The Biden Legacy: War With Russia?

President Joe Biden approved another escalation in his administration’s long march to turn an already extravagant proxy fight into a hot war. He reversed more than two years of policy, easing range limits on Ukraine’s use of American-supplied missiles against Russia.

The mentally diminished president justified his decision as retaliation for North Korea’s dispatch of troops to aid Russia’s war effort. He reportedly hopes to dissuade the North from sending more men, apparently by stoking Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un’s fear of additional casualties. 

Yet before the first North Korean entered the battlefield, Pyongyang reportedly had sent Russia 8 million artillery shells plus short-range ballistic missiles, a far more important piece of assistance for the Russian military than a few thousand inexperienced soldiers. The latter aren’t going to change the military balance, which already is running strongly against Ukraine. Trying to deter the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea from participating in the war is closing the barn doors after the animals have fled.

In any case, Kim’s totalitarian rule seems unlikely to be threatened by any casualty increase. Moreover, such losses would increase Vladimir Putin’s debt to Pyongyang. As a result, Russia would probably do whatever is necessary to strengthen Kim’s control. Ironically, so too would Beijing. Although the People’s Republic of China is unhappy with the renewed Moscow-Pyongyang axis, and potential for triggering a regional allied response, Beijing can’t afford to let either Russia or North Korea fail. Indeed, the North’s intervention on Moscow’s behalf has actually increased the DPRK’s public standing in China, which long has been dismal.

Despite being presented as a calculated response in the grand geopolitical chess game unfolding in Europe, the missile decision looks more like a political strike against President-elect Donald Trump. First, Biden is inflating Ukrainian and European expectations, increasing pressure to eliminate all restrictions on U.S.-supplied weapons. Second, he is encouraging Russian retaliation and making Moscow less amenable to negotiation, and especially to agreement on anything short of a veritable Ukrainian capitulation. Third, he is deepening the sense of abandonment if Washington backs away from the war. All complicate any Trump effort to disengage.

Unfortunately, Biden’s last-minute machinations undermine American security. He is continuing Washington’s reckless post–Cold War campaign to dominate territory up to Russia’s border. The decision for war is on Vladimir Putin. Nevertheless, American and European officials share abundant blame. It is no “Putin talking point” to note that the U.S. and allies made and then broke multiple assurances to both the Gorbachev and Yeltsin governments not to expand NATO. 

The Clinton administration bears special blame, deciding that Moscow had been defeated so its objections were of no account. However, that changed as the U.S. and its allies continued to fuel the conflict to come. In his famous speech to the 2007 Munich Security Forum, Putin bluntly stated: 

Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force—military force—in international relations, force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts. … We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law. And independent legal norms are, as a matter of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state’s legal system. One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations.

He also criticized the transatlantic alliance:

I think it is obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with the modernization of the Alliance itself or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended? And what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them. But I will allow myself to remind this audience what was said. I would like to quote the speech of NATO General Secretary Mr. Woerner in Brussels on 17 May 1990. He said at the time that: “the fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee.” Where are these guarantees?

The following year, the national intelligence officer Fiona Hill, who later served in the Trump administration, briefed President George W. Bush, predicting “that Mr. Putin would view steps to bring Ukraine and Georgia closer to NATO as a provocative move that would likely provoke preemptive Russian military action.” CIA Director William Burns, then U.S. ambassador to Russia, warned the Bush administration that “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin).” Such a step would “create fertile soil for Russian meddling in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.”

The allies knew the stakes when Putin increased military forces along Ukraine’s border. NATO’s then-Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg acknowledged, “The background was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade [sic] Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that. … So he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders.” 

Even Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky admitted: “Security guarantees and neutrality, the nuclear-free status of our state. We are ready to agree to it. This is the most important point. This was the first fundamental point for the Russian Federation, as far as I remember. And as far as I remember, they started a war because of this.” Yet the U.S. then opposed a negotiated settlement.

