{"id":1327270,"date":"2022-02-22T13:28:55","date_gmt":"2022-02-22T18:28:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1327270"},"modified":"2022-02-22T13:37:57","modified_gmt":"2022-02-22T18:37:57","slug":"the-ukraine-crisis-is-a-direct-result-of-bidens-weak-foreign-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-ukraine-crisis-is-a-direct-result-of-bidens-weak-foreign-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ukraine Crisis Is A Direct Result Of Biden\u2019s Weak Foreign Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthe-ukraine-crisis-is-a-direct-result-of-bidens-weak-foreign-policy%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1327270&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Biden-scaled-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>It\u2019s hard to imagine a weaker, more impotent response to Moscow\u2019s move against Ukraine than what the Biden administration announced Monday evening: an executive order imposing limited sanctions on two separatist regions of eastern Ukraine, the so-called Donetsk People\u2019s Republic and Luhansk People\u2019s Republic. The sanctions are a response to the Kremlin\u2019s decision Monday to recognize these rebel-held regions as independent states. Early Tuesday morning, Russia deployed troops to these areas, calling them \u201cpeacekeepers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/briefing-room\/statements-releases\/2022\/02\/21\/statement-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-on-russian-announcement-on-eastern-ukraine\/\">statement<\/a>, the White House said the sanctions on Donetsk and Luhansk are separate from the \u201cswift and severe economic measures\u201d it would impose on Moscow, \u201cshould Russia further invade Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m sure Vladimir Putin is quaking in his boots. No further invasions, sir! That\u2019s quite far enough.<\/p>\n<p>More than anything, these incredibly unimportant sanctions from President Joe Biden underscore how the entire humiliating Ukraine crisis is a direct result of Biden\u2019s weak foreign policy and feckless appeasement of Russia over the past year. A robust policy of deterrence, like maintaining the Trump administration\u2019s sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/energy\/us-waive-sanctions-firm-ceo-behind-russias-nord-stream-2-pipeline-source-2021-05-19\/\">Biden waived last May<\/a>, might have prevented the crisis.<\/p>\n<p>But now it\u2019s too late. The thing about deterrence is that you have to use it\u00a0<em>before<\/em>\u00a0your opponent makes his move. Russian forces are now on the ground in eastern Ukraine, and they\u2019re probably there to stay. The time to get tough on Moscow and prevent a clash with Ukraine has passed. Sanctions, whether from the U.S. or from the European Union, are not going to force Putin to change his mind and retreat. Instead, these half-measures will give us the worst possible outcome: all the downsides of an actual military conflict, which is now certain, without the preceding benefits of deterrence.<\/p>\n<p>What might those benefits have been? For one thing, we might have forced Putin to narrow the scope of his ambitions vis-\u00e0-vis Ukraine and engage in a negotiated settlement to the standoff \u2014 not because Putin wanted that, but because we made him understand that that\u2019s all we would give him.<\/p>\n<p>Too bad Biden\u2019s team came into office and, by dropping Nord Stream 2 sanctions, immediately signaled to Putin that now was the time to press his longstanding aims in Ukraine. The pity of it is that the Ukraine crisis represented a rare possibility for a negotiated settlement in which all parties got some of what they wanted.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, the situation of Ukraine is historically unique. As Paul Pillar of Georgetown University\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/claremontreviewofbooks.com\/crimea-and-international-law\/\">has written<\/a>: \u201cThe unusual circumstances of the historical Russian connections with Crimea and Nikita Khrushchev\u2019s transfer of the territory\u2019s administration from one subordinate unit of the USSR to another, followed many years later by achievement of independence by those units, does not really have an equivalent elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Given this history, my friend Mario Loyola has\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/02\/04\/in-russia-crisis-ukraine-should-trade-land-for-independence\/\">argued in these pages recently<\/a>\u00a0that with its current borders Ukraine can have territorial integrity or political independence, but it can\u2019t have both. Remember, Ukraine\u2019s present-day borders are the result of the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, which had some forty years earlier given Ukraine artificially enlarged borders, including Odessa and Sevastopol, Russia\u2019s most important commercial and naval ports in the world. Once Ukraine broke from Moscow in 2014, Ukraine\u2019s 1991 borders became untenable \u2014 and everyone, including the Ukrainians, knew it. Russia was never going to accept a westward-oriented Ukraine, still less NATO membership for Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>Admitting that, says Loyola, doesn\u2019t amount to appeasement, and in fact opens the way for a negotiated settlement:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>Russia has continued to be a malign force in world affairs. But not all its grievances are unreasonable, and it is a dangerous mistake for Kiev and Washington to reject them all out of hand.<\/p>\n<p>The United States and its NATO allies should recognize Kiev\u2019s decision to prioritize political independence over territory, for it helps clarify the outlines of a peaceful settlement. The Ukraine crisis can\u2019t last forever. And while Russia surely knows it can\u2019t have everything it wants, if it gets some of what it vitally needs, perhaps Ukraine can, too.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>But for any of that to happen, the United States needed to have a firm, steady hand in its dealings with Moscow. In this, Biden failed miserably, coming into office with a lot of bluster about how he was going to be tough on Putin, that he alone knew how to deal with Moscow. During the 2020 campaign, Biden even suggested, ludicrously, that Putin didn\u2019t want him to become president.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"0yRfJipmZHhjD4CUGr2gAqdKu3ePkMcb8N6F7VsYOQwWEIt59n\"><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Vladimir Putin doesn\u2019t want me to be President. He doesn\u2019t want me to be our nominee. If you\u2019re wondering why \u2014 it\u2019s because I\u2019m the only person in this field who\u2019s ever gone toe-to-toe with him.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JoeBiden\/status\/1230998887298564096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 21, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The whole thing is reminiscent above all of the Obama administration\u2019s handling of the Syrian civil war. Not just the weakness of President Obama\u2019s embarrassing \u201cred line\u201d fiasco but also his refusal to do anything militarily to weaken the Assad regime before calling for a negotiated settlement.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2013\/08\/31\/us\/obama-authorization-request-text\/\">draft Syria resolution<\/a>\u00a0that the Obama White House sent to Congress in August 2013 authorized military force in connection to the use of chemical weapons but not in connection to any long-term U.S. goals in Syria, like a negotiated settlement that saw Bashar Assad removed from power. By separating military force and a negotiated political settlement, as if the two could not work together, Obama guaranteed that any military force that was authorized would not alter the facts on the ground, and therefore would not weaken Assad\u2019s position going into a negotiated settlement.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, there was no negotiated settlement in Syria because Assad never had need for one. He knew that the U.S. and its allies would not authorize military force sufficient to change the reality on the ground, so he crushed the rebel forces, killing a half-million of his own countrymen in the process.<\/p>\n<p>In Ukraine, we now have a similar dynamic playing out, with the Biden administration calling for sanctions and international pressure\u00a0<em>after<\/em>\u00a0Moscow has already made its move. The time to put pressure on Putin and declare that an invasion of Ukraine would be a \u201cred line,\u201d has passed. Now, Biden is reduced to haggling publicly with our European allies over Russia sanctions that will do nothing to alter the facts on the ground, and do nothing to deter whatever additional plans Putin has for Ukraine.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Texas Monthly, The Guardian, First Things, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s hard to imagine a weaker, more impotent response to Moscow\u2019s move against Ukraine than what the Biden administration announced Monday evening: an executive order imposing limited sanctions on two<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1327270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1327270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1327270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1327270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1327270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}