Biden gives Putin a win with his indefensible decision to deny Ukraine fighter jets

March 14, 2022

This article appeared in The New York Post on March 14th, 2022. Click here to view the original article.

On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the war with Russia was at a “strategic turning point.” Unfortunately, America and NATO may have missed it. President Joe Biden’s decision to reject transferring Polish MiG fighter jets to Ukraine is inexplicable and indefensible.

Kyiv’s heroic resistance to unprovoked aggression has exceeded pre-war expectations, both NATO’s and Russia’s. Innumerable Russian mistakes and failures, from strategy down to basic logistics, have been equally startling. The Kremlin has not achieved key objectives, its advances have been slowed or halted, and its casualties are reportedly rising alarmingly.

But there is no guarantee that Ukraine can maintain the present standoff, let alone repel the invasion and restore the status quo ante bellum. It is not enough to say that Zelensky is losing slowly, especially if and when the moment for negotiations comes. Nor is it politically helpful for his purported allies to publicly refuse requests for help, like the MiGs or a no-fly zone over Ukraine, even a partial no-fly zone to stem the surging humanitarian tragedy of millions forced to flee their homes.

Biden’s White House has offered numerous rationales for rejecting the MiG transfer, so many that it suggests a desperate effort to hide the real reason: Biden is intimidated by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Whereas Biden’s effort to deter Russia’s invasion failed, Putin’s efforts to deter the United States from responding adequately have unfortunately been all too successful.

Washington in fact actively considered the Polish MiG transfer and sent signals it was all but approved. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said so expressly. CBS anchor Margaret Brennan asked him March 6, “If, for instance, the Polish government . . . wants to send fighter jets, does that get a green light from the US, or are you afraid that that will escalate tension?” Blinken replied, “No, that gets a green light. In fact, we’re talking with our Polish friends right now about what we might be able to do to backfill their needs if, in fact, they choose to provide these fighter jets to the Ukrainians.”

The administration and its media stenographers worked overtime to shift blame away from Biden, thereby revealing the weakness of the case against the MiG transfer. They said Poland could have made the transfer on its own. Of course, as a dependable ally, Poland wanted assurance that NATO’s leader — that would be the United States — supported the idea. Otherwise, Biden’s team would have complained Poland had gone rogue.

Next were arguments that Ukraine didn’t need the planes. The Pentagon said it was “simply not clear to us that there is a substantive rationale for it.” But Biden has long made it clear there would be no US combat role in the war. Why undermine the judgment of those actually engaged in combat, with the very survival of their country at stake, especially at no effective cost to Washington?

Finally, the real argument: Biden feared he would cross a Putin red line, thereby risking all-out war in Europe. We risk that war already, however, by supplying anti-aircraft and anti-tank systems, intelligence and cyberwarfare capabilities. All this aid has to cross NATO borders to get to Ukraine, just like the MiGs. Anything other than Ukraine’s unconditional surrender risks displeasing the Kremlin. There is no legal, moral or military rationale that supports disapproving the MiGs but allows other advanced-weapons assistance, only fear and sophistry.

Indeed, the administration is also leaking assiduously that it is considering alternative forms of aid. Undoubtedly, steady increases in rhetorical bombardments, permanent deployment of Vice President Kamala Harris to Europe to boost our allies’ confidence, ramped up White House and Pentagon press briefings and longer telephone calls from Biden to Zelensky are all under active consideration.

We cannot precisely measure the intangible effects on morale, both in Kyiv and Moscow, of Biden’s rejection of the MiG transfer. It would be stunning, however, if Zelensky’s advisers and Ukraine’s military were not dismayed and Putin’s elated. Whatever the precise operational value of the Polish MiGs, such a tangible sign of American and NATO support could have been inspiring. With both the MiGs and no-fly zones off the table, Ukraine’s options are narrowing.

Pentagon officials rightly remember Clausewitz’s insight: “Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult.” Biden took a simple idea, made it difficult and then rejected it. Congratulations.

John Bolton was national security adviser to President Donald Trump from 2018 to 2019 and US ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006.

Meanwhile, in the Middle East: The Biden administration’s strategy is causing real problems

March 08, 2022

This article appeared in New York Daily News on March 8th, 2022. Click here to view the original article.

Ukraine’s ongoing tragedy is now having dangerous ramifications in the Middle East, fueled by significant Biden administration policy failures. The United Arab Emirates, normally a staunch American ally, abstained recently on a UN Security Council resolution condemning Russia’s invasion. The reason: President Biden declined to relist Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who had repeatedly attacked civilian targets in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, as a foreign terrorist organization. Biden had earlier removed the Houthis, Iran’s surrogates in Yemen’s civil war, from the list, purportedly to mitigate Yemen’s sustained humanitarian crisis.

The UAE pressed to reverse Biden’s delisting after early February Houthi attacks on civilian targets in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, but the White House failed to act.

When Biden pressured the UAE, now a non-permanent Security Council member, to support his anti-Russia resolution, the UAE abstained instead. Embarrassing Biden reversals also include initially waiving, and now supporting, sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline, which may have encouraged Moscow’s aggression.

Bumbling the Houthi threat reflects Biden’s profound misperceptions about what constitutes a serious menace to Middle East and global peace and security. Houthi strikes against civilian targets and threats to international shipping in the critical Bab-el-Mandeb Strait are, unfortunately, nothing new. Using missiles and drones, Houthi attacks increased markedly since mid-2019, along with increased Shia militia attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq. These dangers would not exist without Iranian weapons shipments, training, targeting and logistics.

