I suspect that there will be no invasion of Ukraine.
Why?
Putin has demanded that Ukraine never be allowed to join NATO. I think that the Americans will agree. In particular, I think Biden will promise Putin that Ukraine will never be allowed to join NATO, and he will also ask that Putin keep this promise secret. This approach is consist with Biden's emerging foreign policy philosophy - The Biden Doctrine - of matching America's commitments to America's interests. The USA has no observable interest in defending Ukraine from Russia. NATO's expansion is probably over.
The precedent for this may be the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the crisis was resolved, in part, when the Americans undertook to withdraw missiles from Turkey in return for the USSR withdrawing missiles from Cuba. In order to not look like they had appeased the Soviets, the Americans asked that their promise be kept secret. They removed their missiles six months after the Soviets removed missiles from Cuba.
For an awesome series on the Cuban Missile Crisis, please see here...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEXjoBe5ZdI&list=PLrG5J-K5AYAWbzTXiTzPEFQHLoozkqchz
On the Biden Doctrine, Biden faced a mass of criticism for pulling out of Afghanistan last year. Is anyone now complaining that the USA is no longer spending its money and shedding American blood in Afghanistan?
Nope.
The complaint wasn't that Biden was pulling out... Trump was also set to pull out. The MASS complaint (and he deserved it) was HOW he pulled out. As for shedding blood.. Blowing up the aid worker and his kids to distract from how bungled the withdrawal was ... he should be facing the world court for that.
ReplyDeleteThat was a mess, but so was the last 20 years in that country...every American president who oversaw the Afghanistan disaster has blood on their hands, especially Obama. On the mess, please point to any prognosticator who said that a 300,000 person American-trained army with air power would literally melt before a 60,000 person group of terrorists on motorcycles, including the elected president fleeing the country the day that the terrorists reached his capital city. No one knew the USA could not rely on its ally to hold the Taliban for even 24 hours...that is why it was such a mess. BTW - Biden aggressively counselled that the USA should get out in 2010, predating Trump by a decade. Approximately 1,500 US service people were killed there in the years after Biden recommended that they just leave, and the USA wasted another $1.1 Trillion. Ironically, Trump and Biden saw the mess exactly the same way...simply get out. No one is saying the USA should return, ever.
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