It was not Biden's mistake that the war was started. Putin only used it as a pretext. It is a simple war of aggression that would have happened anyway.
One thing I do think Biden did wrong was shut down the keystone pipeline and forcing us to buy oil from Russia as a result, which gave Russia a great way to fund a war campaign.
Oil is a fungible commodity though: the price is effected by global demand - as I noted in a previous thread on this exact subject, the idea of "independence" and "dependence" both mean nothing so long as private enterprise can own the resource and faces no restrictions on its export.
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0...
Edit: on further inspection, it does seem like a large dollar amount. And if you look at 2019 numbers, we imported a much larger fraction from Russia than in 2021. I still think much more Russian oil goes to Europe
Biden did not shut down the Keystone pipeline - he revoked the permit for Keystone pipeline phase 4 (KeystoneXL) on January 20, 2021
The rest of the Keystone pipeline is operational and delivering Canadian oil to midwest refineries
I don’t think KeystoneXL would have been completed in time to have any effect on the Ukrainian invasion
The same could be said about certain articles. For example, that Facebook allows to praise the Azov battalion. It is a controversial thing that Ukrainians shouldn't be proud of, but it has been explained already how the praise is allowed – not with regards to neo-nazi ideology but only when mentioned as part of regular armed forces where this battalion was incorporated to control them. And yet despite the explanation this article come up again and again which makes me think for concerted effort to spread anti-Ukrainian narrative.
I know they are not bots but how could they have changed their narrative overnight? I guess some people are really so gullible and easily absorb all rubbish whether it is antivax or pro-Putin.
This is even more interesting that the vaccination coverage is Ukraine is really low (less than 50%) and there are many reasons for this, historic problems, distrust in authorities, weak medical system, and also antivax bots. Nevertheless, antivax and Ukraine independence are completely different issues. It does not make sense logically to connect one with another. And yet, a lot of so called contrarians do and it is not due to strong analytical skills.
It was President Biden who said it openly "we know Russia will invade Ukraine," the intel I believe Putin leaked purposefully to probe US response, and then said that "there will be no US boots on the ground" before the invasion has even started.
This reassured Russian political establishment of not only US military not doing anything, but also about US political establishment being comfortable with that.
Indicating that you know a credible threat is coming well ahead of time, and then doing nothing all that time is a terrible diplomatic move, which signalled Putin of US already "coming to terms with the inevitable."
You never state your red lines.
If you want to talk about the American political establishment reassuring Putin, talk about former President Trump calling him a genius and savvy, the former Secretary of State saying he admired Putin as he was amassing equipment on Ukraine’s border, and the right airing fawning praise for Putin over the past 6 years.
Seriously, American political media that is airing on Russian state TV right now is already celebrating that Republicans are taking over in the Fall, and these same Republicans are on TV all but claiming fealty to Putin. They spent the last 6 years spreading Russian propaganda that their hacking of the 2016 election was either a hoax, or if it wasn’t than it was Ukraine’s fault. The former US President attempted to extort a bribe from the Ukrainians and withheld the very weapons they knew they needed for a moment just as this. And talk about signals, Zelensky wanted a signal from Trump to Putin that America supported Ukraine in the form of a White House visit. This visit was denied and never occurred. What kind of signal did that send to Putin about American support for Ukraine?
His party (the same people on TV “asking questions” as to why we should hate Putin so much) defended him for that and claimed it was his right to do so! Trump stood right next to Putin and acted like a beat dog as he claimed he trusted Putin and believed Putin did not hack the DNC in 2016.
My God, this is happening today because Mitt Romney called Russia America’s number one geopolitical foe and the rest of his party scoffed and laughed and took a trip to Moscow on July 4.
The problem today is that a huge contingent of people think that Russian style oligarchy would be a great model to bring here. Mostly very rich people like Peter Thiel, Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump, who mused he’d like to be America’s “President for Life” just like Putin. They have been signaling for years now that they want to be part of a new alliance of autocrats including Russia, Brazil, the UAE, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, and India. They would much prefer we abandon NATO, our European allies, and instead side with the rising tide of autocracy happening across the globe.