Because of the Yemen civil war’s complex politics, deeply-rooted underlying causes and resistance to solution, outsiders often focus on the hardships the conflict has caused. While severe and enduring, these hardships hardly explain the conflict’s causes or who is culpable. Instead, pre-existing hostility toward Saudi Arabia and the UAE, unrelated to Yemen, have colored outside judgments. The Houthis played the “victim card,” and sympathetic Westerners were duped.

Biden announced he was ending American support for the Saudi war effort in Yemen in hopes of ending the conflict, although that military support ad already been considerably reduced. Nonetheless, the Houthis continued their military efforts without evincing any real interest in resolving the conflict.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, Iran has largely escaped condemnation for meddling in Yemen, and for using the war to establish strategic positions literally in the backyards of its Arab enemies. Eliminating Tehran’s support to the Houthis would help end Yemen’s fratricide, and, equally importantly, end threats to commercial airports, oil infrastructure and other targets where innocent civilians live and work. Major airports are not far from urban population centers, and the reckless use of highly destructive weapons could easily cause mass-casualty events.
The Iran-Houthi alliance is almost entirely terrorist in its aims and methods. From its birth, Iran’s regime was a state sponsor of terrorism, so designated by Ronald Reagan in 1984. The Trump administration named the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Tehran’s external military arm, to the foreign terrorists’ list in 2019. Iran’s ayatollahs have consistently pursued terrorism, from seizing U.S. hostages in 1979 to aiding Hamas, Hezbollah and Iraqi militias, and threatening Americans worldwide.

Even so, the Biden administration is still begging Iran to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, an agreement fatally flawed from the outset, and getting worse with age.

The Houthis and their top leaders are also terrorists, as their behavior both inside Yemen and regionally amply demonstrates. As with the IRGC, the only legitimate complaint is that the U.S. government didn’t designate them as a foreign terrorist organization earlier. The designation expressly provided ways to ensure it did not impede delivery of humanitarian assistance to Yemeni civilians, UN protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.

Accordingly, while Yemen’s conflict remains complex and difficult, and not easily solvable, Iran’s presence is totally self-interested. It is not about Yemen, but about Iran’s efforts to achieve regional and religious hegemony through its own terrorism, assistance to terrorist groups and its pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

Unless and until Americans understand this reality, grave humanitarian challenges in Yemen will persist, and gullible Westerners will still believe they can make a viable agreement with Iran to limit its determined quest for nuclear weapons. But even if Houthis are returned to the foreign terrorist organization list, it is unclear the Biden administration understands these larger points.

Bolton is a former U.S. ambassador to the UN and former national security adviser.

Thinking strategically about Ukraine

March 04, 2022

This article appeared in The Hill on March 3rd, 2022. Click here to view the original article.

Just days into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Europeans and Biden administration supporters are already urging that we begin finding “off ramps” for Russian President Vladimir Putin. These sources counsel “moderating” the West’s current efforts to avoid “backing Putin into a corner.” Some focus particularly on Russia’s heightened nuclear alert status, or speculation about Putin’s mental stability.

This is exactly the wrong approach at the wrong time for the wrong reasons. It ignores both what’s actually happening in Ukraine, and the real point of Putin’s aggression: to weaken NATO and reestablish Moscow’s hegemony (or even sovereignty) over the former Soviet Union.

Make no mistake: The stakes are global, as China watches what Russia achieves in Europe to see what it can do in the Indo-Pacific. President Biden’s State of the-Union address, remarkably substance-free on national-security issues, only confirms that he is running out of ideas on Ukraine and the larger strategic challenges.

Having failed to deter Moscow’s unprovoked aggression against Kyiv; with economic sanctions ramped up only belatedly, and insufficient to halt the ongoing assault; and as Russian military forces continue their attacks, the West does not have a sufficient position of strength to contemplate finding Putin graceful exits. Concessions now will only encourage Putin to continue and substantially expand military efforts to achieve his objectives. 

Ironically, to say the least, we were finally moving in the opposite direction from finding “off ramps.” NATO’s resolve has been strengthened, although not enough. Outside NATO, a recent poll showed for the first time that a majority of Finland’s population supports NATO membership. This unprecedented 53 percent level of support is up dramatically from the last pre-invasion poll in 2017, which showed only 19 percent in favor. Support for NATO membership in Sweden has also reportedly risen to new highs. The prospect of more NATO on its northern flank can only depress Russia’s Defense Ministry.

In sanctions policy, the United Kingdom and Canada have been leading the way, while complaining quietly about the lack of sustained U.S. leadership. In Britain, especially, concerns are growing that the European Union (EU) rather than NATO will emerge as the West’s main engine of policymaking. London correctly worries that the EU’s congenital institutional myopia will lead to premature concessions, which Biden’s lethargy only reinforces.

Broaching “off ramps” now is dangerous. So far, Ukraine’s defenses have been remarkably strong, and the courage of its people readily apparent, disproving the refrain of America’s Kremlin surrogates that Russia conquering Ukraine is a “natural” reunion of a common people. Ukraine’s willingness to fight alone (the sad reality, Western illusions to the contrary notwithstanding) against aggression evidences its determination to maintain independence.

However, and without minimizing the importance of Ukraine’s spirit and strength, today’s highly fluid battlefield demonstrates that the West’s collective effort is insufficient. Moscow’s own mistakes significantly contributed to its relative lack of progress. In the war’s opening week, Putin tried to achieve too many objectives with inadequate human and materiel resources. By ignoring the ancient maxim to concentrate forces on fewer targets, Putin opened defensive opportunities that Ukraine’s military readily seized. Moreover, Russian logistical support for its lead combat elements seemed poorly planned and inadequate, as press and social media reports show repeatedly. 

