Biden Can’t Afford to Ignore the Threats From Russia

The U.S. must be willing to back its diplomacy with a dose of hard power.

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No matter how often the slogan “America is back” is repeated by the administration, the evidence too frequently points in the opposite direction.

Take the Russian military build-up on Ukraine’s eastern border as an example. While the presence of more than 100,000 Russian troops is “very seriously concerning” according to the Pentagon, it has prompted no U.S. response beyond handwringing. Instead, the White House suggests, per last week’s call between President Joe Biden and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, the two leaders might meet soon at a bilateral summit.

If Alexei Navalny dies in a Russian penal colony, we are promised by press secretary Jen Psaki that the Kremlin “will be held accountable by the international community.” The promise would ring hollow even if it did not coincide with new evidence showing that Russia’s military intelligence, the GRU, was behind the 2014 attack against a Czech ammunition depot, which killed two; or with the announcement that Putin will be joining the White House’s virtual climate summit today.

True, the Biden administration imposed new sanctions on seven Russian officials and 14 organizations last month over Navalny’s imprisonment. Last week, in response to earlier cyberattacks, additional measures were taken, including against Russian-issued bonds and companies providing support to Russian intelligence.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Rochejaquelein

    I don't think that the decision to withdraw after all these years from Afghanistan will move the needle as far as perceptions of American weakness and willingness to abandon allies. Most objective observers know what Afghanistan is, and that both our commitment and our allies were conditional and grudging. The bipartisan mishandling of Syria and Iraq and the abandonment of the Kurds did the damage there. Afghanistan is on the on hand a moral question of leaving a mess and abandoning what progress was made to probably Taliban victory and on the other hand a potential albeit remote source of terrorist threats to India and the West. Afghanistan is Laos to the Iraqi Vietnam and the Syrian Cambodia.

    Agree with much of the rest of the article. Afghanistan aside the Muscovites have been deliberately testing us and getting away with it, and there is real malice towards the United States embedded in the bitter siloviki who rule (and will continue to rule) Russia and will never forget the Cold War.

    More broadly, as heartening as is it is to see the crowd for Navalny and the occasional glimmer of the national spirit that produced all those cultural high points in the depths, Russia has reached turning point after turning point and always stayed on the course of lawless authoritarianism and being an enemy to the West and a danger to its neighbors. They will not change, not while I'm alive. There is a chance, maybe a slim one but a chance, that China pulls back from the brink and becomes a partner and a free(ish) country. Won't happen with the Muscovites.

    Ceterum autem censeo Muscovy esse delendam.

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  2. Avatar photo
    Ed P

    Agree with most of the sentiment here. One thing I do not agree with though is this notion that Russia is not a real threat. This is overlooking their asymmetrical toolbox.

    Russia has been amazingly effective in their development of hybrid warfare tactics - cyber, online influence, political manipulation/information warfare, use of spy services - blackmail, extortion, assassination & influence via crime/corruption. The extent to which they inhabit our infrastructure, public and private, after the Solar Winds hack is not publicly known. The extent this may be trying Biden's hands is similarly unknown.

    Also, the idea we might rely on Europe to stand up to Russia is not well founded.

    The US needs to lead the world. What is continuously understated by those of us who would like the US to remain active internationally is the extent to which it is in our interests as a nation strategically in the long term to promote freedom and rid the world of autocrats. Autocrats and the nations they rule, cannot be held accountable in the way we know in the free world. When there is no rule of law for the people calling the shots, good luck getting them to act fairly towards you. We see this with trade in China. We see this with the murderers like Putin and Saudi Arabia's MbS, N Korea's state hacking of Hollywood and the steady stream of political prisoners in Iran. When is the last time the US engaged in war with a free nation and not an autocratic one?

    The benefits of a truly free world are hard to fully fathom. And the costs of autocracy (to everyone but the autocrats) keeps rising as technology brings us all closer together. The USA needs to lead vs autocracy, prioritize it again like we did to beat the Soviets, because they are currently gaining ground.

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  3. Avatar photo
    Paul Reichardt

    "In their view, the U.S. military might ought to be deployed only sparsely, only to defend immediate, narrowly defined security interests of the United States. Yet, the burden of proof should be on advocates of restraint to show that such a retrenchment would serve Americans well."

    It's always disorienting to read a conservative take that asserts that the view that government should be limited and the role of the US military should be primarily only "to provide for the common defense" should be some alien, non-default condition requiring some significant burden of proof.

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  4. Curtis Jensen

    Some people have said that Biden has been wrong on every major foreign policy decision for the past 40 years, but those decisions have had little practical effect on America's international supremacy. If Biden really wants to secure his legacy on foreign policy, he should start simultaneous wars with Russia and China.

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    MarqueG68

    The entire West is about to commit suicide out of a misguided fear of the imaginary bugbear, "climate catastrophe."

    The message is clear: Russia (and China), go ahead and invade and murder or whatever. It's fine with us as long as you sign toothless treaties promising to reduce your carbon dioxide emissions! Meanwhile, we'll buy all your windmills and solar panels, which become unrecyclable toxic waste at the end of their 20 year lifespan.

    Lunacy.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Rajeev

      I do think it's important to note that Russia has been more bullish on the potential effects of climate change more than virtually every other nation. Their massive investment in military bases in the Arctic Circle seems to dictate as much:

      https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/what-is-behind-russia-s-military-build-up-in-the-arctic-circle-45662

      https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/preparing-climate-change-worlds-top-militaries

      I'd advocate for far stronger action on Russia and China in terms of Human Rights and economic sanctions; however, I can certainly understand why the US needs these nations to address larger issues such as Climate Change.

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    2. Avatar photo
      L Bernard

      You are correct in that Progressive response to climate change is less than rational. Mostly because the consequences of climate change are primarily security threats, not an ecological ones, and progressives seem to be allergic to admitting the dark side of human nature.

      But I get the feeling that you take climate change catastrophe to be imaginary. Hopefully I can convince you of the seriousness of it. As the planet warms (and it is warming), sea levels rise, changing coastlines and decreasing the amount of livable land by a small but significant amount. Also, certain regions will become more arid, while others will become more prone to flooding, with the result being those regions having less potable water and food production.

      Climate change is not going to destroy the Earth, or make humans extinct. But the combination of less space to live, less food, and less water is going to displace people and disrupt balances of power. We as humanity could come up with peaceful solutions to these massive changes in resources, but when have we ever done so?

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      1. Avatar photo
        MarqueG68

        I believe it was Matt Ridley who presented evidence that our agricultural yields have been steadily rising as the amount of land under agricultural production has been steadily on the decline--all while global human population has steadily increased and starvation has fallen. People around the world have also continued to retreat from the rural countryside in favor of denser cities and (in America, mainly) suburbs.

        The promise of genetic engineering is that we can further improve agricultural yields while reducing *all* agri-chemical inputs per calorie and total land under cultivation. As long as we don't stop innovating, it doesn't seem to me we're at serious risk of falling into a Malthusian trap.

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          L Bernard

          Sorry, I see now I wasn't clear. Though we will lose overall potential for food production (overall less land, and stuff just isn't going to grow as well at the poles), I don't think we're ever going to be in danger of a Malthusian trap. I meant that as -certain regions- lose resources, the people there will seek to replace what they lost, and this can spark conflict.

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