DON’T UNDERESTIMATE JOE’S ABILITY TO F**K THINGS UP: We Will All Pay for Joe Biden’s ‘Minor Incursion’ Mistake.

The effect of Biden’s remarks was immediate. European capitals—Kyiv, in particular—erupted with indignation. “They watched those remarks, I think, with horror,” CNN’s Matthew Chance said of the Ukrainian government. One Ukrainian official said Biden had all but given Moscow a “green light” to invade. The White House immediately went to work cleaning up Biden’s comments, but it was wholly insufficient. “He was referring to the difference between military and non-military/para-military/cyber action by the Russians,” National Security Council Spokeswoman Emily Horne said. Some difference. Even if you believe Russia is parsing the fine distinctions between the president’s statements and their post-facto revisions by his more responsible staffers, “para-military” incursions are precisely what Moscow executed both in Crimea and in the Donbas region. There, Russian proxy forces have transformed the area into a warzone and carved out illegitimate “republics,” though the Russian currency and passports held by the residents of these puppet states leave no one confused as to who is in charge.

The president’s words and actions carry more weight than any half-hearted statement walking them back. Courtesy of his performance in Afghanistan, Putin has all the evidence he needs to conclude that Joe Biden will blink in defending American interests against an aggressor if he thinks the costs of such an effort are too high to bear. Biden has exposed the very real and now fully confirmed tensions within the Atlantic Alliance over how to respond to Russian aggression, if there is any response at all. All the tough talk in the world cannot undo that. Joe Biden has sown the wind. Now, we await the whirlwind.

Earlier, from Steve: Is Biden Inviting the Very War in Ukraine We Don’t Want to Fight?