It’s official. The oft-repeated warning from the Biden
administration that a Russian invasion of Ukraine was imminent has come
to pass.
On February 21st, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent so-called
“peace-keeping” forces across Russia’s border with Ukraine into two
eastern Ukrainian provinces, Donetsk and Luhansk, in the Donbass region.
These provinces have been controlled by Russian-leaning Ukrainian
separatists who have served as Russia’s proxies since 2014. However, to
the rest of the world they are still considered within Ukraine’s
internationally recognized borders.
Putin’s initial move in invading Ukraine followed his unilateral
recognition of the “independence” of areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk
regions. United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres denounced
this decree as “a violation of the territorial integrity and sovereignty
of Ukraine and inconsistent with the principles of the Charter of the
United Nations.”
But Putin could not care less what the UN Secretary General or the
international community as a whole thinks. In his blistering speech on
February 21st, the Russian president claimed that all of Ukraine belongs
to Russia and should never have been created as a separate country in
the first place.
Early in the morning of February 24th (Ukrainian time),
Putin broadened the theater of war in Ukraine. He declared a “special
military operation” in the country on the pretext of helping the people
of Donbass. It was the equivalent of a declaration of war on all of
Ukraine, punctuated by explosions that were heard in Ukraine’s capital,
Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, in the aftermath of Putin’s “special
military operation” order. Missile attacks and ground troop assaults are
undoubtedly on the way.
Putin pulled the trigger for a full-scale invasion at about the same
time that Secretary General Guterres pleaded with Putin, during the
second emergency session in a week of the UN Security Council, to step
back from the brink of war. “I have only one thing to say from the
bottom of my heart: President Putin,” the Secretary General said, “stop
your troops from attacking Ukraine. Give peace a chance. Too many people
have already died.”
The White House issued a statement Wednesday night condemning
Russia’s “unprovoked and unjustified attack on Ukraine” and warning
Russia of severe consequences. But this rhetoric is simply more of the
same.
Putin has a clear end game in mind: he wants to take over all of
Ukraine and is intent on achieving his objective on his own timetable.
And he is very much willing to watch the Russian people suffer as he
tries to restore several parts of the former Russian empire.
Biden is merely reactive and playing with a very weak hand.
The U.S. president talked tough before Russia’s invasion, giving the
impression that very severe sanctions would be ready to go into force
as soon as the first Russian troops and tanks crossed the Ukrainian
border. All that Biden did right away, however, was to issue an
executive order barring Americans from doing business in the Donetsk and
Luhansk areas.
It took hours before a senior Biden administration official even
used the word “invasion” to describe what was already underway. At
first, the administration tried to downplay Russia’s military move into
Ukraine, reminiscent of Biden’s attempt during a January press
conference to draw a distinction between a minor “incursion” versus a
full scale “invasion.”
German Chancellor Olaf Sholz took the initiative and suspended
certification of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, at least for now. Germany
has more to lose economically than the United States in taking that
action (although natural gas from Russia is still flowing to Germany
through existing pipelines).
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki tweeted that the Biden
administration welcomed Germany’s announcement and said that the
administration would be “following up” with its own measures. That’s
precisely what Biden ended up doing, following Chancellor Sholz’s
lead from behind.
When Biden spoke to the country Tuesday afternoon,
he announced what he described as the first “tranche” of sanctions.
“We’ll continue to escalate sanctions if Russia escalates,” he said.
Biden announced that the United States is imposing “full blocking”
on two Russian banks and “comprehensive sanctions” on Russian sovereign
debt.
“That means we’ve cut off Russia’s government from Western finance,”
Biden said. “It can no longer raise money from the West and cannot
trade in its new debt on our markets or European markets either.”
Biden also decided to impose sanctions on several Russian oligarchs and their families.
In addition to the sanctions that Biden announced, he said that he
has “authorized additional movements of US forces and equipment, already
stationed in Europe to strengthen our Baltic allies: Estonia, Latvia
and Lithuania.” These countries are currently members of NATO. Ukraine
is not. While declaring that the United States has no intention of
sending American troops to fight Russia in Ukraine, he said that the
U.S. “will defend every inch of NATO territory and abide by the
commitments we made to NATO.”
Critics of President Biden’s handling of Russia’s aggression against
Ukraine believe that Biden did not go nearly far enough in punishing
Putin and his regime economically for initiating Russia's invasion of
Ukraine. It took less than 36 hours for Putin to expand his invasion of
Ukraine.
Why, for example, didn’t Biden immediately impose any sanctions directly on Putin himself and his family members?
