The Biden administration is working hard to build a coalition of European partners that can prevent a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Allied capitals say what is necessary, but if you listen carefully, it is not difficult to see the atmosphere of despair that overshadows all efforts. Washington knows that none of the Europeans is ready to fight for Ukraine's sovereignty, and the Europeans themselves know that Washington will not do that either, writes the American magazine The Forbes.
Russian President Vladimir Putin does not want to directly occupy Ukraine - he could easily do so for the territories east of the Dnieper, which divides the country in half - but he seeks to neutralize it as a military threat.
This means preventing Ukraine from joining NATO, preventing the deployment of Western military bases on its territory and minimizing any military cooperation between Kiev and Western capitals.
Biden's team, led by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, speaks boldly as to why such guarantees are not being discussed, but in the end his administration will give Putin most of what he wants.
It's just that Biden and others like him don't publicly admit that this is the case.
To understand why Putin's intimidation is likely to be successful, we need to look at some important points about the situation in Ukraine that are rarely mentioned in the media.
Nobody wants Ukraine to join NATO. While strengthening ties with the West is central to President Vladimir Zelensky's foreign policy, his corrupt and underdeveloped country will not add value to the Atlantic Alliance. Ukraine's armed forces are very poorly funded - last year Kiev spent less than $ 1 billion on weapons, and geopolitical circumstances make the country almost defenseless.
With NATO enlargement following the collapse of the Soviet Union, a handful of Western nations, providing 90% of the Alliance's funding, have pledged to provide mutual military assistance to a dozen Eastern European countries without protection. In the process, the organization also suffered many political divisions between new members who did not cooperate. The last thing London, Paris and Washington want today is to accept another weak "partner" in their already crowded union.
American voters are fed up with calls to save the world. From generation to generation, Washington has sent troops far and wide to support rotten regimes. Vietnam. Lebanon. Somalia. Afghanistan. Iraq. These countries are invariably ruled by corrupt elites, and Washington generally fails to achieve its goals there. Any US military intervention in Ukraine would be part of this trend and would discredit the administration in the eyes of voters.
President Trump has repeatedly called on European allies to share the burden of joint defense, and if he remained in office for a second term, he would probably withdraw America from NATO. President Biden is working to re-establish ties with Europe, but his party is likely to support foreign intervention even less than the backbone of the Republican Party. It is difficult to know whether there are any supporters of military support for Ukraine's sovereignty in the country in the form of, say, sending weapons there and building bases.
Russia remains a nuclear superpower. When the Ukrainian crisis is reflected, the most important military fact for Russia is practically not mentioned. Moscow has thousands of nuclear warheads, of which at least 1,550 are capable of reaching America, and hundreds more are available for use in Europe. Thus, Russia is fully capable of destroying all major Western cities in a matter of hours.
Popular culture is so accustomed to the existence of weapons of mass destruction that it does not even suggest the possibility of their use. However, Russian military doctrine says otherwise, and the most likely scenarios for an escalation of a simple nuclear conflict apply specifically to Eastern Europe. Membership in the enlarged North Atlantic Alliance has pushed US nuclear commitments to staggering levels, making it a dangerous proposition to come into conflict with Russia over Ukraine. During crises, people tend to go crazy.
Ukraine is too close to the heart of Russia. If Vladimir Putin had been a staunch Democrat, his fears of Western military threats would have been unfounded. But everything is different. The autocrat Putin sees his country's geopolitical needs as requiring some buffer between it and the West, and this is one of the reasons for his desire to return the financially troubled Belarus to mother Russia. So his reaction to the possibility of a NATO force presence in Ukraine is not much different from the US reaction to Russia's attempt to deploy missiles in Cuba.
This is not just paranoia. Kiev is located only 755 km from Moscow, ie in the combat radius of the F-35 fighters, untraceable for Russian radars. When these aircraft become capable of carrying NATO's tactical nuclear weapons later in the decade, they will become a powerful deterrent to regional aggression. But in doing so, they will heighten Moscow's fears of a preemptive strike in the event of a crisis, so Putin is wisely reluctant to drop their bases near his country's borders.
Putin will stop if he can declare victory. Some qualified diplomats and intelligence officials warn that neutralizing Ukraine is only the first step in Vladimir Putin's grand plan to rebuild the Soviet Union. That may be so, but at the moment President Biden's team is busy preventing an impending invasion much more than any long-term prospect. If Putin can present the Western response to his demands as a victory, he will most likely stop there (for now).
After all, the actual invasion and occupation of a country the size of Ukraine can be very costly, both in monetary terms and in human lives, not to mention the sanctions that will inevitably follow. Biden and his aides are likely to be able to resolve the situation diplomatically, tacitly agreeing to Putin's demands, but not directly. No NATO membership, no bases, minimal military aid. Putin can color the outcome as he pleases, and the US administration will argue that no formal commitment has been made. In this way, the crisis will be resolved and Biden will be able to return to the internal problems that are likely to determine the future of his presidency.
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