These early failures and miscalculations cost Russia dearly and bought precious time for Ukraine’s defenders, but the “correlation of forces,” as they said in Soviet circles, is changing in the Kremlin’s favor. Over 80 percent of the troops garrisoned near Ukraine’s borders are now moving into action, with the rest following shortly. Russia’s mistakes will lead in due course to purges in its defense ministry, but the blunt reality is that Moscow still has time to get its act together.

Existing sanctions will not materially hamper Russia’s near-term war effort, and not necessarily in the long-term either. Iran, North Korea and Venezuela’s Maduro regime have all faced equal or more-severe sanctions regimes, and sadly they are still standing. Russia had ample advance notice of what was coming, and we may well find that those long weeks watching Russian military assets accumulate on Ukraine’s border were also long weeks where Russian assets were exiting vulnerable positions abroad. Even now, the EU is leaving two of Russia’s three largest banks connected to the SWIFT interbank messaging system.

Most importantly, until the West drives a stake through the heart of Russia’s energy sector, Moscow will continue to profit from this crisis. Europe’s reliance on Russian energy supplies could soon open debilitating loopholes in the sanctions if “off ramps” for Putin take priority.

The historical record does not provide a solid basis to believe in EU staying power, whatever the current rhetorical bravado. Russian hydrocarbon sales are reportedly down and selling at bargain-basement prices. The next step: more pressure.

Russia’s real territorial objectives in Ukraine are still, in my view, expanding control over (1) eastern and southern Ukraine, home to a predominantly culturally, linguistically and religiously Russian population; and (2) the entire Black Sea northern coast, including the port of Odessa, thus landlocking a rump Ukraine, and severely squeezing it economically. 

Russia’s success to date in eastern Ukraine has been limited. But in the south, striking out from Crimea and attacking from the Black Sea, Russia has achieved more, while Western media have focused on Kyiv and Kharkiv. Putin is therefore actually closer to success, his preferred “off-ramp,” than the West realizes.

In coming weeks, we must avoid “off ramps” or anything else that undercuts the imperative of increasing pressure on Moscow. For example, we should eviscerate Russia’s energy sector by prohibiting sales of hydrocarbons to all NATO and EU countries, and anyone else we can sign up. Dry up Putin’s revenues, which amount to 30 percent of Russia’s domestic economy and 60 percent of its export revenues, and make it expend its foreign currency reserves as fast as possible. Declare a visa ban on all Russian citizens, not just a few elite figures. There is much more to do.

But above all else, no “off ramps” should be visible while Moscow insists on sustained belligerence in its “near abroad” and its efforts to weaken NATO. This is not the time for tactical thinking about Ukraine alone, but for strategic thinking about global peace and security.

John Bolton was national security adviser to President Trump from 2018 to 2019, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006 and held senior State Department posts in 2001-2005 and 1985-1989. His most recent book is “The Room Where It Happened“ (2020). He is the founder of John Bolton Super PAC, a political action committee supporting candidates who believe in a strong U.S. foreign policy.

Entente Multiplies the Threat From Russia and China

March 01, 2022

This article appeared in The Wall Street Journal on February 15th, 2022. Click here to view the original article.

It’s been more than 75 years since the U.S. last faced an axis of strategic threats. Fortunately, that axis proved dysfunctional. Had it been otherwise, Japan and Germany would have systematically attacked the Soviet Union, not America, first.

Our current strategic adversaries, Russia and China, aren’t an axis. They’ve formed an entente, tighter today than any time since de-Stalinization split the communist world. Involving some mutual interests and objectives, displays of support, and coordination, ententes are closer than mere bilateral friendships but discernibly looser than full alliances. The pre-World War I Triple Entente (Russia, France and Britain) is the modern era’s prototype.

Moscow is junior partner to Beijing, the reverse of Cold War days. The Soviet Union’s dissolution considerably weakened Russia, while China has had enormous economic growth since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. Russia’s junior-partner status looks permanent, given disparities in population and economic strength (whatever today’s military balance), but Vladimir Putin seems determined to move closer to China.

This entente will last. Economic and political interests are mutually complementary for the foreseeable future. Russia is a significant source of hydrocarbons for energy-poor China and a longtime supplier of advanced weapons. Russia has hegemonic aspirations in the former Soviet territory, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. China has comparable aspirations in the Indo-Pacific region and the Middle East (and world-wide in due course). The entente is growing stronger, as China’s unambiguous support for Russia in Europe’s current crisis proves.

Washington would undoubtedly be more secure if it could sunder the Moscow-Beijing link, but our near-term prospects are limited. This entente, along with many other factors, renders especially shortsighted the common assertion that opposing China’s existential threat to the West requires reducing or even withdrawing U.S. support for allies elsewhere.

Barack Obama’s “pivot” or “rebalancing” to Asia produced a decade of variations on the theme that China matters and other threats don’t. Donald Trump agreed, although he wanted primarily to strike “the biggest trade deal in history” or impose tariffs if he couldn’t, along with assaulting China for the “Wuhan virus” when it became politically convenient. Some analysts argue that the global terrorist threat is diminishing and that hydrocarbon resources are becoming less important because of the green-fuel revolution. Both would mean that we could safely reduce U.S. attention to the Middle East. Thus, Joe Biden argued that withdrawing from Afghanistan was required to increase attention to China’s menace. Sen. Josh Hawley and others even believe we shouldn’t be deeply involved in the Eastern Europe crisis, to avoid diverting attention and resources from countering Beijing.

Such assertions about reduced or redirected U.S. global involvement are strategic errors. They reflect the misperception that our international attention and resources are zero-sum assets, so that whatever notice is paid to interests and threats other than China is wasted.

