No, we're not talking about Vladimir Putin (although it would be fine with us if he went) we’re talking about Joe Biden in the wake of his disastrous visit to Poland.
After Biden’s trip to Poland, during which he called for regime change in Russia by announcing, “For God’s sake, this man [Vladimir Putin] cannot remain in power,” no one is sure what the policy of the United States is toward Russia or what our contribution to end the war between Russia and Ukraine might be.
On one hand Biden is relying on Russian goodwill to help him negotiate a nuclear weapons deal with Russian ally Iran. The details of the deal leaked so far, or more likely trial ballooned, indicate it is much worse than the Obamabomb deal. The new agreement allegedly speeds up the timeline for the Islamic Republic of Iran to develop nuclear weapons, AND, it lifts sanctions to allow Iran to sell oil at today’s high prices, thereby financing their nuclear weapons program with American oil purchases.
On the other hand, Biden has now called for regime change in Russia by saying Putin cannot remain in power. Coupled with Biden’s previous declarations that Putin is a butcher and a war criminal, how does this rhetoric bring the Russians to the bargaining table with Vladimir Putin still in charge?
The answer is such a negotiation would be unthinkable after such declarations, meaning for the United States to participate in a negotiated settlement to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Putin must be removed from power.
Whether we like it or not, right now Vladimir Putin is the President of the Russian Federation, and he has repeatedly hinted at the use of nuclear weapons should NATO intervene in the Ukraine war and Russia face defeat, or in the event of an "existential" threat to the Russian nation.
And it is a good bet Putin considers maintaining himself in power to be existential to the safety and security of the Russian nation
So, forget all the speculation over what Putin’s endgame might be, what is America’s endgame?
As our old friend Pat Buchanan put it, “We hear from our moral elites that morality commands us to intervene to save the Ukrainian people from the ravages of a war that has already taken thousands of Ukrainian lives.”
And as Mr. Buchanan pointed out, the longer this war goes on, the greater the suffering and losses on all sides. Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are already dead, with 10 million uprooted from their homes, a third of that number having fled into neighboring states of Eastern Europe.
The longer the war goes on, Buchanan further observed, the greater the likelihood Putin resorts to indiscriminate bombing and shelling to kill off the resistance, and the greater the possibility that the war expands into NATO Europe.
Which of course increases the likelihood of a nuclear weapon being used to stave off a Russian defeat and keep Vladimir Putin in power.
Alternatively, we can keep doing what we are doing now which is to keep giving the Ukrainians the minimum load of weapons necessary to keep the meatgrinder going, but not enough to give them a decisive edge and victory.
Or, as Pat Buchanan put it, “…in the secure American homeland, 5,000 miles from Kyiv, there is no shortage of foreign policy scholars beating the drums for a ‘victory’ over Putin's Russia and willing to fight to achieve that victory — right down to the last Ukrainian.”
In our articles Russian Invasion Of Ukraine Updated Explainer, If Biden Is Serious About Helping Ukraine, He’d Do This, Putin Channels Obama To Justify Ukraine War and other linked articles we’ve given CHQ readers what we think is a good overview of the underlying ideological motivation behind Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine, and his grand vision of a new Eurasian-centered world order.
Putin’s ideological soulmate, Alexandr Dugin, put their vision this way:
When there is only one power which decides who is right and who is wrong, and who should be punished and who not, we have a form of global dictatorship. This is not acceptable. Therefore, we should fight against it. If someone deprives us of our freedom, we have to react. And we will react. The American Empire should be destroyed. And at one point it will be.*
Dugin, and the many Russians who share his ideology, see war with the United States as inevitable and necessary, and nowhere could I find that to win it they would limit themselves to conventional weapons.
And Joe Biden is playing right into their hands.
In a February 24, 2022, address on Russian state TV Putin said:
Why is this happening? [the encroachment of NATO into Russia’s “near abroad”} Where did this insolent manner of talking down from the height of their [Western] exceptionalism, infallibility, and all-permissiveness come from? What is the explanation for this contemptuous and disdainful attitude to our interests and absolutely legitimate demands?
Anything that does not suit the dominant state, the powers that be, is denounced as archaic, obsolete, and useless. At the same time, everything it regards as useful is presented as the ultimate truth and forced on others regardless of the cost, abusively and by any means available. Those who refuse to comply are subjected to strong-arm tactics.
Through his invective and name calling more typical of what Democrats do in an American political campaign than what statesmen do when trying to end a war, what Biden has done is make it almost impossible for the United States to participate in a peaceful resolution of the conflict between Ukraine and the Russian invaders.
In the process Biden has also proven Vladimir Putin, and his Eurasian National Bolshevist supporters justified in their resentment of the arrogance of the United States and the West, and likely made them dig in for the existential battle that they believe is necessary to destroy what they call “the American Empire” and usher in their Eurasian-focused new world order.
So, what is Biden’s endgame? Or better put, does he even have an endgame?
A competent leader of the West, which Joe Biden clearly is not, would offer a clear vision of not only how to defeat Putin’s drive to create this new Eurasian new world order, but a positive alternative that could be achieved without resorting to a war that our opponents might welcome and that his rhetoric has made all the more likely.
*Aleksandr Dugin, The Fourth Political Theory, translated By Mark Sleboda and Michael Millerman (London, Arktos, 2012) page 193.
Ukraine
Joe Biden foreign policy
Poland visit
Vladimir Putin
NATO
regime change
Russia Ukraine war
Iran deal
Ukraine refugees
Ukraine weapons
Alexandr Dugin
Eurasian National Bolshevism