You don’t get an invasion of Ukraine without that context.
If Putin invaded Ukraine while Trump was in office he would have forced the American political establishment to unite against him. It's far better for him now that there were 4 years of Republicans wearing "Better Russian than Democrat" shirts.
Think about how far Republicans have come on this issue. They used to be the party of the red scare, now they're the party of "Putin is a savvy genius". Amazing what a propaganda victory that is for Putin.
Your entire argument ignores the fact that Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. You're saying that NATO was stronger before Trump, and yet they (and the US in general) let Russia waltz in, and annex Ukraine and that was that?
How do you account for that fact in your worldview?
2014 should have been a wakeup call. 2014 was Putin dipping his toe into the water to see how the world would respond to an invasion, and IMO it wasn't harsh enough. But I don't think this had given Putin enough confidence to conduct the full-on invasion that he is right now. Then 2016 happened. Before 2016 Republicans were still staunchly very anti-Russia, as had been their traditional Cold-War position. Communism and authoritarianism: bad; Capitalism and democracy: good. That was the Republican party position in 2016. Not after Trump's nomination. At that point they turned from an anti-Russia party to the "Russia isn't all that bad, let's be friends with them" party. They removed military support for Ukraine from their party agenda at Trump's behest, at a time when his campaign manager and family was secretly meeting with Russians in his home. 2016-2020 was 4 years of the American right explicitly signaling to Putin that they would rather be aligned with him than European democracies, especially and in particular Ukraine.
To summarize my entire argument, it's that because of his own personal ambitions, Trump attempted to realign America with an axis of global dictators rather than our traditional democratic allies in Europe, and in doing so severely weakened NATO's standing because America as the largest economic and military power in the world is the key to that alliance.
I think Trump shouldn't have been parroting Russian propaganda for years and working with Russia to help himself get elected. I think he should have taken the White House meeting with Zelensky and given him the allocated weapons as required by law instead of illegally withholding them and using them to extort a bribe which would help himself politically, again with his election. I think his party should have held him accountable for this and shouldn't have defended him on his "right" to do this, when the House managers proved their case beyond a reasonable doubt.
I think that at Helsinki, Trump should have shown strength and called out Putin to his face about the fact that Putin hacked the the DNC and interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump win, instead of taking Putin's side. We know why he said that because he was glad for Putin's help. He told us as much and said he would accept more if it were to come his way.
I think if at any time in the last 6 years Trump and the Republican establishment had shown any kind of backbone when it comes to Putin, maybe on the order of how they posture against the Chinese, we wouldn't have an invasion today because there would be no question about America's position regarding Russia. Instead, with top Republican leaders making pilgrimages to Moscow on Jan 4, and top Republican media being broadcast on Russian state TV unedited because it's just that on-message... well, there's still no question on where one of America's top political parties stands on Putin/Russia when they call him a "savvy genius" for invading countries like Hitler.
By the way, Putin reads and watches as American media is crowing that this same pro-Putin political party will be taking over the US Congress in 10 months. This same party signaled it would be putting members in charge of very powerful committees, members who have been very vocally pro-Putin, and who have themselves personally pushed Russian propaganda straight from the Kremlin on the floors of the House and Senate. There are Republicans who still say Ukraine, not Russia, was responsible for hacking the 2016 US Presidential Election.
This is what the Republican majority Senate Intel Committee found regarding 2016:
"The Committee found that Manafort's presence on the Campaign and proximity to Trump created opportunities for Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump Campaign. Taken as a whole, Manafort's high level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services, particularly Kilimnik and associates of Oleg Deripaska, represented a grave counterintelligence threat."