In retrospect the allies’ decisions constitute vainglorious stupidity. Even the administration admits that Biden’s action won’t revive Kiev’s military fortunes. No allied Wunderwaffe is likely to bring victory. Although Russians as well as Ukrainians are suffering, the latter are much worse off. Ukraine, likely to run out of manpower well before Moscow, is resorting to desperate measures to round up new soldiers. The Zelensky government is seeking to embrace the incoming administration, hoping to turn Trump Kiev’s way. 

Today allied governments are increasingly discussing the need to negotiate. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz controversially called Putin last week, for their first exchange in two years. Many Ukrainians acknowledge, however reluctantly, that the war is unlikely to be won and will require territorial concessions to end. Continued international support for Ukraine is increasingly being presented as a means to increase its “leverage” in expected talks. (Even some Trump advisers advocate hiking U.S. aid to Ukraine to pressure Russia.) Kiev’s situation is far worse today than before the war. All this probably could have been avoided had the U.S. simply announced that Kiev would not be joining NATO, not now and not ever.

What of Moscow’s response? Ukraine partisans dismiss fear of Russian retaliation and escalation, suggesting that Putin has proved to be a paper tiger, full of bluster rather than action. Yet prudence should not be confused with timidity. As long as Moscow appears to be winning, Putin has an incentive to avoid the vagaries of an expanded war. But he need not respond directly. Indeed, Russia already has answered asymmetrically. 

Relatively minor so far are sabotage and other disruptive operations in Europe, which could be expanded to energy and electrical facilities, as well as other civilian infrastructure. (Two undersea cables linking Germany and Finland have just been cut, by unknown parties.) More serious is the possibility of Russia arming America’s and Europe’s enemies. Observed Putin: “we believe that if someone is thinking that it is possible to supply such weapons to a war zone in order to deliver strikes at our territory and to create problems for us, why can we not supply our weapons of the same class to those regions around the world where they will target sensitive facilities of the countries that are doing this to Russia? The response could be symmetrical.” He acknowledged that this was not ideal, but “Ultimately, if we see that these countries are being embroiled into a war against us, and this constitutes their direct involvement in the war against the Russian Federation, we reserve the right to respond in kind.”

Moscow is believed to be aiding Yemen’s Ansar Allah in targeting Western shipping in the Red Sea. Washington is spending billions and devoting significant naval resources in response. There may be more to come. Warned the Atlantic Council’s Elisabeth Braw: “Russia’s provision of targeting data may be followed by yet more support for the Houthis. According to Disruptive Industries (DI), a UK technology company that specializes in the closed-source discovery of global risks, there is extensive and unseen Russian activity in Houthi-held parts of Yemen, and there has been for some time.” William LaPlante, under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, allowed that the Houthis’ weapons “can do things that are just amazing,” which suggests the possibility that Moscow is already providing hardware as well.

Even more ominous is Russian cooperation with North Korea. It is unknown what Kim receives in return for his assistance; presumably enough money, food, and energy to relieve Pyongyang’s dependence on the PRC. Worse would be technical assistance as the North seeks to improve its nuclear arsenal and refine its ICBMs, with the ultimate goal of targeting American cities. Russia has much to offer, and its aid would be difficult to detect. Putin might see such assistance as appropriate payback for U.S. support to Ukraine that has killed thousands of Russians. If Washington can extend the range of its missiles, Moscow can do the same for North Korea’s missiles.

Unfortunately, Biden’s ill-considered move makes such a course more likely. Putin would like to discourage future allied escalation. Moreover, Kim can increase his price if the DPRK’s costs of intervention increase. And the impact of such assistance cannot be reversed. Extended deterrence might seem relatively costless against an adversary unable to reach the U.S. homeland. Once millions of Americans are at risk from a North Korean nuclear attack, Washington’s policy toward Northeast Asia will have to be reconsidered. 

Donald Trump has the opportunity to play peacemaker after he takes office on January 20th. Biden has made his successor’s job more difficult, but also more essential. It is important to end a conflict that is literally destroying Ukraine. It is vital to end a proxy war-plus between nuclear powers.

Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Foreign Follies: America’s New Global Empire.