is the possibility of a real and sustained insurgency financed and supported indefinitely by America and NATO.

We haven’t heard much about it, unfortunately; but let’s hope and pray that Putin and his generals have. It may be Ukraine’s only chance to retain its independence—and it may be Europe’s only chance for peace.

Feature photo credit: The U.S. Sun.

Biden Erred by Diplomatically Engaging Putin

Biden Erred by Diplomatically Engaging Putin

By John R Guardiano on January 27, 2022

U.S. diplomatic efforts have helped Putin while doing little to deter him.

Theodore Roosevelt famously said American foreign policy should “talk softly and carry a big stick.” Unfortunately, President Biden has turned Roosevelt’s maxim on its head. He has talked loudly and carried a twig.

Case in point: Ukraine. Biden and his foreign policy team have raised the alarm because Putin has amassed troops and equipment along the Russian-Ukraine border and Russia seems poised to invade Ukraine.

As a result, Team Biden has engaged in direct, one-on-one negotiations with Russia. They also have agreed to Russian demands that we respond in writing to Putin’s request for “security guarantees” vis-a-vis NATO and Ukraine.

Of course, Russia’s bellicose and threatening behavior toward its neighbors—including several NATO countries—is alarming and needs to be forcefully addressed and confronted.

But Biden’s rush toward diplomacy and engagement with Russia ignores how this actually strengthens Putin politically and elevates his standing, both domestically and abroad.

Putin, as Russia expert Leon Aron explains in a recent Remant podcast with Jonah Goldberg, craves international recognition and status. He craves being treated as an international leader whom other great powers—especially the United States—must contend with.

The Russian people, too, Aron says, wish to see their country and its leader placed on a par with the world’s dominant countries—especially the United States.

So what Biden has unwittingly done, argues Aron, is to elevate and strengthen Putin’s standing domestically, within Russia, as well as his standing vis-a-vis other countries.

How should the United States have responded to Putin’s menacing behavior? With far fewer words and certainly no high-profile meetings and summits. Or, as Roosevelt put it, “talk softly and carry a big stick.” As Aron explains:

It would have been enough to issue a statement at the Pentagon or State Department level: We are monitoring the situation, but the Kremlin has the right to conduct maneuvers on Russian territory.

That would have taken all of the wind out of Putin’s sails. But instead, Putin was given exactly what he wanted: calls from the White House, emergency meetings, a NATO-Russia Council meeting, and so on.

Every meeting with the American president— whether virtually, by phone, or even better, in person—is a colossal domestic gain for any Russian leader: it has been like this since Stalin. Only one country matters to Russia, and that’s the United States.

In his first year alone, Joe Biden has taken part in seven or eight rounds of talks with Putin. This is unprecedented in history. An absolute record and a big mistake. The United States should have reacted differently.

What Biden should have done is quietly provide Ukraine with advanced military equipment for both offensive and defensive purposes.

He should have strategically embedded U.S. military advisers into Ukraine for reconnaissance and intelligence, while redeploying our 34,000 U.S. troops from Germany into Poland and the Baltic States: Latvia, Lithuanian, and Estonia.

And Biden should have done this last spring, when Putin first began amassing troops and equipment along the Russian-Ukraine border.

That would have been a Roosevelian “big stick.” That would have sent a loud and clear message. That would have helped to deter Putin while protecting Ukraine and Eastern Europe.

Instead, Biden dithered and delayed because of a misplaced fear of provoking and antagonizing Putin.

Moreover, Aron says,

the U.S. also made a strategic mistake right from the start when it announced that it would neither exclude Russia from the SWIFT Agreement nor impose an import embargo on Russian oil and gas.

Those would have been the only two sanction options that would really hit the Kremlin hard. And they are the ones that were ruled out straight away.

Unfortunately, in international affairs, talk is anything but cheap. Talk can be costly and talk can have deleterious strategic consequences. For this reason, as we are painfully learning through Biden’s belated and voluble response to Putin, it is far better to “talk softly and carry a big stick.”

Feature photo credit: Presidents Joseph Biden and Theodore Roosevelt, courtesy of the Associated Press via SkyNews and Pach Bros via Wikpedia, respectively.

Why Is Russia Now Threatening Ukraine?

Why Is Russia Now Threatening Ukraine?

By John R Guardiano on January 14, 2022

Biden’s weakness gave license to Putin’s aggression.

When, last August, Joe Biden abjectly surrendered Afghanistan to the Taliban, he and his administration said this was necessary because the United States has no strategic interests there and must pivot, instead, to confront a rising China.

Never mind that, as William Lloyd Stearman points out, Bagram Air Base is strategically located “about 400 miles west of China and 500 miles east of Iran.” This, Stearman writes, is obviously “a good place to have American assets.”

U.S. Surrender in Afghanistan. Nonetheless, the President opted to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan and abandon Bagram to the Taliban. Mr. Biden pretended that his decision to surrender would not have deleterious and far-reaching strategic consequences.

Russia’s Vladimir Putin has proven Joe Biden wrong. The Russian dictator has amassed more than 100,000 troops and advanced military equipment along the Russian-Ukraine border, while demanding hegemonic control over Ukraine and other neighboring countries.

“We are concerned,” says White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, “that the Russian government is preparing for an invasion in Ukraine that may result in widespread human rights violations and war crimes should diplomacy fail to meet their objectives.”

Indeed, not since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 has the world seen such a brazen assault on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of an independent nation-state.

Why now? Because Putin has taken the measure of Joe Biden and realizes that our President is unwilling to protect the American national interest in Afghanistan or Europe.

In fact, Biden has pledged not to deploy U.S. ground troops or military advisers to Ukraine, and he has been reticent to arm the Ukrainian military for fear of provoking Putin.

As Bret Stephens observes, Putin and other anti-American dictators watched the American debacle in Afghanistan and concluded that “the United States is a feckless power.

“The current Ukraine crisis,” Stephens writes, “is as much the child of Biden’s Afghanistan debacle as the last Ukraine crisis [in 2014] was the child of Obama’s Syria debacle.”

In short, weakness is provocative. Weakness begets aggression. Weakness courts disaster. And weakness can have deleterious strategic consequences as we are now learning in Ukraine.

Featured photo credit: Joe Bidden and Vladimir Putin, courtesy of Fox News.