I don’t think that the Biden administration is preventing Ukraine from beating Russia and ending the war for some evil reason. I think the reality is worse than evil intent.
I strongly believe that the real problem is that there’s no capacity to make a decision in the administration. Nobody has a vision for the future of world politics. Nobody has created or is trying to create a foreign policy plan for the US.
This is a complete disempowerment of the nation-state. It’s like, you know, I’m not trying to see if I can soar in flight because I already know that humans don’t have wings. I don’t need to check because I already know it.
In the same way, national politicians aren’t trying to work out the new international consensus (or achieve anything significant domestically) because they have accepted as indisputable, self-evident fact that they can’t.
I think they are wrong. I think there’s still time. But these absolute wusses are acting like they have as much power to make decisions as I do to sprout wings.
People will ask if I think it would have been better with Trump. I can only say that I don’t know. He’s impulsive, so nobody can say for certain. There’s a possibility that he would have tried to “negotiate” with Russia, Putin would have humiliated him in some very painful way, and Trump would have blown a gasket and gotten propelled into action.
Or not.
I don’t know. What I do know is that this feeble, forlorn, foolish fumbling of frowzy forces of formerly planetary significance is painful to observe.
They are not evil, these Bidens, Macrons, Trudeaus, Trumps, and the rest of them. They are just passive. Empty suits, terrified of their own shadow.
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” no capacity to make a decision”
politicians tend to take cues from each other and see how things work out….
Merkel avoided making tough decisions for about 10 years and she retired lauded by all…
Johnson took bold action to get some kind of Brexit done and end covid restrictions and he’s been driven from politics
Trudeau simply parrots what those above him in the food chain say and he’s riding high
putain took the boldest move at all and it’s working out terribly for him
Trump just talked about doing things and he got impeached twice…
Put it all together and the overal message they receive is ‘don’t stick your neck out’….
I’m not saying they’re consciously processing this but the cumulative message will sink in….
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Of course, I agree that it’s not conscious. And we are all to blame for accepting empty posturing and inane ideological quarrels instead of action.
It’s insane how much time and effort was spent on the “Russian collusion” and how absolutely nothing was done to stop the very real Russian aggression happening at that same time.
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What has become clear is that Russia’s conventional military poses no threat to any half serious Western military. This leaves only their nuclear weapons as a threat.
In this situation a neverending war suits the US just fine as it gives the Pentagon an opportunity to test out its weapons without risking American lives or risking escalation to nuclear war.
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It’s the exact opposite, though. Russia is provoked to escalation by weakness, not by strength. And it’s not only Russia. Everybody is provoked to escalation by the weakness of the adversary.
If no matter how aggressive you get, your adversary keeps crawling on his stomach, begging you to hear him out and name your terms for his surrender – which is what the US has been doing throughout – what will that tell you about the consequences of you escalating?
Let’s not buy into narratives that American politicians spread to justify their groveling weakness. Let’s look at what is actually happening.
Obama “didn’t escalate” after the Crimea. Then the Donbass happened. Again, he didn’t escalate. Trump didn’t escalate either. Then the full-scale invasion happened. Biden didn’t escalate. Then Bucha and Kahovka happened. Now Biden is again not escalating.
If you refuse to play, you opponent doesn’t leave the field. He beats you.
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None of these are US territories. How can the US surrender them? Isn’t it up to the local people.
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The local people wouldn’t have had to fight today if the US didn’t force them to give up their nuclear weapons to the aggressive neighbor in 1994. President Bush came to Ukraine in 1990 to beg for the preservation of the USSR. Then Clinton blackmailed Ukraine into relinquishing its weapons. We are where we are because the US nourished, propped and armed the Russian regime for 30 years. And they are doing everything to prevent Russia from losing now.
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Nuclear politics sucks. From what I’ve heard the Carter administration forced Zimbabwe to hand over power to Mugabe rather than the preferred power sharing agreement because they were worried that Zimbabwe would be the next Cold War domino to fall after Angola. This would have left a Soviet proxy state bordering nuclear armed apartheid SA, something everybody wanted to avoid.
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The Cold War has a lot to answer for, that’s for sure.
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“Cold War has a lot to answer for”
I’m not one for excusing present wrongdoing because of the past but the cold war was especially bad for Africa since the US and USSR were involved in intense competition regarding how many competent politicians they could sabotage…. (a competent left wing politician would be sabotaged by the US and a non-left wing politician would be sabotaged by the USSR)…..
No excuse for not getting their act together in the subsequent 30 years but it did have a bad effect…
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Latin America, too. Those poor countries were really messed around.
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I believe it was Peter Zeihan who said we have not really had a clear and focused foreign policy since George H.W Bush. Clinton was alright, but it has been downhill ever since.
Biden was never meant to really implement anything significant, more to just serve as the status quo candidate after the crazy Trump years. In foreign policy matters, he’s just keeping things afloat, doesn’t want to rock the boat too hard and this is exactly what we’re seeing. He’s not been terrible, not but great either, just bland.
However, it is very troubling that the next election might be another Biden vs Trump. THAT in itself does not say good things about the US and if anything just shows how the entire country lacks focus and we can expect at least several more years of blandness and indecisiveness.
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