The Curfew Micropub

It's the dumbest time ever, folks. God help us live through this insanity.

Now that the Biden admin is leaving the stage, it's time to say what needs to be said. It is 100% true that without U.S. aid, Ukraine as we know it would not have been around by now. And it would have been occupied, partitioned, annexed by Russia, subjected to "filtration actions" (yes, that involves torture chambers, incarceration camps, and mass graves), and become the scene of an indefinitely long guerrilla war. And we are forever thankful for that. But - let me suggest an all-encompassing answer on why Biden's policy towards Russia's war in Ukraine is sadly a major setback and a painful scar on Biden's legacy. The Biden administration thought it could outsmart the laws of history. They thought they could go the easy way about the largest European war of aggression since WWII. Without a doubt, the Biden administration did everything possible to dissuade Putin from invading Ukraine through persuasion and diplomacy before February 24. The Kremlin blatantly disregarded these humiliating pleas and launched the war, as it was solely focused on war and the rapid subjugation of Ukraine from the very beginning. The massive heroism of the Ukrainian army and the sensational defeat of Russia near Kyiv in 2022 presented the entire free world and the Biden administration with an extraordinary historical opportunity to repel and contain new large-scale aggression in Europe—without a single shot fired by the U.S. or NATO troops. However, instead of fully arming Ukraine alongside European allies to ensure the decisive defeat of the Russian aggressor, Washington recoiled at the prospect of Putin's defeat and his incessant nuclear threats, choosing instead the path of self-restraint and "escalation management." They never wanted any conflict with Russia, and they decided that instead of helping Ukraine undermine the aggressor's very ability to fight a large-scale war, they chose to impose myriads of unfathomable limitations of the Ukrainian acquiring and the use of U.S. aid — in a bid to very painfully slowly lift those limitations and grabble a moment to "bring Putin to reason" and make him stop ASAP and return to business as usual. There was never a good reason to try and please Putin's "feelings" and "red lines" and make Ukraine beg for every single weapon type, only to eventually provide them at least a year too late when the situation in Ukraine became desperate again. There was never a good reason to listen to Putin's daily nuclear threats and spend months and years vehemently denying the possibility of Ukraine getting ATACMS missiles, PATRIOT systems, armored vehicles, advanced radars, or F-16 jets (which greatly affected the European aid, too) for the sake of avoiding "major escalation," only to see that such procrastination only encourages and emboldens the aggressor. There was never any rationality in trying to please Putin and bring him back to reason by holding Ukraine back from striking key military targets inside Russian territory, only to eventually see that this doesn't work with Putin and lift limitations years too late. There was never a good reason to wait until the final days of Biden's presidency to finally impose crushing sanctions on Russia's financial system and oil trade, which have been badly needed for years. Appeasement and attempts to weasel an easy way out did not end well in 1938-39, and they don't work now. You can't reason with the unreasonable, and there is never a moment when the aggressor stops and says, "Okay, I've had enough; I'm leaving you alone; I now see I was being unreasonable." The Biden administration's reluctance and attempts to outsmart how history works seriously undermined the U.S. investment in helping Ukraine bring about a just peace. It gave Vladimir Putin over two years to recover from 2022's failure, reshape and mobilize its military, ramp up military production, adapt to international sanctions, unfold the wartime economy, and find allies among fellow rogue regimes. It stripped the Biden admin of what could have been one of the greatest foreign policy wins since the end of the Cold War. Moreover, this brought us to a place where various grifters, demagogues, and Kremlin-paid loudmouths raise their voices, spitting on Ukraine, spreading hateful disinformation, and openly propagating the elimination of Ukraine as a nation. Going the easy way never works out well. One can hope that the next U.S. administration will learn from those mistakes and stop trying to outsmart history at its own peril, but that's poor naive me. Support my work on PayPal: [email protected]