This is false, both its underlying zero-sum premise and in underestimating non-Chinese threats. Our problem is failing to devote anything like adequate attention or resources to protecting vital global interests. Political elites (who are noticeably lacking in figures like Truman and Reagan) focus on exotic social theories and domestic economics rather than national-security threats. America’s own shortsightedness, particularly an inadequate defense budget, makes us vulnerable to foreign peril. Washington must pivot not among competing world-wide priorities, but away from domestic navel-gazing.

Critically, those who exclusively fear China ignore the Russia-China entente. The entente serves to project China’s power through Russia, as Beijing also projects power through North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs. Moreover, Beijing closely assesses Washington’s reactions to crises like the one in Ukraine to decide how to structure future provocations.

Mr. Biden had it exactly backward in Afghanistan. The U.S. withdrawal not only signaled insularity and weakness, but allowed China and Russia to extend their influence in Kabul, Central Asia and the Middle East. Beijing and Moscow thereby also became more confident and assertive. And that’s not to mention that even the Biden administration admits that terrorism’s threat is rising again in Afghanistan.

Beijing is not a regional threat but a global one. Treating the rest of the world as a third-tier priority, a distraction, the U.S. plays directly into China’s hands. Pivoting to Asia wouldn’t strengthen America against China. It would have precisely the opposite effect and weaken our global posture.

We need to see this big picture before the Russia-China entente grows up to be an axis.

Mr. Bolton is author of “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.” He served as the president’s national security adviser, 2018-19, and ambassador to the United Nations, 2005-06.

John Bolton on the lessons to be drawn from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

March 01, 2022

This article appeared in The Economist on February 28th, 2022. Click here to view the original article.

The West must not lapse back into complacency about potential aggressors, says a former US national security adviser

JUST DAYS into what might be a protracted Russia-Ukraine war, politicians and pundits are already drawing sweeping conclusions. For some, Russia’s failure to gain a swift, decisive, low-casualty victory renders Vladimir Putin’s downfall inevitable, and imminent. For others, a Russian victory, however bloody, directly threatens Ukraine’s neighbours and would mean sustained tensions in Europe. Which is correct, I can’t tell. Edmund Burke’s advice is, as usual, apt: “Please God, I will walk with caution, whenever I am not able clearly to see my way before me.” A few prudential lessons, however, are clear.

First, pay attention to what adversaries say. In 2005 Mr Putin said that the Soviet Union’s disintegration was the 20th century’s greatest geopolitical catastrophe. Slowly but systematically since then, he has sought to reverse the collapse, most visibly through invasions, annexations and creating independent states—in Georgia (2008) and Ukraine (2014). Mr Putin has also used less kinetic means to bring states like Belarus, Armenia and Kazakhstan into closer Russian orbits.

While this unfolded, the West remained largely insouciant: not spending adequate amounts on defence; growing increasingly reliant on Russian oil and gas supplies; and mirror-imaging Russia’s leadership as Europeans-in-waiting (ie, just like us except not as refined). Those days may be over, but Winston Churchill’s insight as to “the confirmed unteachability of mankind” remains profound. Been reading speeches by Xi Jinping, Ayatollah Khamenei and Kim Jong Un recently?

Second, the aggressive use of military force is back in style. The “rules-based international order” just took a direct hit, not that it was ever as sturdy as imagined in elite salons and academic cloisters. Although the steps taken to prevent Russia’s invasion and aid Ukraine in advance were obviously inadequate, the strength of the international reaction once the shooting actually started is impressive. It helps immeasurably that, so far, Ukraine’s resistance has been stiff. But let’s not be naive. Reports that Russian forces got lost, ran out of fuel, surrendered readily or even refused to cross into Ukraine all bespeak a Russian military not nearly so prepared, in morale or resources as Mr Putin believed.

The real unknown remains whether the widespread spontaneous outrage is sustainable, or whether the West lapses back into complacency regarding Russia and other potential international aggressors. World peace is not at hand. Rhetoric and virtue-signalling are no substitute for new strategic thinking and higher defence budgets. Germany’s commitment on February 27th to meet a commitment it had already made in 2014 to spend 2% of its GDP on defence merits applause. More will be merited when we see the colour of its money.

There has rightly been growing attention to the enormous threat China poses to Taiwan’s independence. So grave is it that Abe Shinzo, a former Japanese prime minister, and others have advised Washington to abandon “strategic ambiguity” over whether it will defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack. The Japanese now fully understand that an attack on Taiwan is an attack on Japan.

North Korea’s threat to South Korea is neither trivial nor a cold-war relic, especially in light of Pyongyang’s increasingly successful nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programmes. For Beijing, the prison-state North is an asset with which to threaten the western Pacific and beyond. South Korea’s impending presidential election will reveal much about the impact of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, and its implications for smaller countries abutting large, former-Communist, land empires.

In the Middle East, Iran proves that extremist, expansionist theology is still alive and well. Tehran’s hostile activities parallel Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile threats, and extend to providing drones and missiles to Yemen’s Houthi rebels to attack civilian targets in nearby countries; aiding terrorist outfits like Hamas and Hizbullah; and using conventional forces and terrorist tactics in Iraq and Syria to advance Iran’s interests.

Third, the new Russia-China entente is rolling along. Breast-beating about isolating Russia refers primarily to isolating it from Europe (which has, entirely through its own fault over several decades, become over-dependent on Russia for energy supplies). It remains to be seen whether the rest of the world will concur in the long run. Merely as one example, when Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution condemning the Ukraine invasion, India, China and the United Arab Emirates all abstained. China may well be providing Russia with a tacit insurance policy through a willingness to buy any oil and gas Europe decides to embargo (not that Europe has acted yet; it’s cold in Berlin).