Why didn’t Biden add to the sanctioned Russian banks that he
announced on February 22nd another large Russian bank, Sberbank, which
has been accused of transferring several million dollars from monies
deposited in Ukraine to separatists fighting for Russian occupation? A senior U.S. administration official told reporters
that U.S. sanctions against Sberbank could come later if Russia
continues with its invasion of Ukraine. Let's see what happens now that
Russia has continued with its invasion.
Why didn’t Biden immediately impose export controls to cut off
Russia from sophisticated technologies it needs to keep its warplanes
flying and its communications systems working? Why didn’t Biden
immediately require any firms using U.S. equipment or software in order
to make technological products overseas to obtain a U.S. license before
shipping them to any Russian companies that support Russia’s
military-industrial complex even indirectly? Better yet, why not
prohibit such shipments altogether?
Biden tried in his remarks on February 22nd to prepare
the American people for the “costs” they will bear “in defending
freedom” for Ukraine. He had in mind the impact on energy prices and
“the pain the American people are feeling at the gas pump.” But the U.S.
president failed to answer two fundamental questions.
Biden has not explained why the American people should sacrifice to
preserve the borders of Ukraine when the U.S. president has opened the
U.S.-Mexico border to droves of illegal immigrants and dangerous drugs
such as fentanyl. Biden has decided to sacrifice Americans’ safety at
home in pursuit of his radical pro-illegal immigration policies, while
asking Americans to accept “costs” in order to safeguard the Ukrainians’
“freedom.” Former President Donald Trump’s America First policies would
not have entertained such perverted priorities.
Biden has also not explained why Americans should swallow even
higher costs at the gas pump to defend Ukraine’s “freedom” so long as
Biden’s war on fossil fuels continues to drive the rise in gas prices.
The United States had achieved energy independence on Trump’s watch,
which Biden sabotaged with his radical green agenda.
The U.S. president said during his February 22nd remarks
that his administration is “using every tool at our disposal to protect
American businesses and consumers from rising prices at the pump.” He
added, “We’re executing a plan in coordination with major oil-producing
consumers and producers toward a collective investment to secure
stability and global energy supplies.”
If that were so, why didn’t Biden issue an executive order
immediately reinstating the permit to enable completion of the
construction of the Keystone XL pipeline? Why didn’t he offer financial
assistance to the pipeline’s Canadian developer to restore the project
that it had abandoned because of Biden’s cancellation of the U.S.
permit? Shouldn’t that have been part of Biden’s self-proclaimed
“collective investment” to secure global energy supplies?
Why didn’t Biden immediately open up federal lands and waters to oil
and natural gas exploration and drilling? Just days before Biden’s
February 22nd remarks, the Biden administration did the very opposite.
The New York Times reported that
the administration “is indefinitely freezing decisions about new
federal oil and gas drilling as part of a legal brawl with
Republican-led states that could significantly impact President Biden’s
plans to tackle climate change.” The administration is insisting on
including the “social cost of carbon,” which, according to the Times article,
“is designed to underline the potential economic threats from
greenhouse gas emissions so they can be compared to the economic
benefits from acts like oil drilling.”
After a federal district court judge halted the use of a social cost
metric because it would “artificially increase the cost estimates” of
oil and gas drilling, the Biden administration decided to delay
indefinitely the permitting and leasing for such drilling on federal
properties. A spokesperson for the Biden Interior Department explained
that her agency “is committed to ensuring its programs account for
climate impacts.”
Biden could have easily reversed this decision as part of his
response to the Russian invasion. This would have concretely
demonstrated his self-proclaimed intent to “limit the pain the American
people are feeling at the gas pump.” But the U.S. president chose to
stick with the far-left green energy activists rather than help the
American people pay for their necessities here and now.
With energy independence, the U.S. would have far more leverage to
blunt Russia’s efforts to weaponize its energy resources. Biden has
taken that away. According to Global Energy, “Russia producers nearly tripled shipments of oil to the United States in 2021.”
The sanctions imposed so far, and the threat of tougher sanctions to
come, are obviously not deterring Putin as he proceeds with his
extensive attacks on Ukraine. Putin has China to back up the Russian
economy with purchases of Russian oil, technology exports, and financial
assistance. Moreover, oil prices remain high while Europe and the U.S.
remain dependent on Russian energy resources. Russia’s coffers are
filling up with revenues to pay for Putin’s pursuit of his territorial
ambitions.
Putin is ready to retaliate against sanctions by shutting off the
supply of oil and natural gas from Russia to the U.S. and Europe, upon
which they have become so dependent. Putin’s arsenal also includes
potential cyberattacks against key U.S. and European infrastructure
facilities.
President Biden expects that the American people will bear “costs”
in defending Ukraine’s “freedom.” Many Americans are not eager to make
such sacrifices, especially after Biden has already managed to impose
significant costs on the American people all by himself.
