His 2020 campaign pledges to the contrary, President Joe Biden has become Russian President Vladimir Putin’s cooperative comrade.
Biden has excused massive ransomware attacks that were carried out with the Kremlin’s approval. He has ignored congressional sanctions and approved Putin’s Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline. He also cut a toothless deal that does nothing to protect Europe from Russian energy coercion.
In turn, Putin has wasted no time commencing the coercion.
On Ukraine, Biden has shown hesitation in the face of Russian aggression in the Black Sea. Grateful for Biden bearing gifts, you might have thought that the Russians would offer some reciprocity. Think again.
Following the disastrous withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan and its collapse to an al Qaeda-allied Taliban government, the Biden administration has a big problem. Biden has pledged to prevent al Qaeda’s revival, but the United States has no local bases from which to conduct counterterrorism operations. As his top generals now admit, Biden’s “over the horizon” counterterrorism strategy is a mirage. Over the horizon operations can succeed, to a degree, but only when you have bases nearby. The U.S. is able to fight al Shabaab in Somalia and al Qaeda in Yemen because it has thousands of personnel just a few miles away in Djibouti. No such base exists close to Afghanistan.
That brings us back to the Russians.
Biden has been begging Moscow to allow the U.S. military to operate a base out of one of the “stan” states bordering Afghanistan. Putin has effective dominion over these nations, at least as it pertains to geopolitics.
Biden’s requests must greatly amuse the Russians, tempting them with the means to launch radio frequency attacks on soldiers as they walk from their barracks to the mess hall. Unfortunately for Biden, the amusement interest isn’t sufficient. On Thursday, following arms control meetings with his U.S. counterpart Wendy Sherman, Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov shredded the prospect of any base agreement.
“There is not the slightest change in our position regarding the unacceptability of an American military presence in any form on the territory of the Central Asian states. This is a definitively formulated firm position that does not contain the slightest element of flexibility,” he said.
Ryabkov helpfully added that U.S. prospects to the contrary represented “wishful thinking” and a choice to hear “only what caresses their ears.”
Dear Joe: Appeasement rarely works. And it never works with Russians.
