President Joe Biden’s move this week alongside European allies to impose sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine has sparked a debate over whether the administration’s deterrence policy has already failed.
“No one expected the sanctions to prevent anything from happening,” Biden said Thursday as he defended the policy amid criticism that the administration didn’t do enough to prevent the invasion from occurring in the first place.
SENATE SPLIT ON IMPOSING RUSSIAN SANCTIONS BEFORE OR AFTER INVASION OF UKRAINE
Biden’s claim this week contradicted weeks of assurances from his own team that the threat of sanctions was intended to deter Russian President Vladimir Putin from moving troops into Ukraine.
While White House press secretary Jen Psaki attempted moments later to walk back Biden’s remark, telling reporters in a briefing Thursday afternoon that she believed “that’s not exactly what he meant” to say about the intended effect of threatening sanctions, the comment had already touched off scrutiny of the administration’s failure to deter Putin.
Here are five times Biden administration officials said their sanctions policy was designed to stop Putin’s invasion.
SANCTIONS MEANT ‘TO PREVENT AND DETER’
Daleep Singh, deputy national security adviser for international economics and deputy director at the National Economic Council, said Tuesday that the express purpose of the sanctions threat was deterrence.
“Sanctions are not an end to themselves. They serve a higher purpose. And that purpose is to deter and prevent,” Singh said. “They’re meant to prevent and deter a large-scale invasion of Ukraine that could involve the seizure of major cities, including Kyiv. They’re meant to prevent large-scale human suffering that could involve tens of thousands of casualties in a conflict.”
Singh’s comments came after the start of Putin’s incursion into Ukraine this week — at a time when the administration had not yet labeled it a true invasion.
Singh defended the White House decision to impose a partial set of sanctions by noting that because Russia had executed just “the beginning of an invasion,” this was “the beginning of our response” from the White House.
Thus even after Russian tanks had rolled over the Ukrainian border and violence began, Biden administration officials were still holding out hope that withholding additional sanctions and simply threatening them would be enough to dissuade Putin from continuing.
‘WE WANT THEM TO HAVE A DETERRENT EFFECT’
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby seemingly attributed Russia’s delay in invading Ukraine to the power of the threatened sanctions on Monday — arguing that the sanctions wouldn’t sway Putin if they were put into place before an attack.
“We want them to have a deterrent effect, clearly,” Kirby said during an appearance on Fox News. “And he hasn’t invaded yet.”
“So look, if you punish somebody for something they haven’t done yet … they might as well go ahead and do it,” Kirby added.
Biden administration officials had, in the weeks leading up to this week’s invasion, been careful not to issue threats or take steps that could be perceived as an escalation of tensions.
Officials worked to leave the door to diplomacy open as long as possible before Russian military operations began.
SANCTIONS WILL ‘ABSOLUTELY’ DETER PUTIN
Vice President Kamala Harris drew criticism over the weekend when she offered mixed messages about the likely outcome of threatening sanctions — days before Biden was chastised for the same offense.
At the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Harris said she absolutely believed the raft of sanctions crafted by the United States and European allies could deter Putin from taking further action.
But Harris appeared to support the administration’s assertion, based on U.S. intelligence assessments, that Putin had at that point already decided to invade Ukraine.
Harris’s comments came under scrutiny for the seemingly contradictory statements that the sanctions could still dissuade Putin from advancing and that he had already made up his mind to advance.
SANCTIONS MEANT ‘TO DETER RUSSIA FROM GOING TO WAR’
Even as Russian military forces gathered for an imminent invasion that would ultimately begin days later, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday that the threat of sanctions would serve as a more powerful deterrent than the imposition of the sanctions themselves.
“The purpose of the sanctions in the first instance is to try to deter Russia from going to war,” Blinken said during an appearance on CNN. “As soon as you trigger them, that deterrent is gone. And until the last minute, as long as we can try to bring a deterrent effect to this, we’re going to try to do that.”
‘SANCTIONS ARE INTENDED TO DETER’
On Feb. 11, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said threatening sanctions without imposing them prior to a Russian invasion was the “right logic” to deter Putin.
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“The president believes that sanctions are intended to deter,” Sullivan told reporters at a press briefing. “And in order for them to work — to deter, they have to be set up in a way where if Putin moves, then the costs are imposed.”
“We believe that that is the right logic both on its own merits, but equally importantly, we believe that the most important fundamental for anything that unfolds in this crisis, whether through diplomacy or as a result of military action, is that the West be strong, be united, and be determined to operate with common purpose,” Sullivan added.
