Relearning the Limits of American Power All Over Again

For these people, the problem is simply a lack of American will, as if the U.S. were omnipotent and the president wielded reality-altering powers.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has prompted a lot of handwringing about how the Biden administration “failed” to prevent it. One example of this is a report by Nahal Toosi in Politico, which frames the issue this way:

And actions that might have — maybe — changed Putin’s calculus, such as deploying U.S. troops to Ukraine itself, were not ones Biden would consider.

Alexander Vindman makes similar complaints in a recent article for The Atlantic:

For instance, early in December, President Biden openly acknowledged that he would not send American troops to fight in Ukraine, thus removing any possibility of strategic ambiguity. The U.S. could have refused to elucidate its security commitments to Ukraine, much as it has done vis-à-vis Taiwan for decades. The implicit threat of U.S. and NATO intervention would have forced Putin to contend with the risks of further escalation. Instead, Biden granted Putin a free hand.

Ruling out sending U.S. forces into a non-allied country is not a failure of any kind. It is one thing that Biden got absolutely right in this crisis. Biden would have had no right to commit the U.S. to fight for Ukraine, and putting American troops in Ukraine would have been more likely to inflame the situation since one of Moscow’s main objections was to the presence of Western military forces in Ukraine. Putting an American tripwire in Ukraine is unlikely to have deterred Putin from launching the attack, but it could easily have meant war between the U.S. and Russia.