After decades of on-again, off-again muttering, Vladimir Putin has sent his Russia (and his Belarus) to invade his neighbor, Ukraine. There are a lot of internal reasons for him to be doing this — NATO expansion is not one of them, but his own sense of mortality and history more likely are — but the result is arguably the largest military operation on European soil since the end of WW2. And it’s a conflict that will not only mean blood and suffering in the Ukraine, but further weaken the bonds of the international order and trigger further wars, if not in Europe then elsewhere.
One of the most amazing elements of the whole tragic affair so far, though, has been this sort of thing:
I mean, clearly, the era of “partisanship stops at the water’s edge” is long over (if it ever really existed), but the Republican Party’s eagerness to score whatever political points they can, in any way, under any circumstances, has reached new depths.
(Not to mention nonsensical ones: how is the President, leaving the podium and exiting the room, after briefing the press, a sign of weakness? But, following the rules of the Big Lie, the GOP simply repeats its Trump-led mantra of “Sleepy Joe” and pretends it’s being witty.)
As the situation around Ukraine worsened, the GOP had a single message: that Vladimir Putin was moving in his perceived national self-interests (which Fox folk like Tucker Carlson say seem perfectly legit to them!) because Joe Biden’s “weakness” was taunting him on. Or, put another way: This never happened under Donald Trump’s presidency! Putin respected Trump’s strength and resolve, and would never have dared do such a thing! Biden’s weak! Trump is strong! [insert sounds of beating on chest here]
Leave aside for a moment the lack of merits as to Putin’s casus belli here (which many in the GOP and GOP-adjacent seem to be flirting with simply accepting, out of some slavish devotion to Putin as a Strong Man who is anti-“woke” and pro-Christian and anti-LGBTQ and pro-“family” and therefore rings all those chimes for the far Right). Leave aside that, even if Joe Biden had literally invited Russia to invade Ukraine, invading another sovereign nation is Not Cool, and is still an action that Putin — who has previously invaded other parts of Ukraine, not to mention Georgia — still decided to do, on his own initiative. Leave aside a degree of American hypocrisy about sovereignty and flimsy justifications for invasion.
Did Joe Biden’s “weakness” contribute to Putin’s terrible (or, if you listen to Donald Trump, “clever”) decision to invade Ukraine?
Yes. But not the way yahoos like Trump and Cruz and Tucker will have you believe.
But Putin didn’t invade while Trump was Prez. That shows Putin doesn’t respect Biden!
Is it actually a bad thing that a murderous, anti-democracy autocrat, someone who beats, jails, assassinates, or disappears his opponents and critics while retaining supreme power for decades, on behalf of himself and his kleptocratic buddies, doesn’t respect the sort of person Joe Biden is?
That actually strikes me as a good thing.
Well, what I mean is that Putin respected Trump’s strength and resolve!
Hardly. Putin got nearly anything he wanted from Trump. Trump went along with the fait accompli of Crimea annexation. Trump did his darnedest to roll back those “worthless” sanctions that had been placed on Putin’s regime because of them. Trump weakened Ukraine’s defenses, removing a GOP plank to send arms to Ukraine, and then delaying and leveraging arms shipments to get the Ukraine government to politically damage Joe Biden (you might recall there was an impeachment about it and everything). Trump weakened NATO, trying to recast it as a transactional, mercenary arrangement, downplaying the value of that alliance and, in fact, of any alliances, and casting doubt that, if another NATO country were attacked, he’d actually fulfill US Article 5 obligations to step in. Trump showed over and over again, from Iraq to Syria to Afghanistan that he’d pull troops out of anywhere because he wasn’t interested in world order or commitments or principle, only in his own ego and what made him look good. Trump raised Putin’s image on the world stage, calling him strong and smart and ruthless and powerful. Meanwhile, at home, Trump divided America, taking partisan gaps and wrenching them further open with a crowbar.
Why on Earth would Vladimir Putin ever endanger that? After investing in monkeywrenching the 2016 presidential election and, to his great surprise, being rewarded with a Donald Trump winning the damned, thing, why would he ever do anything that might antagonize or weaken his greatest global ally, witting or unwitting?
No, no, Putin knew Trump was strong and resolute and would strike out at anyone who crossed the US. He’d never admit it, but he feared Donald Trump.
If Putin feared Trump, it was to this degree: Trump is, even if you have him accurately pegged as an unprincipled narcissist, unpredictable and savage. Crossing him too publicly, in a way that offended his ego, affected his support, endangered his chance of being carved into Mount Rushmore, was to risk not only an ALL CAPS EARLY MORNING TWITTER SCREED!!!!!! but possibly something even more damaging.
Does anyone doubt that Trump would be willing to threaten — if not carry out — lobbing nukes if he took it into his head (and his sycophants suggested it was a good way to look strong)? A man who was so bound up in his pride that he was willing to sit by while a violent mob stormed the US Capitol on his behalf, and seriously considered deploying the military to overthrow the 2020 election?
Yeah, even a bad guy fears a crazy desperado with a gun. That’s still not a good thing.
But Biden is clearly weak. He didn’t prevent the invasion of Ukraine. Putin knew Sleepy Joe’s weakness would let him do whatever he wanted.
It’s worth noting that those who make this argument are extraordinarily vague about what should have been done to prevent Putin’s act of war. They simply wave their hand and say that it would never have happened under Trump, without even bothering to suggest what Trump would have done to stop it.
(They don’t have to because, of course, it’s not a rational argument.)
But there is one nugget of truth, at the last, in their accusation.
Joe Biden is weak.
Because America is weak.
Joe Biden is hobbled by the profound partisan divisions in the US, divisions led by a GOP that is still dominated by Trump and Trumpism, and who are more interested in pulling down Joe Biden than in stopping Vladimir Putin. Putin knows this. Indeed, he’s actually done what he can to engineer the whole situation.
What are the chances that the US will stand firm and united in doing what it can to stop, mitigate, or punish Putin’s actions? Zero. Nobody is actually going to suggest sending in US troops. That leaves economic and political retribution, and the effect of that will take years, even assuming it is maintained for that long. And the GOP will be right there, unwilling to offer realistic solutions, just claiming that Biden “lost” Ukraine (or even that Russia was justified in their actions and that Biden was a loser anyway for not realizing that).
Putin, whatever his reasons for invading Ukraine, has to have seen this as the perfect moment, not because Joe Biden is a weak man, but because he oversees a government that is weakened by internal division, by an opposition party that sees Biden as their real target and Putin, if not an ally, then a tool to use against him. Which makes them tools in Putin’s hand for long-term success.
And if the GOP hamstring Biden from systemic, sustained action against Putin, and manage to put Trump (or whoever is the Trumpiest candidate they can agree upon) in the White House in three-plus years, will that person simply do what Trump did, shrug and work to lift any remaining sanctions? Write off NATO as a bad and expensive idea and let it shift for its own?
What will that weakness encourage Putin to do next? What will it encourage the rest of Europe to do to appease him?
What will it encourage China to do?
What will it encourage any nation around the world who see a richer, weaker neighbor, and knows we’re lurching backwards a century or more, to an era of “spheres of influence” and “might makes right.”
The GOP is correct in saying that Putin is emboldened by weakness.
But they’re the source of it. And the consequences will extend long beyond the Russian conquest of the Ukraine.