More important is the strategic positioning of the Russia-China entente. Although not yet a full-scale alliance, the Beijing-Moscow relationship is something the West feared during cold-war days. Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger were determined to “play the China card” to widen the gap between Beijing and Moscow that had been opening since Nikita Khrushchev launched de-Stalinisation. There is no doubt the entente has legs, after years in which the two countries’ interests have been converging. With both empires now showing their fangs, playing a new strategy “card” to split them will be difficult. The entente is likely to be a threatening reality for decades.

In sum, international threats are back with a vengeance. The critical unanswered question is whether the United States and the West generally can shake off their lassitude. ■

John Bolton was America’s national security adviser in 2018-19 for President Donald Trump. He was ambassador to the United Nations in 2005-06 and served in the administrations of presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. 

Broken Biden sank the West’s efforts to stop Putin invading Ukraine

February 28, 2022

This article appeared in The Daily Telegraph on February 28th, 2022. Click here to view the original article.

President Joe Biden has explained why he failed to stop Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He admitted that he had no idea what he was doing.

For months, Nato members and other governments thought they were working to deter Vladimir Putin from unprovoked aggression against Ukraine. The entire debate centred on choosing the most effective measures to convince Putin of the enormous consequences he and Russia would face if they resorted to military force.

Western leaders asked themselves what combination of preventative actions, threats of economic sanctions and even – in the minds of some, myself included – military force would be the most effective deterrent against a Russian invasion. What measures would persuade Moscow that the costs of any military action would be prohibitive, and more serious for Russia than any possible benefits?

Today, it is tragically obvious this collective effort failed. Last Thursday, at a White House press conference, we may have learnt why. Biden admitted that he never believed his threats to impose economic sanctions against Russia, and other steps the West might take if the Kremlin “further invaded” Ukraine, would deter Putin. The transcript is admittedly confused, as are so many of Biden’s unscripted remarks, but the meaning is clear.

A reporter asked: “Sir, sanctions clearly have not been enough to deter Vladimir Putin to this point. What is going to stop him?” Biden answered: “No one expected the sanctions to prevent anything from happening.” That was news to Washington and beyond, where people believed their deliberations and preparations were intended to do precisely that.

Another reporter asked: “If sanctions cannot stop President Putin, what penalty can?” Biden said: “I didn’t say sanctions couldn’t stop him.” Perhaps stunned at Biden contradicting his own words, uttered just moments before, the reporter tried again: “But you’ve been talking about the threat of these sanctions for several weeks now.” Biden interrupted: “Yes, but the threat of the sanctions and imposing the sanctions and seeing the effect of the sanctions are two different things… He’s going to begin to see the effect of the sanctions.” If that wasn’t bad enough, Biden said repeatedly that “this is going to take time”, as though every day in Ukraine isn’t agonising.

Translating Biden’s answers into sensible English leads to disturbing conclusions. Possibly, he simply doesn’t understand what deterrence is, and that it almost always includes credible threats of future punishment to affect an adversary’s current actions. It hardly inspires confidence in US leadership when its President fails to grasp the vital concept that kept the West safe during the Cold War’s nuclear standoff. Yesterday, Putin showed what he thought of Biden’s leadership by placing Russia’s nuclear deterrent on high alert – a provocative move, to say the least.

It may be that Biden was never confident Putin could be deterred, certainly not by threats alone. In that case, unless Biden was prepared to accept the inevitable devastation that an invasion of Ukraine would cause, he should have spared no effort to develop additional steps to prevent it. He did not, despite widespread, urgent advice that the sanctions he threatened were insufficient, and that real-time costs had to be imposed on Putin before he initiated military action.

The rubble in Biden’s mind is what it is. We should not await improvement. Instead, we immediately need new ideas that can change the direction of events and impact Putin and Russia.

The Ukrainian people are certainly doing their part. They are fighting hard and courageously, and their spirit is high. The contemptuous riposte of a small outpost in the Black Sea (“Russian warship, go f— yourself”) reminds us all of General McAuliffe’s equally defiant response to German demands he surrender during the Battle of the Bulge: “Nuts!”

One new idea is for Nato and EU countries simply to bar entry to any Russian citizens. Such a visa ban is clear, sweeping, immediate and readily enforceable. This would be far more shocking to Russians than sanctions against a small number of high-ranking targets. (Now under both Russian and Chinese sanctions myself, I can say confidently they don’t affect me at all. I only regret I didn’t have any assets Russia and China could have seized!) We could go further and expel Russians already in Western countries.

Some will say this is too harsh and disruptive. Really? Ask Ukraine what harsh and disruptive mean. The West has failed to deter Russia’s attack, and its post-invasion sanctions have so far been pinpricks, hardly even touching Russia’s critical energy sector. If there are better ideas than a visa ban, let’s get them out in public. Otherwise, we will just be sitting back watching the casualty lists get longer.

John Bolton is a former US national security adviser

Gradual Sanctions Against Russia are a Loser

February 27, 2022

This article appeared in The New York Post on February 27th, 2022. Click here to view the original article.

The Biden Administration has been explicit that it is pursuing a strategy of “graduated escalation” in imposing sanctions against Russia for invading Ukraine. This approach is virtually certain to be less effective in imposing economic hardship on Russia than a more robust effort, thereby prolonging Ukraine’s agony and postponing Russia’s isolation. Gradual escalation in economic warfare carries precisely the same risks as in kinetic warfare; the enemy has a say in both cases. Biden could be introducing us to to the Vietnam of economic sanctions.

Indeed, to all outwards appearances, Biden’s graduated-escalation policy is motivated largely by domestic American political considerations, especially regarding Russia’s energy sector. With U.S. inflation high and rising, economic pain at home is the last thing the White House wants, especially soaring oil and gas prices. Consumers feel the squeeze not only when they fill their gas tanks, but in their other purchases that require transporting good to stores or front porches, especially food.

