Lawmakers and security experts are urging President Joe Biden to display a stronger U.S. military presence in Eastern Europe after Russia massed 85,000 troops near Ukraine, saying his rhetoric and sanctions alone are not enough to deter Russian President Vladimir Putin.
For weeks, Putin’s first test of the new American commander in chief has been a massive military buildup along the eastern boundary of Ukraine and in the Crimean peninsula, which was seized by Russia in 2014 when the Obama administration and its allies ignored similar troop movements. The U.S. and NATO response this time has been swifter but light on military shows of force.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley initially called his Russian counterpart to question Moscow’s buildup, later deemed by Kremlin officials as regular military exercises. Biden called Putin Tuesday, but in a surprise move, offered him something of a concession, a legitimizing summit between the two leaders, with the U.S. leader betting on his own ability to change his counterpart’s aggressive behavior in a one-on-one setting. Biden also appears to have called off a naval show of force in the Black Sea.
“Personally, I question the tactic of applying sanctions concurrently with a request for a summit,” freshman California Republican and former Navy pilot Rep. Mike Garcia told the Washington Examiner.
“We should be alarmed but not surprised at Russia’s buildup of military force on the Ukraine border,” he added. “The fact is, Russia was never held accountable for the invasion of Ukraine and Crimea.”
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Colorado Rep. Doug Lamborn’s district includes U.S. North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, which is frequently monitoring unwanted Russian air incursions near the Alaskan coast.
“I’m very concerned,” he said. “They may feel like they want to test Joe Biden to see how much resolve he has.”
Defense experts in Washington and NATO partner countries said Putin’s move is attention-grabbing but still poses a serious threat to Ukraine, whose president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has been crying out for military aid and NATO membership. That would give his country access to the alliance’s mutual defense pact — even though it has been executed just once, following the 9/11 attacks on the United States.
Biden and NATO must respond in a way that does not escalate the situation, the experts say, but also gives a clear sign to Putin that his attempts to intimidate his neighbors via military movements will not be tolerated.
“Don’t help the Russians self-victimize. Don’t overreact, but demonstrate resolve and determination,” European security analyst Pal Dunay said.
“The Biden administration did not move very far away from the Trump administration,” added Dunay, who is also a scholar at the Pentagon-funded George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Germany. “Russia is a country that wants to have international recognition, and it measures its level of recognition on one country, and that one country is the United States.”
Rewarding Putin’s behavior by offering a summit meeting may temporarily help defuse tensions, but doing so did not send a clear signal, said U.S. Institute of Peace Russia analyst Don Jensen.
“What is the U.S.? is this a carrot or a stick?” Jensen said.
“I have no problem with Biden talking to Putin. I do have a problem of giving a mixed message that we’re tough and then not tough,” he said. “We’re being tough over Ukraine, and at the same time, we’re offering what they say is an off-ramp.”
There are also signs that U.S. warships scheduled to enter the Black Sea were directed away after the Biden call. The show of naval force near a seashore shared by Russia, Ukraine, and three NATO allies is a regular occurrence, U.S. European Command said, without confirming the reports.
“There is no change to our operational capability or deterrence posture in any way,” U.S. Navy Captain Wendy L. Snyder said in an email.
‘Downward spiral’
Senior administration officials briefing the press on Thursday morning tried to portray Biden as tough on Russia but careful about escalation.
“We’ve been clear that we seek a relationship with Russia that is stable and predictable. We do not seek, we do not desire a downward spiral. We think we can and should avoid that,” one official said. “But we have also been clear, publicly and privately, that we will defend our national interests and that we will impose costs on Russian government actions that seek to harm our sovereignty.”
Biden, on Thursday, signed executive orders imposing sanctions on Russia and kicking out 10 Russian diplomats as retaliation for Russia’s SolarWinds cyber intrusion of federal agencies and 2020 U.S. presidential election interference. There was no mention on the call of the military buildup or any response to it.
U.S. sanctions related to the Nordstrom 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany are another pressure point. The 96% complete pipeline would be a windfall to Russian gas exports, and the U.S. is putting heavy pressure on Germany and the companies involved not to finish the project.
Dunay says it’s right to hit Russia where it is weakest — its economy.
“Russia’s most important strength is its military,” he said. “You’re not going to challenge a country on its strengths. You are challenging a country on its weakness, and Russia’s weakness is the economy.”
Dunay explained that Russia’s economy is 12 times smaller than America’s, has little diversification, and is heavily dependent on the export of natural resources and energy.
Polish security analyst Wojciech Lorenz, of Warsaw’s Polish Institute of International Affairs, said Russia’s military buildup is probably a strategic move designed to create a more favorable negotiating position in the four-party talks over the separatist eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk.
“Russia does not want to give anything away. It just expects that the Ukraine will approve the autonomy of those occupied regions,” he said. “Ukraine actively strengthens the cooperation with the West, also with NATO.”
Lorenz also believes Putin is trying to influence the current U.S. force posture review due in midsummer, which, under Trump, had called for a reduction in soldiers in Europe. Instead, earlier this week, on a visit to Berlin, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced he would send an additional 500 troops to Germany, including sophisticated new combat equipment.
“Putin can calculate that by increasing pressure on Ukraine, increasing the risk of a bigger conflict that can escalate, that will create a political and strategic problem for the West, for NATO, for the U.S.,” Lorenz explained.
Putin’s gambit sought to reveal cracks in the alliance.
Instead, a swift and coordinated response from NATO, the European Union, and the U.S. took Moscow by surprise.
Biden’s response ‘remains to be seen’
It remains to be seen if Biden will keep the full force level of roughly 36,000 in Germany that Trump had wanted to draw down by 12,000, maintain commitments for a total of 5,500 soldiers in Poland, and continue strengthening other eastern flank NATO allies with rotational troop deployments.
The massive Defender-Europe 21 military exercise is set to begin in May with some 30,000 U.S., allied, and partner nations demonstrating the ability to shift massive forces over large swaths of territory at speed and scale to the eastern flank of the alliance in the Balkans and Black Sea region that borders Ukraine.
Lorenz says Biden must buck Putin’s aggression and keep these commitments if he is to deter Russia in the long term.
However, Republicans in Congress are not so sure the president will.
“I hope Russia doesn’t miscalculate and underestimate our resolve, although how Joe Biden responds remains to be seen,” said Lamborn, who advocates giving Ukraine more lethal military hardware.
“Under Donald Trump, we did step up,” he said. “For the first time, we gave them lethal aid, and that was not part of what Barack Obama ever did. So, I don’t know if Joe Biden is going to reverse that or continue that Trump policy.”
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Garcia said Biden’s recent proposal of a flat defense budget is also a bad signal to Putin.
“It is very concerning that Biden is simultaneously proposing cuts to significant elements of the defense budget … just as Russia is again taking an aggressive stance on the Ukraine border,” he said. “If we want to remain a safe and secure nation, we must ensure that our men and women in uniform, both here and abroad, have the funding and support they need to safely do their jobs right and have a tactical advantage.”
