Joe Biden might refer to Vladimir Putin as a “killer,” but our president’s actions hardly match his tough talk.
After four years of Democrats attacking former President Donald Trump as Putin’s stooge, one would have expected Biden to take real action to curb Russia. It’s not happening.
Democrats and the media went into hysterics over Trump and Russia. And it is true that Trump was far too solicitous of Putin. He appeared to believe genuinely that the Russian tyrant sought compromise with America. Trump’s lamentable performance at a 2018 summit with Putin in Helsinki, Finland, where he was incapable of seeing any question about Russian election interference as anything other than a slight on his victory, was a low point.
But Trump’s policy record on Russia was generally robust, and there was no evidence of collusion with Moscow, much though his critics and a special counsel sought to find it. Trump worked with Congress to enforce major sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, which Putin intends to use to make Europe energy dependent on him. It will also deny Ukraine much-needed energy transit revenues from current pipelines. It is almost certain to help Putin extract European political deference in return for European homes being heated in winter.
While Trump was on a course to kill off the pipeline, Biden, in contrast, has refused to enforce congressional sanctions against Nord Stream 2. With the project nearly completed, Biden seems set to hand Putin a major strategic victory.
The contrast between Trump and Biden is also apparent with respect to military posture. Trump repeatedly sent U.S. Navy warships into the Black Sea, challenging Putin’s intimidation of Ukraine. He also corrected Barack Obama’s appeasement policy by providing lethal arms to the Ukrainian military. Biden has continued to provide military equipment, but he recently canceled a Black Sea deployment just as Russian forces were amassing on Ukraine’s borders. A White House official explained that this was ordered so as “not to provoke Moscow during a delicate time.” This is appeasement all over again. Putin must love it.
Emphasizing that now “is the time to de-escalate,” Biden called for a summit with his “killer” counterpart. He did so just two weeks after Putin questioned Biden’s mental faculties and challenged him to a public debate. It is understandable if the Kremlin now sees Biden as conveniently malleable.
Biden appears to have forgotten his scathing criticism of Trump’s handling of reports that Russia paid the Taliban bounties to kill American soldiers. This is despite the intelligence community continuing to investigate the issue.
Biden’s policy toward Moscow has also been exceedingly weak on human rights. The administration has warned only vaguely of sanctions in the case of Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition leader and investigative journalist, whom Putin imprisoned on trumped-up charges and who, until recently, was on hunger strike and at death’s door.
Biden did impose sanctions against Russia for its August 2020 poisoning of Navalny. But he has not warned Putin of clear and severe consequences if Navalny dies. Similarly, Biden appears little interested in the Kremlin bringing hundreds of charges against Radio Free Europe, a U.S. news broadcaster. This is exactly the kind of action that candidate Biden railed against Trump for tolerating.
Apparently, it was all empty rhetoric.
Biden’s strategy toward NATO reflects yet more alarming weakness. The administration has reiterated the United States’s commitment to a common defense with NATO allies but has abandoned Trump’s effort to make those allies share the military load. Trump ordered that some U.S. military personnel be moved out of Germany because Berlin constantly fails to spend anywhere near its official obligation to NATO. Biden has scrapped that retaliation. He has also acquiesced in delinquency by Belgium. NATO’s deterrence, especially against Putin’s aggression, depends on its military power irrespective of Biden’s sweet and friendly words.
Biden is only four months into his presidency, but so far, he has done nothing to keep his promise and get tough on Russia. The former KGB officer appears to be outsmarting him at every turn.
