The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Who’s Afraid of President Crackpipe?

Posted on | February 12, 2022 | Comments Off on Who’s Afraid of President Crackpipe?

Our Commander-in-Chief never served in the military. He was never the sharpest tool in the shed, and his cognitive capacity has visibly declined in recent years. His chief foreign-policy accomplishment is surrendering Afghanistan to the Taliban, and he’s less popular than Jimmy Carter.

So, yeah, I’m sure Vladmir Putin is just scared to death:

President Joe Biden warned Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday that an invasion of Ukraine would result in “swift and severe costs for Russia” during a high-stakes hourlong phone call that failed to ease rising tensions.
A senior Biden administration official described the call as “professional” but said the dialogue resulted in “no fundamental change in the dynamics that have been unfolding now for several weeks.”
The call, which lasted a little over an hour, ended shortly after noon ET. It came as the White House says a Russian invasion of Ukraine could be imminent, perhaps before the conclusion of the Beijing Winter Olympics, which end Feb. 20.
Biden told Putin that “if Russia undertakes a further invasion of Ukraine, the United States together with our Allies and partners will respond decisively and impose swift and severe costs on Russia,” according to the White House.
“President Biden reiterated that a further Russian invasion of Ukraine would produce widespread human suffering and diminish Russia’s standing,” the White House said, adding that Biden was also clear the U.S., while committed to diplomacy, is “equally prepared for other scenarios.”
The talks came after the State Department late Friday directed most staff who remain in the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv to leave Ukraine immediately. The Pentagon also ordered the withdrawal of 160 National Guard troops from Ukraine.
Biden is in Camp David in Maryland for the weekend.
During a phone call earlier Saturday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, that if Russia invades Ukraine, it would result in a “resolute, massive, and united Transatlantic response.”
This image provided by The White House via Twitter shows President Joe Biden at Camp David, Md., Saturday, Feb. 12, 2022. Biden on Saturday again called on President Vladimir Putin to pull back more than 100,000 Russian troops massed near Ukraine’s borders and warned that the U.S. and its allies would “respond decisively and impose swift and severe costs” if Russia invades, according to the White House.
Putin also spoke on Saturday with French President Emmanuel Macron, who has tried to serve as a chief European interlocutor in the crisis.
Macron told Putin that “sincere dialogue” is not compatible with military escalation, during a phone call that lasted more than an hour, according to French media.
Putin, meanwhile, suggested the United States was engaging in “provocative speculations” about a possible Russian investigation of Ukraine, according to a statement from the Kremlin on the Russian leader’s conversation with Macron. Putin also raised concerns about the “massive supplies of modern weaponry” the West is sending to Ukraine and suggested that would create conditions for a Ukrainian military assault in the eastern Donbass region of Ukraine where Russian-backed separatists have been operating.

If there’s anyone who scares Putin less than Joe Biden, it’s Emmanuel Macron. Even if France had the will to fight — which, of course, it doesn’t — it lacks the ability. The French army is a complete joke. France could not deploy so much as one infantry battalion to defend Urkraine, let alone armored units, and Putin knows this as well as Macron.

This, even more than the brain-addled ineptitude of Biden, is America’s basic strategic problem: Our so-called “allies” are useless. While the British still have some military capability, the rest of Western Europe is a collection of weak sisters, from a military standpoint. Even if we had a competent Commander-in-Chief (which we don’t), our European “allies” are unable to do anything that might cause Putin to pause before sending his troops marching toward Kiev. And considering that Biden has demonstrated an unwillingness to defend U.S. strategic interests in Afghanistan (or anywhere else, for that matter), would Putin be wrong to guess that this talk of “swift and severe costs” is just a lot of bluster?

Of course, I don’t actually believe a Russian invasion of Ukraine is “imminent.” As previously explained, I don’t think Russia would launch an invasion in mid-February, when it makes more sense to wait until May. Were I asked to wager on this proposition, I’d bet that what we’re watching now is just a lot of “wag the dog” propaganda from the Biden administration, seeking to distract voters from the unmitigated disaster of Biden’s domestic policy: Free crackpipes!




 

Category: Joe Biden, Russia, Ukraine

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