Joe Biden is preparing to work with Vladimir Putin The purpose is to resist the threat of Russia invading Ukraine again.
The Kremlin has previewed the summit.The White House has not confirmed this, but Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki stated that “high-level diplomacy is the president’s priority”, noting that Conference call with Xi Jinping Early November.
The stakes cannot be higher.China has been threatening Taiwan, and Russia has been conducting military build-ups around UkraineIn both cases, the United States may be involved in conflicts with potentially catastrophic consequences.
Brigadier General Kerilo Budanov, head of the Ukrainian defense intelligence agency, told the Military Times on Saturday that Russia has deployed more than 92,000 soldiers around the Ukrainian border and is preparing to launch an attack in January or February.Others say that the threat is not so imminent and that the Russian invasion will lose a lot Ukraine, But few experts will completely rule out the possibility of invasion.
When confronting Putin on the Ukraine issue, every policy choice Biden made was fraught with risks.
In a statement commemorating the great famine in Ukraine in the early 1930s on Wednesday, Biden reiterated that “we unswervingly support Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Such support statements are a deterrent, but each repetition will exacerbate the dilemma that Biden will face if Putin brags.
“Frankly, my concern is that if we, the United States, continue to make a firm commitment to Ukraine and put ourselves in a situation where we are obliged to defend it, or if we don’t defend it and look completely weak, we will put us in Very difficult situation,” said Raja Menon, a professor of political science at the City University of New York.
Hanna Shelest, Director of the Security Program of the Foreign Policy Committee Ukrainian Prism The think tank stated that the United States’ support for Ukrainian sovereignty does not mean that it will eventually be drawn into battle.
“People are panicking and hype about the new American boots on the ground. Come on—who is inviting you to fight?” Shelster said. “When we talk about security assurance, there are many other options. For example, sharing intelligence, gathering satellite images, and making it public is already a form of support. You don’t need American soldiers to be on the contact line. You can publish very clearly at the appropriate level Diplomatic statement.”
CNN reported that the Biden administration had an urgent policy debate on whether to increase the delivery of weapons such as Javelin anti-tank missiles and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. Some in the government said that such weapons would increase the cost of any Russian military invasion, thereby affecting Putin’s calculations. Others believe that this will represent an escalation of danger and increase fear of attacks by the United States or NATO, which is the basis of Russia’s aggressive military stance.
Fiona Hill, former senior director of European and Russian affairs at the National Security Council, said: “You deserve to die if you do, and you deserve to die if you don’t.”
Hill helped prepare for Donald Trump’s summit with Putin and advised the Biden team before he met with Russian leaders for the first time as president in June. She said that the new negotiations are urgent and necessary, but they do contain pitfalls that Biden must avoid.
“The problem now is that Russia sees the Ukrainian issue as a very serious choice: the United States succumbs to Ukraine’s sovereignty-not only in Ukraine, but also in Europe-or risk a full-scale war,” Hill said. . She added that the Kremlin had long wanted to return to the Cold War paradigm where the two superpowers sat down to determine the sphere of influence.
One of the proposed solutions is to alleviate Russia’s concerns by excluding the future Then And limit its military capabilities, but Hill said that this would be nonsense about Ukraine’s sovereignty and set a destructive precedent.
“We can hold a virtual summit. We can sit down with the United States and Russia, but Ukraine cannot be at the negotiating table. We can talk about strategic stability, but we cannot bargain with Ukraine,” Hill said. “And it can’t just be the United States. Europeans must take this seriously.”
Menon is the co-author of the book “The Ukrainian Conflict: The Dissolution of Order after the Cold War” published in 2015. He believes that the imminent threat is exaggerated. He said that long before the current crisis, 87,000 Russian troops were stationed in the area adjacent to Ukraine, which was widely defined. He said that some of these troops were more than 430 miles (700 kilometers) from the actual border.
“Even if it is assumed that Russia can invest 100,000 troops, it will not have a quantitative advantage. [generally calculated at 3:1] Overwhelming the Ukrainian army, despite its shortcomings, it is now better trained and equipped, and morale is better than it was in 2014,” he said.
“In addition, the further Russia advances westward, the more its supply line stretches out, risking hit-and-run attacks that try to destroy them, and encountering a greater proportion of [unfriendly] Ukrainian nation. These issues, and the fact that Putin will burn all bridges with the West through the invasion of Ukraine, are either ignored or ignored in the mainstream argument here. “
Menon said that this does not mean that Putin will eventually not launch an invasion if he crosses the Russian red line.
“We shouldn’t think, [if] Imminent, when they said that we would not allow Ukraine to join NATO… they were just bluffing. I don’t think they are bluffing. “
