Posted on 05/25/2022 7:36:56 AM PDT by Kaslin
In the days after Russia attacked Ukraine, there was a lot of talk among Republicans that Vladimir Putin would not have invaded had Donald Trump still been president. Trump was so difficult to predict, so impulsive, so impetuous, the thinking went, that Putin would not have risked a massive U.S. response under Trump.
"The sheer unpredictability of Trump, his anger at being defied or disrespected, his willingness to take the occasional big risk (the Soleimani strike), all had to make Putin frightened or wary of him in a way that he simply isn't of Joe Biden," National Review editor Rich Lowry tweeted.
The anti-Trump crowd scoffed. Trump was Putin's stooge, they said. The Russian strongman didn't need to invade Ukraine because Trump would have given him everything he wanted without all the messiness of a big war. "Trump never once showed any anger, risk-taking or unpredictability with Putin," tweeted Rick Wilson, co-founder of the Resistance fundraising group The Lincoln Project. "He showed deference, adoration, admiration, obedience, and sought to wreck NATO, Putin's highest goals. Putin didn't need to buy the cow. The milk was free."
Now, though, the side skeptical that Putin would have acted had Trump been president has gotten some support from an unlikely source. Fiona Hill, the Russia expert, former senior National Security Council aide in the Trump White House and star witness against Trump in his first impeachment, appeared recently on a program sponsored by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Discussing the Ukraine war, Hill suggested that Putin waited to invade Ukraine until Biden became president, preferring Biden's "predictability" to Trump's volatility.
Hill was quite critical of Trump, saying he knew nothing about matters concerning Ukraine or international relations. When Trump met with Putin, she continued, Putin found himself having to explain things to Trump. If Putin were going to launch an invasion, Hill said, "he thought that somebody like Biden, who's a 'transatlanticist,' who knows all about NATO, who actually knows where Ukraine is, and actually knows something about the history, and is very steeped in international affairs, would be the right person to engage with, as opposed to somebody you've got to explain everything to all the time." In this view, Putin saw Biden as someone he could deal with as Russia seized territory from Ukraine. But not the erratic Trump. Who knew what he might do? "[Putin] wants to have predictability in the person that he's engaging with," said Hill.
Hill certainly made it sound as if Putin made the specific calculation that his brutal invasion of Ukraine would be more likely to succeed with Biden in the White House than with Trump. Of course, Hill is not the final authority on such matters. But her account lends credibility to those who argued that Putin would not have invaded Ukraine were Trump still in the White House.
Meanwhile, a lot of Americans are going to see ominous undertones in a new move under consideration by the Biden administration. On Monday, The Wall Street Journal ran a story headlined, "Pentagon Weighs Deploying Special Forces to Guard Kyiv Embassy." The paper reported that U.S. officials are considering sending elite troops "for the defense and security of the [American embassy in Kyiv], which lies within range of Russian missiles." The paper added that the presence of U.S. special forces "would mark an escalation from Mr. Biden's initial pledge that no American troops will be sent into the country."
Biden not only pledged that no American troops will be sent into Ukraine -- he pledged not to send the highest levels of other U.S. assistance to Ukraine, lest it draw the U.S. into the war. "The idea that we're going to send in offensive equipment and have planes and tanks and trains going in with American pilots and American crews -- just understand, don't kid yourself, no matter what y'all say, that's called World War III," Biden said in early March, when he refused to facilitate the transfer of fighter jets to Ukraine.
More recently, on May 3, during a visit to a Lockheed Martin facility in Alabama, where the company makes the Javelin anti-tank missiles the U.S. is sending by the thousands to Ukraine, Biden told workers that, "You're making it possible for the Ukrainian people to defend themselves without us having to risk getting in a third world war by sending in American soldiers fighting Russian soldiers."
And now there is a plan to send American soldiers into Ukraine, ostensibly just to protect the U.S. embassy, but also creating the risk that a Russian military action, intentionally or not, might hit Americans, drawing the U.S. further into the war. The Journal reports the special forces plan has not yet been presented to the president. But when it is, Biden -- and the United States -- will have a deeply consequential decision to make.
Yes
Next Question
“And now there is a plan to send American soldiers into Ukraine, ostensibly just to protect the U.S. embassy, but also creating the risk that a Russian military action, intentionally or not, might hit Americans, drawing the U.S. further into the war. The Journal reports the special forces plan has not yet been presented to the president. But when it is, Biden — and the United States — will have a deeply consequential decision to make.”
The embassy should be temporarily evacuated, or minimized to essential personnel only.
They can be protected by the valiant Ukrainian Army.
Sending troops there is stupid.
Yes.
Trump was completely predictable; that’s why Putin didn’t attack the Ukraine. And if you didn’t what Trump would do, you could ask him. If he answered, you got the truth. That’s one of the things the Swamp despised him for. Politicians can’t deal with someone like that.
Trump seemed to care about Ukraine getting clean from DC like filth like the Bidens..
And seemed to calm the world down.
America First wasn’t necessarily a war drum against Russia and China.
They look to their nation interests first, too.
But that also meant Ukraine as a nation isn’t to be used as a proxy while Trump is President.
So, Biden is installed.
Yay DC filth!
Good luck Ukraine..
would a sane man fork over a man of limited capacity, were it to to profit?
in a nanosecond!!
The writer quotes Fiona Hill’s nonsensical statements as if they have authority.
Putin feared Trump because Trump was monumentally competent, not because Trump was erratic. Trump understands people like Putin and knows how to manage them.
That is quite a damning indictment of the country’s foreign policy establishment from within.
Remember Beirut? Libya? So many countries I’d get writers cramps
“”he thought that somebody like Biden, who’s a ‘transatlanticist,’ who knows all about NATO, who actually knows where Ukraine is....
1. Short answer, “YES”
2. Long answer, “F&%k YES”
I was one who thought Putin would never invade Ukraine as he did. Maybe sometime of takeover of Dombass, but never an all-out invasion of Ukraine. It was a stupid move and I thought better of Putin. I was wrong.
But looking back to the presidency of Poroshenko, when Biden was heavily involved, it was very Russian “friendly”, as I recall. So much so that when Zelensky won the expediency so convincingly, Poroshenko and some others were investigated and charged with treason. There were news reports that Biden was ruler of the Ukraine along with his lieutenant, Poroshenko.
Did Zelensky upset some Russian/Ukraine (Poroshenk/Biden/Putin) scheme and thereby trigger the Russian invasion???
Does a bear....
Duh. Who writes this stuff? A third grader?
Read-read.
Lead- led.
Its possible! By this logic China will move on Taiwan next.
I'd say ask Putin but why would we believe anything he said?
No. If Trump was a Russian agent like the media reported it would have made sense for Putin to invade with Trump as president as the US would not intervene. touché :)
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