Biden’s Track Record Made Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine Inevitable

President Joe Biden speaks about Ukraine in the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House on March 16, 2022. Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

The tragedy of Ukraine is that President Joe Biden’s appeasement and weak response was predictable. He’s turned out to be who this author said he would be in December 2020. Biden doesn’t comprehend deterrence, and neither does his party. I wrote here in “The Epoch Times”:

“Biden represents a return to the weak-kneed diplomacy and hollow military of the Obama years. As far back as 1975 Biden condemned what he called the idea that the United States should ‘police the world’ by opposing communism. He has never comprehended the value of deterrence as a diplomatic tool. … Aggressive foes such as Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Kim Jong-un pocket every concession they receive. … Aimless diplomacy and trade measures seldom subdue an aggressor, the most prominent example being the appeasement of Adolf Hitler in 1938, which did nothing to prevent him from starting World War II a year later in 1939. … Biden’s lack of understanding of deterrence as the key point of U.S. defense policy would endanger our national security and that of our allies.”

Now here we are, and history is repeating itself. Here we are a year into Biden’s presidency, and some argue that we’re in the opening phase of World War III. Polish leaders see a close correlation between the impotence of the West and the failure against Hitler between the time he invaded Poland in September 1939 and the invasion of France and the Low Countries six months later that was called “The Phony War.” They’re right.

A bully like Vladimir Putin only respects strength and looks at politicians like Biden with utter contempt.

A former White House staffer who accompanied then-Vice President Biden to his first meeting with Vladimir Putin in 2011 noted that the then Russian prime minister intimidated him.

“I was standing in the room with him when he met with Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Putin body slammed him. He made him look like he didn’t know what he was doing,” former White House stenographer Mike McCormick told Fox News Radio in 2020.

“If you’re a Hollywood actor and Joe Biden is your agent and he’s out there, agenting for you with these people, you don’t want to deal with that. You can’t have him out there negotiating like that. He’d be a horrible negotiator.”

Under President Barack Obama and Biden, Putin seized Crimea, expanded operations in Syria, and ramped up hacking operations against the United States, because he knew he could get away with it.

Candidate Biden barked that he would stand up to Putin during the campaign. President Biden has behaved toward Putin with weakness and cowardice just as was anticipated. Psychological profiles of Putin show he can’t stand weakness. Biden treated Putin with kid gloves and refused to stand up to him when push came to shove.

“Putin can’t stand those who are weak because he thinks he is above everyone else. Therefore, you can beat him, but not convince him,” forensic psychologist Javier Urra told the Spanish publication “MARCA.” “His personality led to [the invasion of] Ukraine and he’s already threatening Sweden and Finland.”

The president could have done what candidate Biden promised to be and continued Trump policies aimed at keeping Putin in check by ramping up sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and by taking a tough stance against his German supporters.

Biden didn’t even bother to hold the line against Putin after his inauguration. He immediately caved to Putin’s demand for an unconditional renegotiation of the New START Treaty. President Donald Trump’s team, led by Amb. Marshall Billingslea, pressed Putin to scrap his arsenal of battlefield nuclear weapons that threaten NATO and other Western nations, but Biden nixed preconditions as soon as he was inaugurated. Since Putin declared that Russian nuclear forces were on combat alert, this arsenal of battlefield nuclear weapons has been in the forefront of discussions.

Apparently, Biden wanted any deal, even a bad deal, at any cost.

Diplomacy means nothing without immediate, severe, tangible consequences for the other party. Putin read Biden and instantly knew he wasn’t a threat to his ambitions. Pre-emption prevents wars.

Biden failed to show resolve when Putin began his military buildup along Ukraine’s borders a year ago. That’s when he should have introduced sanctions and matched it with a ramping up of military presence in Poland and the Baltics, along with ramping up Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against Russia’s air force and navy.

Biden reportedly refused suggestions to send military advisers to Ukraine in December, just as he rejected the Reagan administration’s sending of Pershing II missiles to West Germany in the early 1980s. When Putin began his buildup along the Ukrainian border a year ago, the administration reacted tepidly and only voiced “concern.” Ukraine, however, warned that the Russian buildup threatened its security.

Biden’s passivity and weakness along with his incompetent withdrawal from Afghanistan proved to Putin that he would not provide an effective deterrent to his designs for Ukraine. It paved the way for the invasion.

Sun-Tzu went unheeded: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

Now Xi Jinping will look at Biden and see nothing will stop him from conquering Taiwan because of his botched handling of Ukraine.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.