Blame Putin, Sure, But Also Blame Biden

“The fact—one that should surprise no one—is that the same folks who gave us the grossly mismanaged withdrawal from Afghanistan have also taught a master class on how to bungle our crucial relationship with an already insecure nuclear superpower.”

As 24/7 Ukraine coverage blankets the news, I keep asking myself this question: Are we really so gullible as to be hoodwinked by a President and political class covering for their massive failures at home and abroad by mustering up a frenzy of dangerously jingoistic militarism that has not only escalated the situation and brought us to the brink of World War III but has imposed—and will continue to impose—senseless costs on an American economy already grinding to a halt?

Let me start off by making this crystal-clear: In no way am I suggesting that any of President Joe Biden’s major missteps, whether now or in the past, in any way excuse Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine invasion in violation of international law and being conducted with reckless indifference to—indeed, the direct intent to inflict—civilian casualties. Although there is no question (details below) that President Biden majorly provoked President Putin, nothing President Biden did stripped President Putin of his free will to do or not do what he is now doing, much less to do it in the manner in which he is doing it. With that said, however, our present sense of justified indignation at the Russian President’s conduct should extend, as well, to our own administration’s dramatic failures that have brought us to this particular precipice. The fact—one that should surprise no one—is that the same folks who gave us the grossly mismanaged withdrawal from Afghanistan have also taught a master class on how to bungle our crucial relationship with an already insecure nuclear superpower.

We have been hearing, since the Ukraine crisis began, vague proclamations from some conservative voices that President Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if former President Donald Trump were still in office, while many liberals have been finding ways of blaming President Trump’s alleged coddling of President Putin for the Ukraine invasion. Say what you want about President Trump: While he was in the Oval Office, our relationship with Russia remained civil and even cordial, while President Putin did not undertake any major new military incursions into neighboring territory of the sort that had gone on under former President Barack Obama, when President Putin took Crimea. When President Biden took over the reins, that relationship rapidly deteriorated. But we need not stop at this level of abstraction. Although (with a few notable exceptions) the media has almost entirely ignored these glaring facts, President Biden took very concrete steps that not only generally antagonized President Putin but that directly precipitated the Ukraine invasion.