President Biden’s leadership in the Ukraine crisis has thus far been a disaster. Before the Feb. 24 invasion, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky implored the West to deter the attack by announcing in advance the strong sanctions it would impose in response.
Biden refused. Zelensky asked for arms. Biden sent only token amounts, excluding anti-aircraft weapons. And far from threatening a U.S. or NATO military response to an invasion, or even leaving the question in doubt, Biden repeatedly reassured Putin – right up to the day of the invasion – that the U.S. would not engage.
On the day before the invasion, Biden gave Russia the greenlight to attack
As a result, the invasion was not deterred and tens of thousands of people have been killed, millions made homeless, billions of dollars of property destroyed, and trillions of dollars of losses imposed on the world economy.
This is a catastrophe, and unless Biden’s leadership is radically improved its going to get far worse. Biden is now shipping small arms and antitank and antiaircraft missiles to Ukraine and has thus far imposed some rather serious sanctions. But these, taken together, are insufficient to prevent Ukrainian defeat. Without a serious change of course, the most likely outcome of the war will be a devastated Ukraine ruled by a totalitarian Russia, that in turn will be completely economically dependent on China.
Clearly, better leadership is necessary.
