President Joe Biden deserves significant credit for holding NATO together as the alliance faces its greatest test since the end of the Cold War.
True, Biden’s support for Ukraine has been hesitant. The Biden administration initially slow-rolled the delivery of anti-tank and anti-air weapons. Prior to the outbreak of war, the president played into Vladimir Putin’s hands by failing to meet Russian escalation with commensurate U.S. deterrence. Biden’s sanctions response to the Russian invasion also began slowly, though it has been strengthened significantly since. I also understand that Biden has yet to authorize a covert action campaign in Ukraine’s support.
Still, at the critical juncture of trans-Atlantic security: the assurance of support for U.S.-led alliances and the attenuating credibility of the U.S.-led democratic international order, Biden deserves much credit. I suspect that former President Donald Trump would have done more to support Ukraine’s defense prior to war but less to deter Putin once war began. I wonder whether Trump would have supported a Russian-favorable ceasefire.
Regardless, it’s clear NATO is looking good at present.
The most vulnerable eastern-flank NATO members such as the Baltic member states now benefit from reinforced deployments of British, U.S., and French air force and ground combat units. Germany’s center-left government appears, at least for the moment, to have abandoned Angela Merkel’s multidecade Russia appeasement policy. Instead, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has pledged more than $110 billion to ensure that Germany meets the 2%-of-GDP NATO minimum defense spending target. In Poland, a significant U.S. military force stands ready to contest any Russian attacks from Ukraine. The deployed force includes highly maneuverable air-to-ground, light infantry, mechanized infantry, special operations forces, ground-to-air, and electronic warfare capabilities. Russian intelligence services will know that it is not simply for show.
At the same time, the West remains unified, again, at least for the moment, in imposing a truly crippling sanctions regime against Putin. In what was once inconceivable, Putin’s top cronies have seen their superyachts, mansions, and soccer clubs seized. The oligarchs’ once triumphant Western enablers such as Harbottle & Lewis now offer mea culpas.
Put simply, the West looks strong.
This has been to the evident surprise of China. Fearing the loss of European Union partnership, Xi Jinping is now backpedaling from his prior support for Moscow. Following a virtual meeting with Biden on Friday, Xi Jinping declared that the war in Ukraine is something his government “don’t want to see.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov suffered the ignominy of being told by the Chinese to turn around midflight on his way to Beijing this week. For Lavrov, a notoriously arrogant man, China’s symbolic Novichok poison pill must have tasted bitter. So weak is Russia’s military performance that Putin’s Belarusian puppet Alexander Lukashenko is refusing to deploy his military to Ukraine. Indeed, Putin’s primary support base now seems to begin and end with the theatrical social media posts of his Chechen catman viceroy, Ramzan Kadyrov.
This is not to say that Biden can declare a victory lap anytime soon. He can and he should do more to supply more of the most capable weapons to Ukraine. He must also be ready for Putin’s escalation.
Yet at the critical level of Western credibility and NATO’s deterrence, Biden has delivered. He deserves credit for it.