A little history on sanctions and recent U.S. foreign policy. It says something about today’s Democratic Party that Woodrow Wilson’s views are too hard-line to contemplate. Wilson, amidst his prolonged reveries about the League of Nations, strongly advocated using economic sanctions in lieu of military force to resolve international disputes. He called sanctions “a peaceful, silent deadly remedy,” and “a hand upon the throat of the offending nation.” Too much for the Biden Administration.

America’s experience with sanctions has been mixed, and suggests several conditions for effectiveness. First, sanctions should be imposed swiftly and by surprise if possible, to prevent targets from taking precautionary or protective steps to mitigate the sanctions’ impact. That obviously did not happen with Russia, international sanctions having been threatened for months, and even if not known in precise detail, easily imaginable. If Russia is not prepared for the measures already imposed so far, the Kremlin is guilty of governance malpractice.

Second, sanctions should be as sweeping and comprehensive as possible, since no sanctions will be completely effective. Lesser measures produce lesser results. Phrases like “targeted sanctions” sound good in diplomatic communiques, but broad-gauge sanctions are far more likely to cause sustained pain. Even history’s most-extensive sanctions, the UN Security Council measures against Iraq after invading Kuwait, did not ultimately succeed in forcing Saddam Hussein out. Concern for second-order impacts of sanctions on America’s economy is warranted, but sanctions should maximize harm to the target, with other measures separately protecting the domestic economy. Dialing down sanctions to protect the sanction-imposer does far more to shield the target than Biden realizes.

Finally, sanctions should go for the jugular. With Russia, its very existence as a major threat relies on the revenues from its oil and gas production and exports. As some wags have said, it’s more a big gas station than a real national economy. Russian earnings from hydrocarbon sales internationally totaled 60% of its export revenues in 2019, and forty percent of its national-government budget. Russia’s dependence on oil and gas revenues has grown steadily over the last eight years.

The Biden Administration argues that blocking Russian hydrocarbon sales would not immediately damage Russia because of currency reserves accumulated in anticipation of just such sanctions. Of course, many more non-hydrocarbon sanctions are also required than currently announced, also hastening expending the reserves. The aggregate effect of more robust and comprehensive sanctions, including particularly oil-and-gas sanctions, would strangle Russia’s government and broader economy.

The Administration’s misguided graduated-escalation strategy and failure to strike Russia’s energy sector unfortunately reinforce one another, providing Putin a lifeline. Postponing any sanctions now, especially against energy, only sustains Moscow’s war machine. If Biden wants to keep U.S. hydrocarbon prices down for political reasons, he should consider the supply side: U.S. production increases, quickly available through already-existing horizontal-drilling and fracking infrastructure, could substantially mitigate price rises on American consumers.

Europeans may have a harder time, entirely through their own fault, and contrary to U.S. warnings dating to Ronald Reagan against depending on Russian energy sources. And what better opportunity or higher motive for Germany and other governments to force their economies toward green energy than supporting the courageous Ukrainian people. No one is asking for unnecessary sacrifice, but no anti-aggression policy in Ukraine is cost free. That is the reality of a globalized economy. Otherwise, the West’s policy is simply, “we support Ukraine, but not when it is inconvenient.”

It’s time to squeeze the Kremlin hard, not engage in semiotic warfare, gradual escalation, and pearl clutching. Drive a stake through Russia’s energy sector. Now.

The battle for the soul of the Republican Party has just begun 

February 11, 2022

This article appeared in The Daily Telegraph on February 11th, 2022. Click here to view the original article.

‘President Trump is wrong.” With these words last Friday, former vice president Mike Pence drew an unambiguous red line in the fight for the Republican Party’s future. Although the battle began well before January 6 last year, when Pence rejected Trump’s direction to subvert the Constitution when counting the Electoral College’s vote, Pence’s steadfastness and clarity come at a critical moment.

As the conservative-libertarian Federalist Society was applauding Pence, the Republican National Committee tragically voted to censure Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for participating in a House of Representatives committee investigating the January 6 riots. This self-inflicted wound evokes the remark attributed to the Marquis de Talleyrand: “It’s worse than a crime, it’s a mistake.”

Pence’s words mean inevitably that Republicans must choose sides between supporting Trump’s dangerous effort, in his own recent words, to “overturn the election,” or Pence’s adherence to the clear Constitutional text. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s sharp criticism of the Cheney-Kinzinger censure on Tuesday underlines the importance of Pence’s stance. This issue will now play out in two ways: constitutionally, as people align with either Trump’s view or Pence’s, between which there is no compromise; and politically, in the race for 2024’s Republican presidential nomination.6 sec

On the substance of the Constitutional issue, the merits are entirely with Pence. Neither the original Constitution nor the Twelfth Amendment give Congress or the vice president anything other than a clerical role. Pence said it eloquently on Friday: “I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone. And frankly, there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American President.”

No “constitutional conservative” can seriously argue the Framers intended Congress to do more than tabulate the respective States’ electoral certificates. The Framers wanted a system of separated powers, with President and Congress elected by different methods and constituencies, thus establishing the independence of government’s two elected branches. The Electoral College’s sole purpose is electing the President and Vice President; it was created precisely to exclude Congress from that function. And in America’s federal system, each State determines who its valid electors are, not Congress. Trump’s assertion that Congress has a larger role subverts the most fundamental premise of America’s national government. It is not a parliamentary system.

Politically, therefore, aligning with Pence or Trump is a flat, either-or choice. Pence, in the early maneuvering for what will blossom into a fully-fledged presidential campaign, has tried hard not to alienate Trump or his supporters. To maintain his own unquestioned integrity, however, he cannot bend on the correctness of his January 6 conduct. Party leaders and members were always going to have to choose sides, and that moment has arrived.

