Strategic Dissonance

Fear of "escalation" has paralyzed the Biden Administration and prolonged two wars

The coming fury: Russian armor awaits the order to move into Ukraine

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From the first day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, President Joe Biden and his foreign policy team have focused on a single objective: the prevention of escalation. Biden talked tough in the early days of the Russo-Ukrainian War. But when the crunch came, the military aid that he was willing to provide to the Ukrainians was insufficient. Worse still, it came with many strings attached, for whatever else happened, the Biden Administration was determined to prevent escalation.

There proved to be a flaw in this grand design, however. Though Biden & Co. enjoyed some leverage over the Ukrainians, V. Putin remained free to do as he pleased. America and its European allies dithered over which weapons and what quantity of them should be provided to Ukraine. Worse, they stipulated that some weapons cannot not be used to attack targets on Russian soil. But while they fretted over the dangers of Ukrainian escalation, Russian troops were fighting—and committing war crimes—on Ukrainian soil, and Russian missiles were striking targets throughout Ukraine.

The sheer absurdity of this one-eyed American policy has forced the Biden Administration to modify it—albeit reluctantly. But even now, as noted in an important 24 August assessment by the Institute for the Study of War, the US still imposes significant limitations on Ukraine’s ability to hit military targets inside Russia. The irrational fear of escalation persists—irrational because it does nothing but prolong the war.

It’s no exaggeration to say that from the beginning of this crisis, Joe Biden and his foreign policy/national security team have gotten everything wrong. When V. Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine, Biden’s first instinct was to offer President Volodymyr Zelensky a plane ride out of his country. Only when the Ukrainians showed that they were willing and able to fight back did Biden change his tune—and for a moment he showed, or seemed to show, true resolution.

But a moment was all it proved to be. It soon became apparent that the Administration was vetting every Ukrainian request for military aid in terms of its escalatory potential. The President himself, field marshal’s cap askew, confidently asserted that no, Ukraine didn’t need to be provided with modern tanks, missiles, or combat aircraft from US/NATO sources—which was bare-faced nonsense. When such requests became more pressing, the Administration wasted months negotiating with itself over whether to grant them.

The truth is that Biden lost his nerve when confronted with threats of retaliation emanating from Moscow. So he dithered. He delayed. He set restrictive conditions on the use of certain weapons. And the verdict on his Ukraine policy has now been rendered: too little, too late. The Russo-Ukrainian war rages on, with no end and no clear US policy objective in sight.

It was much the same story after 7 October 2023, with the additional complication of election-year politics. Fear of escalation has warped the Biden Administration’s response to the crisis caused by the vicious Hamas pogrom in southern Israel. Once again, Biden talked tough in the early going, and once again the assistance given trailed many strings. In this case other factors also played a role in the Administration’s policy: election-year politics, deep dislike of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, the antisemitism that permeates the Democratic Party’s progressive base. But escalation was the demon word that most haunted the consciousness of the President and his people. They proclaimed their support for Israel. But behind the scenes they were working hard to prevent Israel from winning the Gaza War.

Outrage over Hamas’ bloody rampage quickly faded. American pressure first deterred the Israeli government from dealing with Hezbollah in the north, then imposed a long pause of the fighting in Gaza. But Israel got no thanks for accommodating the demands of the US government. Instead, the Jewish state was subjected to an interminable chorus of complaints and criticisms, punctuated by the occasional intemperate tirade. The Biden Administration often acted as if Israel was the obstacle to a negotiated settlement of the conflict and the chief perpetrator of war crimes: a complete inversion of reality. We were given to understand that Joe Biden had had it with Bibi Netanyahu. When northern Israel came under attack by Hezbollah, the Israeli government was warned not to do anything that risked “widening the war.” And when Iran joined in with a missile and drone barrage of Israel, the Administration fretted that Israel’s retaliation might be provocative.

No one in the White House, the State Department or the Defense Department appears to have noticed that the feared regional war is already raging. Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have been attacking shipping in the Red Sea since November 2023—this despite the powerful US naval deployment in that area. To the disruption of vital trade routes and the threat to global economic stability caused by these attacks has recently been added the danger of an environmental catastrophe.

On 21 August, a missile fired from Yemen struck the Sounion, a Greek-flagged oil tanker carrying 150,000 tons of Iraqi crude. The ship was set ablaze and had to be abandoned. The crew was taken off by a French destroyer and the tanker was anchored in shallow water between Yemen and Eritrea. The Houthis have made several subsequent attempts to sink the tanker, and though no large oil spill has been observed so far, the Sounion is still on fire and poses an imminent environmental threat. Neither the US Navy nor the EU naval force in the Red Sea have done anything to suppress the Houthi attacks, confining themselves to the interception of rockets, missiles and drones fired from Yemen.

Thanks to this sad tale of incompetence and magical thinking, American foreign policy for the Middle East has been reduced to a shambles, with our diplomats talking up irrelevant nonstarters like the two-state solution—which Hamas killed stone dead on 10/7. There are even whispers that the Administration is still hoping to reach some kind of accommodation with Iran—as if the Islamic Republic has the slightest interest in being a “partner for peace.” This policy of appeasement, inherited from the Obama Administration, is based on the delusional premise that there exists within the Iranian regime a moderate faction that will grow in influence if the US doles out concessions. But the ayatollahs, of course, pocket all such concessions and continue on their terroristic, genocidal course.

In short, the Biden Administration’s attempt to contain the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have failed. And the consequences of this failure may be summed up in five words: more death, destruction, and disarray.

The overture to this succession of disasters was Joe Biden’s 2021 Afghanistan skedaddle, which sent a message around the world that America is an unreliable ally and a paper tiger. It fatally undermined the Biden presidency, which never recovered from the images of panic, chaos, and befuddlement that the American people beheld on their television screens. Biden is a lame-duck president today because the incapacity he displayed two years ago caught the attention of the public, and it was all downhill from there.

Not much comfort is to be derived from the fact that Joe Biden will soon be leaving the White House. The two people vying to replace him, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, are unlikely to supply the steading hand so badly needed in this time of troubles. Neither of them is to be trusted on Ukraine. Harris, whose antipathy toward Israel and sympathy with the Democratic Party’s “anti-Zionist” progressive base is no secret, is certainly not to be trusted on the Middle East crisis. And though Trump and the Republican Party are favorably disposed toward the Jewish state, his mercurial temperament and lack of focus inspire scant confidence.

Historical analogizing is always suspect, but when I survey the state of the world today, I can’t help recalling that low, dishonest decade, the Thirties, when in the words of Winston Churchill, “The English-speaking peoples through their unwisdom, carelessness and good nature allowed the wicked to rearm.” With a few tweaks to bring it up to date, this lapidary verdict on an earlier era of illusions could well stand as an indictment of the one we’re living through now.