OPINION:
History will mark the Russian invasion of Ukraine as the moment hopes for a peaceful democratic world died. Russian President Vladimir Putin may be the evil protagonist, but American and European folly bear some responsibility.
At the end of the Cold War, Western nations sought to embrace Russia and China economically to help forge democracy. Russia found new markets for its gas and oil, and China joined the World Trade Organization.
Yearnings for democracy are not universal. Granted, Mr. Putin maintains power by bullying and jailing opponents. Until setbacks took hold, he was able to generate enough public support for his invasion by generating propaganda about NATO’s aggressive intentions and with successful foreign adventures — Georgia in 2008, the Crimea in 2014, disrupting Western elections and SolarWinds in 2020.
Chinese President Xi Jinping can rule without elections by delivering prosperity and domestic order. American progressives whipping up crime and insurrection in U.S. cities provides ready footage for Beijing’s propaganda machine about the shortcomings of Western democracy and capitalism.
Articulated by successive American presidents, U.S. policy is guilty of five sets of strategic mistakes.
• First, appeasing Russia when it invaded Georgia and the Crimea and after establishing some stability and a nascent democracy, abandoning Afghanistan to the mercies of the Taliban.
• Second, appeasing Russia by limiting NATO forces stationed and positioning only defensive weapons in the Baltic States, Poland and southeastern Europe. Mr. Putin still created a fable of encirclement, appealed to Russian cynicism and invaded Ukraine. With overwhelming military forces and absent NATO’s kinetic intervention, Mr. Putin won’t leave Ukraine empty handed. His army battle hardened will learn from its mistakes and can move north to threaten the Baltic States.
• Third, appeasing Russia by not equipping Ukraine with offensive weapons. Moments after crossing its frontier, if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy could have rained missiles on Russian forces and put several Russian communities ablaze, then Mr. Putin’s adventurism wouldn’t have looked so appealing to his military and countrymen.
• Fourth, American and European energy policies are fundamentally flawed. Fossil fuels will remain necessary for years because wind and solar power can only be built out as fast as new battery technology falls in price. Russian leverage over Europe is potentially very short term. Europe has adequate liquefied natural gas terminals to import much of the gas it needs and can build capacity within three years to eliminate Russian natural gas imports.
• Fifth, American troops in Germany and modest NATO contingents stationed in Russian bordering states remain an inadequate deterrent, and U.S. forces have grown terribly vulnerable. At his Feb. 24 press conference, President Biden was asked what Mr. Putin meant when he referenced his nuclear weapons in his speech justifying seizing Ukraine. Mr. Biden said “I have no idea.”
Missed was that Mr. Putin also brandished “several cutting-edge weapons” that could defeat any adversary. Russia and China possess hypersonic missiles and anti-satellite and cyber weapons that could crack an American warship in two, disable the navigation systems of the U.S. fleet and wreak havoc on the American power grid.
The United States spends $768 billion on defense — Russia $154 billion and China less than $250 billion.
I doubt Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin could adequately explain why U.S. forces lack comparable weapons.
Like other top-level Biden appointees, he’s good at forming task forces, producing vapid reports and satisfying the diversity and inclusion mafia in the West Wing and the bureaucratic interests of his departmental employees.
The Pentagon’s November Global Posture Review failed to offer an adequate strategy to reconfigure and modernize American forces in the Pacific to the China challenge and missed Ukraine badly.
How long would it take for American isolationists on the hard left and right to win the argument to let Russia have the Baltic States or Poland if Mr. Putin made the lights flicker and paused transit systems during a Manhattan rush hour or smashed an abandoned Midwestern factory with a missile.
Before jumping in patriotic fever consider how much support Europeans could offer. Germany, the continent’s largest NATO member, can hardly muster an army.
For the moment, the political climate in Europe has moved in favor of beefing up NATO defenses, but effective deterrence requires substantial new spending when Germany and the broader continent are grappling with the huge costs of modernizing their aging industrial base and transitioning to green energy.
It’s going to take brass knuckle diplomacy to get the Europeans to muscle up enough, but I doubt Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Mr. Austin and Mr. Biden have a clue or the energy. They certainly have demonstrated little to make us believe otherwise.
Mr. Putin and Mr. Xi can accomplish at lot more mischief before Inauguration Day 2025.
• Peter Morici is an economist, emeritus business professor at the University of Maryland and national columnist.
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