Moreover, other prospective Republican candidates, currently numbering between 15 and 20, must also now declare themselves one way or the other. In the campaign’s current “testing-the-waters” stage, most candidates are seeking the best of both worlds: separating themselves from Trump’s worst excesses without incurring Trump’s wrath. Good luck with that minuet.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who does very well in public opinion polls even with Trump included as an alternative nominee, has consistently refused to state publicly that he will not seek the nomination if Trump runs. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has already said he is in whatever Trump does. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan and Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse, who may run, will have no trouble aligning clearly with Pence.

By contrast, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has clung to Trump like a limpet, now faces his worst nightmare. Senators Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Rick Scott, and more now have the same dilemma. To exemplify the dangers in Trump-world, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has said she won’t run if Trump does, but he nonetheless castigates her mercilessly for her inconsistencies (which will likely doom her campaign in any case).

Some commentators say the issue is philosophical, with more-conservative Republicans supporting Trump, while moderates oppose him. This is false. Donald Trump has no philosophy or policy other than Donald Trump’s greater glory. That is why the debate Pence has created is so important for the party’s future. It can either be a conservative party or a Trump party. It cannot be both. My bet is that philosophy, which ultimately brings electoral victory, will prevail.

Putin’s effort to split NATO may depend on Germany

February 03, 2022

This article appeared in The Hill on February 1st, 2022. Click here to view the original article.

Make no mistake, Russia’s fundamental strategic objective in coercing Ukraine is to undermine NATO. In Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mind, a weaker NATO directly correlates with a stronger Russia. Long-festering policy differences within the alliance, self-inflicted vulnerabilities to external pressures and weak political leadership in key Western states are already on full display. Ponderous rhetoric about NATO solidarity, endlessly repeated by the Biden administration, only underscores rather than conceals these problems.

Putin well understands these phenomena. He is actively seeking to exacerbate existing tensions and weaknesses, and create new ones, and has already made significant progress in undercutting the alliance. Today, these divisions eviscerate the credibility of threatened post-invasion sanctions against Russia, no matter how serious the West might be. If Russia remains undeterred, the long-term damage to America’s global position, compounding the corrosive effects of the Afghan withdrawal, could be incalculable.

NATO’s problems are hardly new. Not for nothing was Henry Kissinger’s pathbreaking mid-1960’s analysis entitled “The Troubled Partnership.” Nonetheless, the undeniable Soviet Cold War threat; America’s sustained, vitally important perception that ensuring Europe’s security enhanced its own; and U.S. leaders like Ronald Reagan, determined to defeat communism not merely “manage” or contain it, ultimately prevailed. NATO members’ collective-defense commitments held, and the USSR collapsed. The story becomes vaguer from there, with upticks after 9-11 and during the ensuing war on Islamicist terrorism.

During the 1990’s generally-shared Western euphoria (remember “the end of history”?), NATO’s expansion was both inevitable and beneficial to all involved. But Washington failed to think through how far NATO should grow. There was talk of possibly including Russia at some point, although that opportunity, not nurtured seriously during the Clinton administration, died through inattention. Spain’s former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar proposed making NATO a global alliance, including members such as Japan, Australia and Israel, but Europe’s burghers were uninterested.

Unfortunately, and critical here, NATO’s eastern European flank was left unfinished, with many former Soviet republics isolated in an ambiguous, clearly dangerous grey zone between NATO and Russia. In 2008, with bipartisan support, President George W. Bush proposed fast-tracking NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. Germany and France blocked the move, and now assert tautologically that not being NATO members means they are of no special concern to the alliance. Contemporary criticisms that Ukraine is not ready for NATO membership because of corruption and an unsteady democracy overlook Bush’s prior initiative. They also conveniently ignore that eastern and central European states admitted after the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union collapsed were hardly clones of Luxembourg or Canada.

But who determines the strategic status of the grey-zone countries? Ukraine exemplifies this issue, struggling to shed its communist past and create durable representative government. While key national territory has already been annexed or subjugated by Moscow, Ukrainians nonetheless still believe they should decide their international future. Russia believes it should decide, and many Europeans and Americans seemingly agree: Russia is powerful, borders Ukraine and there are historic antecedents. Perhaps we should ask China’s neighbors how they feel about that logic. Not long ago, we could have asked that question of Germany’s neighbors.

Undeniably, Ukraine is now under brutal pressure, including the palpable risk of further Russian military invasion. In response, President Biden has not solidified the alliance. He has in fact increased its divisions through his soon-to-be-historical banter about “minor incursions,” desperate efforts to concede something to Moscow to halt the march toward military hostilities and public disagreement with Ukraine itself on the imminence of a Russian attack. Observers watch daily for more signs of Biden going wobbly.

Europe’s reaction is mixed. Despite domestic political turmoil, Great Britain has been firm, even ahead of the U.S. by some measures. Eastern and central European NATO members need no lectures on the Kremlin’s threat, and they are wholly resolute, notwithstanding reliance on Russian natural gas. More “distant” NATO countries are less visible, but at least not obstructionist. France is being France, with President Emmanuel Macron, facing a difficult reelection race, pirouetting around the international stage searching for attention.

Then there’s Germany. Basing its reluctance to do much of anything on its recent history, Berlin has it exactly backwards. Precisely this history should impel Germans to be the most steadfast and resolute opponent of efforts to change European borders by politico-military aggression. Of all European countries, Germany owes this to its neighbors, in concrete deeds not just words. Instead, it has been passive at best, and frequently unhelpful. This is NATO’s core weakness, and Putin is pounding on it for all he is worth.

