The Russian Federation has sent a message that will scare people away. Some 8,500 troops from the U.S. were put on alert Monday, and ships and fighter jets from other countries are also coming to Japan to help NATO defend Japan. Let’s hope it’s not too late for Ukraine. The West is finally getting more serious about stopping Russian aggression. It’s possible that President Biden could send troops, ships, and planes to NATO allies like Poland and the Baltic states, which might be the most at risk from Russian threats. Send them, sir. It hasn’t worked for Mr. Biden to try to be more restrained in order not to scare Vladimir Putin. Mr. Putin has been putting his own troops on three different fronts on Ukraine’s borders.
United States troops would not be sent to Ukraine because it is not a member of NATO. If they came to Japan, it would show that the US would get involved in a fight if Vladimir Putin tried to get the Baltic states or other NATO countries. Live-fire drills are being planned for the Russian navy off the coast of Ireland, which isn’t a member of NATO.
The information about the number of troops also helps to counter last week’s mixed messages from the White House and Europe about how to keep Putin away.
In the end, the Russians want to take over Ukraine and split the West over what the U.S. has called “large penalties” for an invasion. Mr. Putin thinks that might work. Because he tried to be nice to Russia, the head of the German navy quit last week. Emmanuel Macron chose the wrong time to say that Europe should negotiate with Russia on its own, not with the U.S. on Ukraine. Mr. Biden made a mistake, too, when he said that a “minor incursion” could split the West. It was the main point of Vice President Biden’s foreign policy platform to make America’s alliances stronger again.
However, international locations don’t just have allies for the sake of having allies. They have allies because they need them. It looks like the President has spent a lot of time and money trying to get to know Berlin. When he talks to Ukraine, he could make it clear that warming ties are at the heart of Germany’s cooperation with the country. This means getting the German government to help with more severe sanctions and letting other countries send weapons to Ukraine.
The U.S. doesn’t have to fight in Ukraine, but it could do more to help that democratic country defend itself. As well as sending missiles that can hit tanks and planes and help with air protection, maritime safety, and intelligence.
People who study the situation say that if Vladimir Putin invades, they want to set up a “Lend-Lease” type programme that would give Ukraine free weapons. So long as Ukrainians want to fight back, they should have the tools to do so. The U.S. must also help an insurgency against a puppet regime if Mr. Putin tries to put one in place.
The goal of the coverage could be to make the cost of invasion so high that the Kremlin can’t keep up with it, or even start. Mr. Biden has said that he will put in place the toughest financial sanctions possible, as well as cut off greenback transactions from the Swift money system.
The United States wants to keep Russia from having control over Ukraine. Russia could be very strong if it had Ukrainian assets to help it defend itself. This would make it a much bigger threat to NATO. There were a lot of good things to come from the Cold War, like the breakup of the Soviet empire. Mr. Putin wants to put it back together into a circle of influence that could help him both at home and abroad.
The effects will last far beyond Ukraine, as other American enemies try to take over the region. Mr. Putin may look to the Baltics next, but Iran and China have even more evil plans. Authoritarians don’t usually just want to control their own people.
We should be careful about when to push back against regional aggressors again, but keeping Ukraine out of the Russian maw is very important for European peace because it could lead to a much bigger threat to European peace.