"The Committee found that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian effort to hack computer networks and accounts affiliated with the Democratic Party and leak information damaging to Hillary Clinton and her campaign for president. Moscow's intent was to harm the Clinton Campaign, tarnish an expected Clinton presidential administration, help the Trump Campaign after Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, and undermine the U.S. democratic process." [0]
What did they do about this thing they said represented a "grave counterintelligence threat"? Nothing. They went on TV and said "No collusion, it's a hoax, the Ukrainians did it!" and held a party for Trump. Vladimir Putin read that report, I guarantee you. He sees the weakness. It is palpable. He knows Republicans know what he's up to, and he knows they will not only sit on their hands, but they will publicly deny everything they wrote in that report. Try to get a Republican to admit that Russia hacked the 2016 election today. It's like pulling teeth. Republicans tried harder to get the American public to believe that Ukraine hacked the 2016 election! They will never admit that to you even though they wrote the above words in black and white in an official government product of the US Senate. Because they know people don't read the 1000 page 5 volume reports. They watch Fox News and Fox News didn't run the above quotes (and if I missed it, I must have blinked).
And if you think I'm only against Trump/Republicans for this I think Obama should have been 1000% harder on Putin after the 2016 election and the 2014 invasion of Crimea. That was a got dang travesty the way he was let off the hook for that and is another reason why we are here today. I have plenty to say about them but not today.
Because that's not where the history books will start the story of how this war began. The story starts with the Trump Russia scandal. Why? Because whether or not that pushed Trump over the edge, Trump still owed Putin. The deal was laid out at the Trump Tower meeting between Manafort, Kusnher, and Don Jr. The terms were: hacked material in exchange for relaxed relations. The hacked material came, and the relaxed relations followed. Slow walked and nominal sanctions, but a Putin-approved secretary of state who happens to be a Oil executive who was personally awarded the Order of Friendship by Putin, the highest civilian honor in Russia. White House meetings with Russians inside of the Oval Office, a place Zelensky never got to meet with Trump. That has meaning and value.
Trump spent 4 entire years of his presidency pumping up Russia, gaslighting the US public by claiming his collusion was a hoax, and of course Russia was pleased when Ukraine started taking the blame instead of them.
But most of all, to Russia's great delight, Trump spent 4 years weakening the NATO alliance by questioning its Article 5 obligations. The NATO alliance was at its weakest in history the day Trump left office. But then Joe Biden was elected, and I am no Joe Biden fan, but NATO started getting stronger from that day forward if just for the fact that Trump no longer had the power to use the US Government to make it weaker intentionally. So Putin had a choice: invade now when NATO is at its weakest and covid is still a problem, or wait 4 years to see if Trump is reelected, and if he's not then it's 8 years and NATO would be stronger than ever at that time. And who knows if Putin would still be in power at that point or even alive!
This is really the best chance he's ever going to get, and it's all thanks to Trump doing what he did the 4 years he was in office. Because as much as you may hate Hillary Clinton and Lord knows I do, this would not be happening right now if she were elected President instead of Trump in 2016. It simply would not because there would have been no oval office visits, and no gaslighting of the public to be pro Russia, and Ukraine would have gotten the weapons as scheduled delivered to the western front where they were desperately needed to be deployed against Russians. I do not like Clinton but she had the good sense of foresight to have Putin pegged for Hitler in 2014, and I respect that. She may have played fast and loose with government policy and should be held to account for that, but at least she can recognize a psychopath when she sees one. She was right about Putin and she was right about Trump and her legacy at long last is going to be "I told you so", which good for her.
[0] https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu...
Trump is 100% right, it would not have happened with him in the White House because he was doing everything he could to break the NATO alliance. He was doing more on that front than Putin could ever have done himself. 4 more years of Trump and NATO would have been even worse off than it was in 2021. Imagine if the alliance broke or that the US left NATO. Then who knows what Putin could do?
Nevertheless, Europe helped even less. One month ago Germany prohibited other countries to sell weapons to Ukraine, now they have changed the tune but where were they a month ago?
Even Zelensky objected to those warnings although I suspect that he knew that the war is inevitable and was preparing for it. He only didn't know the precise date and wanted to avoid the panic.