Germany led Europe in ignoring Reagan’s 1980’s admonitions not to become dependent on Russian oil and gas. Incredibly, Russia’s Gazprom hired former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to help complete the first Nordstream pipeline, begun during his tenure. Schroeder’s successors effectively did nothing to mitigate Germany’s vulnerability and now act as if terminating Nordstream II is unthinkable. Maybe the devil made them do it.

Germany has not come within sight of meeting NATO’s 2014 Cardiff agreement that members spend 2 percent of GDP on defense. It has long refused to provide Ukraine with lethal military aid, and recently barred Estonia from sending German-origin weapons to Kyiv. Berlin’s offers to send 5,000 military helmets and a field hospital were greeted with well-deserved mockery and incredulity. To top it off, the commander of Germany’s navy was recently fired for all but supporting Russia’s position.

Newly-installed Chancellor Olaf Scholz will meet Biden in Washington on Feb 7. They have a lot to talk about. Germany was delighted to shelter under Cold War America’s nuclear umbrella and NATO’s European fastnesses. We will soon see if Germany is ready to do the right thing by Ukraine. Putin is watching closely.

John Bolton was national security adviser to President Trump from 2018 to 2019, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006 and held senior State Department posts in 2001-2005 and 1985-1989. His most recent book is “The Room Where It Happened” (2020). He is the founder of John Bolton Super PAC, a political action committee supporting candidates who believe in a strong U.S. foreign policy.

Putin’s playing chess in Ukraine and Biden steps in as pawn

January 25, 2022

This article appeared in The New York Post on January 23th, 2022. Click here to view the original article.

President Biden’s first press conference in 10 months, on the eve of his inauguration’s anniversary, made news. But not the kind he wanted. Asked about Russia’s possible invasion of Ukraine, NATO’s lack of unity and the likely failure of economic sanctions to deter Vladimir Putin, Biden answered that “the idea that NATO is not going to be united, I don’t buy . . . It depends on what [Russia] does. It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do, et cetera.”

In a stroke, Biden demonstrated he didn’t understand his own Ukraine policy, undercut Kiev’s government and people, and handed Moscow an engraved invitation to make a “minor incursion” into Ukraine.

That was bad enough, but further answers made his position even more unintelligible. He said, “and so, I got to make sure everybody is on the same page as we move along . . . But it depends on what [Putin] does, as to the exact — to what extent we’re going to be able to get total unity on the Rus — on the NATO front.”

Biden was correct that Putin “was calculating what the immediate . . . and the long-term consequences of [sic] Russia will be.” Right now, Putin has the initiative and a broad range of options. America and the West are reactive and disunited, as Biden all but admitted. Putin is following a strategic playbook encompassing the entire former Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact “allies,” grounded on his 2005 precept that “the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.” The United States and NATO are answering this strategic threat only tactically. The West focuses on avoiding imminent hostilities, whereas Putin is seeking enduring hegemony over former Soviet territories. The White House still fails to comprehend that Putin need not conduct all-out invasion of Ukraine to win significant new advantages. Seizing “pro-Russian” areas, leaving a rump independent Ukraine or installing a Moscow-friendly government might be Putin’s real goal. Or he may make political or military moves elsewhere, in Belarus, Georgia or Kazakhstan for example, for which the alliance seems completely unprepared.

Even worse, Moscow is now suckering Washington into negotiations over “security guarantees” that weaken and divide NATO itself. Biden said, “NATO is not going to take in Ukraine anytime in the next few decades,” an astonishing unforced error. George W. Bush was ready in April 2008 to fast-track Ukraine and Georgia as NATO members, but Germany and France objected. Four months later, Russia invaded Georgia and in 2014 invaded Ukraine, annexing Crimea and seizing control over the Donbas. NATO has never admitted a country with unwanted foreign troops on its soil because that would effectively put NATO in a state of war with the occupying country. Of course, Russia is the aggressor in every case, with its “minor incursions” not just in Georgia and Ukraine but many others.

Russia creates an artificial crisis, then graciously accedes to resolve it by “accepting” precisely the objective it sought in the first place. Biden’s response is totally backwards, signaling willingness to discuss restrictions on Ukraine’s NATO candidacy and limitations on missile and troop dispositions near Russia’s borders, all key Kremlin demands. This is a major error, which will only prompt further demands. Russia, a consistent violator of international commitments, is the aggressor, not NATO, which has always been a purely defensive alliance. Geographic restrictions on NATO deployments endanger its members and benefit Russia, as Poland, the Baltics and other central Europeans fully grasp, even if Germany and France don’t. Russia has always feared violating a NATO member’s border, but weakening NATO resolve undermines even its historically successful defensive purpose, as Moscow clearly understands.

Playing small ball with Putin, as Biden is doing, will not durably protect Ukraine or other endangered states. Biden’s inadequate and now incoherent policy is not deterring Russian military action, and timidity simply incentivizes Putin to increase his demands. We risk a downward spiral of NATO concessions to avoid military conflict today, but which will only increase its likelihood soon thereafter.

Indeed, the situation may be so far gone Putin inevitably emerges the winner. The last hope is that Biden immediately reverses course and seizes the initiative and insist the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline never operate until Russian troops leave any country that does not want them. Urgently required are more weapons and more NATO troops, not to fight but to train and exercise with Ukrainians, thereby increasing Moscow’s uncertainty and risk. So doing, of course, requires strength from the Europeans, especially France and Germany, that they may well lack.

This is Putin’s calculus, which Biden’s statements and last week’s negotiations did not change.

Time is on Putin’s side.

John Bolton was national security adviser to President Donald Trump from 2018 to 2019 and US ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006.

By John Bolton

The West must not lapse back into complacency about potential aggressors, says a former US national security adviser