Modern ballistic nuclear rockets on rehearsal of military parade in Moscow, Russia. By arkivanov @ Shutterstock.com
The drums of war are banging in Washington, D.C. as the usual suspects urge Joe Biden to take a hard line against any Russian aggression in Ukraine. But, says Pat Buchanan on his blog, Buchanan.org, the truth is that Biden won’t be going to war for Ukraine, and Ukraine won’t be admitted to NATO. If Biden were to say that publicly, suggests Buchanan, Putin would have an “off ramp” he could accept, and war could be avoided. Buchanan writes (abridged):
Last year, when Putin marshaled 100,000 Russian troops on the borders of Ukraine, President Joe Biden declared that any U.S. response to a Russian invasion would be restricted to severe sanctions.
The U.S. would take no military action in support of Ukraine.
Why not? Because, again, Ukraine is not a member of NATO.
Clearly, by its inaction, America is revealing its refusal to risk its own security in a war with Russia over a Ukraine whose sovereignty and territorial integrity are not vital U.S. interests sufficient to justify war with the largest country on earth with its huge arsenal of nuclear weapons.
This is the real world.
And as Ukraine is not a NATO ally, and we are not going to invite it to become a NATO ally, Biden should declare so publicly, urbi et orbi, to remove Putin’s pretext for any invasion.
Biden has already declared that we will not put offensive weapons in Ukraine. If, by declaring that we have no intention of expanding NATO further east by admitting Ukraine or Georgia, we can provide Putin with an off-ramp from this crisis that he created, why not do it?
To avert a war, Biden should declare what is the truth:
“Ukraine is not a member of NATO, and neither we nor our allies have any intention or plans to bring Ukraine into NATO or to give Kyiv an Article 5 war guarantee.”
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