The U.S. risks another hit to its prestige as the Biden administration weighs how to confront Russian aggression in its first major international crisis …
The U.S. risks another hit to its prestige as the Biden administration weighs how to confront Russian aggression in its first major international crisis since withdrawing from Afghanistan. As Russia escalates tensions with Ukraine with its buildup of troops at the border, President Biden must balance projecting strength in the global power struggle with a U.S. wary of engaging in foreign military conflicts. It’s also renewed complaints from some Republicans that Biden risks looking weak without an aggressive response. “Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan showed weakness. If this administration doesn’t show strength right now, I’m afraid that Russia is going to invade Ukraine,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), ranking member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, told The Hill in a statement. “This will have global ramifications and only embolden our adversaries,” he added. The Biden administration has threatened Russia with punishing economic sanctions and export controls should it invade Ukraine, seeking to rally European allies around a common approach to the crisis. However, Biden has made clear the U.S. does not intend to send forces into Ukraine, limiting the administration’s deterrence toolbelt. Eliot Cohen, a State Department counselor during the George W. Bush administration, said he thinks Biden is handling the issue “more or less right.” “I think a more analytic look at this says yeah, this is a problem for the United States, but it’s a much bigger problem for Russia,” he said. The Russians efforts haven’t divided NATO like Russian President Vladimir Putin may have hoped, and the Russian military, whose budget pales in comparison to that of the U.S., isn’t equipped to take over a former Soviet satellite with a population of 40 million people, he added. While the administration has not definitively laid out the sanctions that Russia would face, officials have been clear that the penalties would be greater than those levied against Moscow after it invaded Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014. “That means the gradualism of the past is out, and this time we’ll start at the top of the escalation ladder and stay there,” a senior administration official reiterated to reporters this week. Still, John Sipher, a veteran of the CIA’s clandestine service, said, “I think the administration is playing from a position of weakness.
