The New York Times columnist Bret Stephens in his article “The World That Awaits the Next President” (NYT, 7 August 2024, p. A23) wrote:
[…]
… Moscow seems to have pressed pause on its plans to arm the Houthis with missiles, but the threat of it gives the Kremlin leverage elsewhere in the world.
What all this amounts to is what a Leninist maxim calls probing with bayonets. The next line: "If you find mush, you push."
Mush was George W. Bush's feeble response to Russia's invasion of Georgia, followed by Barack Obama's equally feeble one to Russia's seizure of Crimea in 2014, It was Donald Trump's threats to withdraw from NATO, his attempt (foiled by his own advisers) to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria, his pathetic hopes for a deal with the Taliban. It was President Biden's heedless execution of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. It was the slow-rolling of critical weapon systems deliveries to Ukraine and the feeble response to attacks by Iranian-backed militias against U.S. troops, which, predictably, resumed this week.
There's a third turn to the maxim: "If you find steel, you withdraw."
At his best, Biden provided the steel – and spine — that helped Ukraine fend off Russia's invasion. He did so again by bringing Finland and Sweden into NATO, deterring Hezbollah from invading northern Israel after Oct. 7, deepening military alliances throughout the Pacific and promising to fight for Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.
History will remember this side of the Biden legacy well. The question is whether the next president will build on or retreat from it.
[…]
Signals of weakness or strength that the next administration sends in its first weeks or months in office will shape fundamental decisions by our increasingly united and willful adversaries — as well as by our increasingly skittish allies. The MAGA people who think we should abandon Ukraine for the sake of confronting China should ask themselves how abandoning one ally in the West somehow won't embolden an adversary in the East. The progressives who say we spend too much on defense might ask how much it might cost to restore peace once it's been lost.
The invasion of Ukraine and Oct. 7 were supposed to be the alarms that the long nap from history was truly over. We can't just keep hitting the snooze button.
A commentary on the Russia-Ukraine War
HAD the international community, with America in the lead…
Had the political and strategic insight --
Had adequate historical knowledge about and appreciation of Ukraine as a nation --
Had NOT underestimated the grit and resilience of the Ukrainian people --
Had a steely spine and resolve vis-à-vis already tested many times over Russia’s predatory instincts --
Had the policy of assistance to Ukraine NOT be driven by the “mush” of “slow-rolling” supply of critical military hardware, and the heedless ban on using it on targets inside Russia proper without restrictions --
And…
Had NOT the West been so sorrily mired in Moscow’s relentless and open nuclear blackmail --
Had NOT the security assistance for Ukraine by the West, with America in the lead, not been periodically subjected to national election cycles, domestic politicking and interparty strife --
Had the assistance NOT been conditioned on the “mush” of so-called "de-escalation" (?!), an underlying wish for a “settlement” or a "peace accord" in "exchange for territorial concessions" to the Russian aggressor --
Ukraine would have already prevailed against Russia, and the war by now would have been most likely long over.
