Remember all that big talk about how the Biden White House was finally going to get “tough” with the Kremlin? Yes, those comments aged like fine wine. All saber rattling and sanction signing aside, Russia is not dependent on NATO. Rather, NATO is dependent on Russia and it shows. The Warhawk battle cry is more like a whimper and Joe Biden cannot take any meaningful action against the Russian bear without shooting himself in the kneecap.
As many viewers suspected from the beginning, President Joe Biden has made a glaring exception for Nord Stream 2 in his sanctions against Russia. The timing of this announcement is particularly awkward, considering how the Colonial Pipeline hack just threw a good chunk of the American eastern seaboard into a maelstrom of panic buying and empty fuel pumps.
I won’t bore my readers with rants about Yankee electoral politics but, as controversial as he was, Donald J. Trump consistently worked toward a coherent goal of American energy independence and low gasoline prices. Biden has managed to undo all that progress within a hundred days of taking office.
The bottom line: Biden has declared Russia the Great Satan, then acknowledged that we need Great Satan. Makes sense. The liberal warhawks at the Pentagon should have taken a longer look at the map before rolling the dice. American allies, particularly Germany, have gone “green.” They’re more energy-efficient than ever! So efficient, they’re at the mercy of imported natural gas from the Asiatic menace. Even if the USA was energy dependent, which quickly becoming not true, Biden won’t flagrantly work against the economic interests of other NATO nations, as subordinate as they are. Even the meekest vassal at the king’s table will defend his scrap of bread.
But don’t worry. American Secretary Anthony Blinken has condemned Stalin for his abuses of “countless Tatars.” Because when you feel foolish, Tweet about a national leader who’s been dead for more than 60 years. That’ll show him. I’m sure Stalin is red with embarrassment right now. The dead are good rhetorical enemies because they don’t talk back. Unfortunately, someone on a Russian Twitter handle was still alive and kindly asked Mr. Blinken if he was going to apologize for Hiroshima.
Unfortunately for us Americans, we’re stuck with the Biden administration and will just have to get used to this unrehearsed circus embarrassing us over and over again. Last month, former diplomat Steven Pifer boldly proclaimed five maneuvers for bending Russia to NATO’s will. Pifer’s proposed battle plan aged about as well as Biden’s sanctions. Ironically, one of his proposed ideas was sanctions against Nord Stream 2.
Let’s do a quick review of Cold War II, brought to us by Joe Biden and the liberal intelligentsia.
Week of April 12: the American intelligence community claims Russia was behind the SolarWinds attack and Putin put “bounties” on the heads of American troops. In an interview, Biden directly calls Putin a “killer.”
April 16: Biden declares a “national emergency” and slaps Russia with sanctions. Liberal media outlets erupt into a frenzy in anticipation of a war. However, standoffs in the air, land, and sea all end with NATO forces complying with Russian restrictions.
April 19: All of Ukrainian President Zelensky’s cries to join NATO have fallen on deaf ears. Even more interestingly, Russian and Belorussian authorities foil an alleged plot to overthrow President Alexander Lukashenko.
Here’s what I wrote at the time:
While significant in itself, assassinating Lukashenko correlates with the standoff simmering in Ukraine. The Black Sea Fleet currently maintains total superiority and could effortlessly sink the entire Ukrainian navy within minutes of hostilities breaking out. Russia has combined arms units assembled in Crimea, along the Eastern border of Ukraine, and in Belarus, creating a three-sided “cauldron” that could potentially end a shooting war almost before it started.
Zelensky faces a serious problem that, to be fair, wasn’t his doing. The U.S. and NATO brazenly provoked Russia and are now only defending Ukraine with lip service. Breathless speeches about Putin being a “killer” won’t save the Ukronazis if Russian armed forces roll across the border. Despite Zelensky’s cries for help, NATO won’t so much as reroute the Patriot missile batteries destined for Poland.
This assassination attempt against Lukashenko might have been an effort to reignite chaos in Belarus, tying up the Russian ground units, artillery, and airfields located there, and possibly much of the rest of Putin’s forces if he decides to swoop in and clean house like he did in response to the 2014 Ukrainian color revolution.
I believe things are only going to get more interesting from here on out. Operation Cossack Mace is still on the table. This is a Ukrainian training exercise involving leaders and military units from the United States, United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, and Canada. This has been a yearly “show of force” ritual in the region since 2014. However, this time the mood is different. Operation Cossack Mace is brazenly offensive, rather than defensive like its predecessors.
But as fate would have it, Operation Cossack Mace might have soured before it even started. What good is practice to support Ukrainian nationists when Joe Biden has already firmly established that such an idea is a fairy tale?
Ian Kummer
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