Biden Goes Deeper Into the Briar Patch on Ukraine

Joe Biden’s admirable defense of the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine has now become a proxy war against Russia with the U.S. using Kyiv to bleed the Russians dry.

This would be a fantastic idea except for one thing: Russia is a nuclear power and might not like the idea of another nuclear power looking to weaken it.

Joe Biden is going deeper into the Ukrainian briar patch. But unlike Br’er Rabbit, he doesn’t know the way out.

“There should be at least one coward in the room when discussing nuclear war,” former UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson famously said during a meeting of ExCom, the small group of men deciding the fate of human civilization.

Today, we have no cowards, only ballsy men talking tough about “weakening” Russia and helping Ukraine “win” a war where the enemy is also committed to victory and the Ukrainians are outnumbered and outgunned.

Joe Biden is proposing a massive infusion of military, economic, and humanitarian aid totaling $33 billion. This is on top of the more than $13 billion that the United States has already shoveled into the Ukrainian treasury.

Washington Post:

“The cost of this fight is not cheap, but caving to aggression is going to be more costly if we allow it to happen,” Biden said in remarks from the Roosevelt Room at the White House. He added, “We either back Ukrainian people as they defend their country, or we stand by as the Russians continue their atrocities.”

Biden also proposed liquidating the assets of Russian oligarchs and donating the proceeds to Ukraine, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States would “strongly support” Sweden and Finland if they chose to join NATO. Taken together, the moves marked a renewed public commitment to stay in the fight for the long haul, even as Biden signaled a recognition that Americans at some point might tire of spending billions of dollars on a faraway war.

A liberal romanticizing war? Where was this romantic attachment in Panama, Iraq, or Afghanistan?

And backing the Ukrainian people with $33 billion won’t stop the Russians from murdering, raping, and burning their way across Ukraine. So the idea that this is some kind of choice is nonsense. The Russians are going to do what the Russians do no matter how much we give Ukraine.

So the atrocities will go on. Meanwhile, the more we invest in this war the more committed we become to a clear concept of “victory.” Russia is not going to quit and leave the field to the Ukrainians. The more we invest in Ukraine, the more difficult it will be to unravel our involvement.

The military aid — including artillery, armored vehicles, anti-armor capabilities and advanced air defense systems — could help Ukraine in the battle for the country’s east, which military officials say will initially be fought at a distance as Russia seeks to trap Ukrainian forces. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Thursday said the Biden administration was studying additional ways to provide air defense and artillery systems to Ukraine.

The fight in the east, or Donbas region, is expected to accelerate in coming days. That may be one reason a significant number of Russian troops are now withdrawing from Mariupol, the Pentagon said.

What happens if Russia defies all expectations and rolls over and through the Ukrainian resistance in the East? Biden’s war would become a major humiliation for the U.S., and he and NATO would have to decide whether to finance what would amount to an insurgency in eastern Ukraine. Not a palatable choice.

Biden has embarked on a path that promises big risks for small rewards, not to mention elevating the danger of widening the war.

Where’s a coward when we need one?