Now Is Not the Time to Go Easy on Russia

But that is the message the Biden administration is sending.

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The National Defense Authorization Act working its way through Congress includes a provision to sanction Russia over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, but reports indicate that the Biden administration is pushing to have the sanctions omitted. Given that Russia is challenging the United States across the board—most notably amassing troops at its border with Ukraine—President Biden should look for, not shy away from, opportunities to push back hard. 

Biden’s recent predecessors have a mixed record in dealing with the Russia threat. George W. Bush infamously said that he “was able to get a sense” of Vladimir Putin’s soul but recovered in time to help Georgia fend off a Russian invasion in 2008. While Mitt Romney was mocked for calling Russia our top geopolitical foe, the man he lost to in 2012 displayed insufficient backbone in dealing with Putin. As did Donald Trump for the most part.

When Obama sought an ill-defined “reset” with Russia. Moscow responded by invading Ukraine, sending troops to prop up the Assad regime in Syria, shooting down an airliner, launching cyberattacks harming American companies, granting asylum to the traitor Edward Snowden, beating up U.S. diplomats, harassing U.S. ships, and finally interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election against his party’s nominee.

Meanwhile Trump displayed a cringe-worthy infatuation with Putin, most notoriously during their Helsinki summit. Russia repaid the favor by testing dangerous nuclear-powered cruise missiles, ramping up cyberespionage against the U.S., sending mercenaries to Libya, and assassinating defectors and dissidents abroad with chemical weapons. (Although to Trump’s credit, his administration provided Ukraine with lethal aid, however grudgingly, while Obama’s did not, and U.S. forces killed hundreds of Russian mercenaries in Syria when they were attacked during Trump’s term.)

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    Thanks for not mincing words. Russia is our adversary and Edward Snowden is an American traitor. If he really wanted to be a heroic dissident, he would come back and do his time, not flee to Russia (of all places) like a coward.

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  2. Alex DeLarge

    These deep state articles trying to generate fear and loathing of Russia are almost comical. Cold War nostalgia syndrome.

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  3. Avatar photo
    Ed P

    More than just words, we should have a multinational Nato presence in Kiev, away from the fighting but clearly protecting the nation (and most of all the political stability) of Ukraine.

    Enough is enough. Russia wants direct confrontation as little as we do, probably even less. Apart from their nukes and capable special services, they are pretty much a joke.

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  4. Avatar photo
    Narwhal

    When Russia decided to seize Crimea it was a done deal and there was nothing we could have done about it short of a war in their backyard which we weren’t positioned to fight and win.

    Sevastopol was founded around the same time as our country and Russia’s Black Sea fleet has been based there for as long as our country has existed. No Russian troops needed to invade Crimea because they were already based there. Some of them had family and friends living there. Unlike Ukraine, the first language and ethnicity of the majority of the residents of Sevastopol are Russian. The people who live there have deep personal and professional ties to the Russian military in general and the Black Sea fleet specifically. Prior to their annexation of Crimea Russia already had de facto control over Sevastopol and they had had it for centuries.

    No amount of tough talk then would have changed these realities and no amount of tough talk now will either.

    The question is why Putin’s Russia felt the need to annex Crimea when it did. And like it or not that at least partly involves what was in my estimation foolish efforts by some in the US during the aughts to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. Efforts some of our largest NATO allies did not support. They didn’t think poking the bear was wise. They may have been correct. Those efforts were undertaken when our military was already overextended and Putin correctly calculated that there was little we could do if he annexed Crimea even if we had wanted to do something.

    Perhaps some humility is in order from some quarters given the strategic miscalculations that were made by some in the US? We overplayed our hand and our bluff was called.

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  5. Richard Fulmer

    That's quite a long litany of Russian attacks on the West and - in particular, on the U.S. - that have provoked little response. Putin will continue to attack until someone pushes back. Biden is an unlikely candidate.

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