On Feb. 24, the day Russia invaded Ukraine, President JOE BIDEN told reporters to give him a month to see if the sanctions would eventually stop VLADIMIR PUTIN. Well, it’s been a month, and now he’s vigorously defending the sanctions-first plan when asked about it on the one-month anniversary of the war.
“I did not say that in fact the sanctions would deter him. Sanctions never deter,” he insisted during a Thursday news conference following an extraordinary NATO summit. The point of the economic punishment threatened before the incursion, and now imposed, “is to be sure that after a month, we will sustain what we’re doing not just next month, the following month, but for the remainder of this entire year. That’s what will stop him.”
NatSec Daily’s eyebrows raised after hearing that, and they moved closer to our collective hairline after looking back at administration statements from earlier this year.
“The purpose of those sanctions is to deter Russian aggression,” Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN said in January, adding “if they’re triggered now, you lose the deterrent effect.”
Here’s one more for good measure, linking Biden directly to this argument: “The president believes that sanctions are intended to deter,” national security adviser JAKE SULLIVAN stated in February.
We’ve spoken to U.S. officials about this for weeks now, not just since Biden’s remarks in Brussels yesterday. The general argument we hear is one Vox’s DYLAN MATTHEWS tweeted on Feb. 24: The administration believed Putin was likely to invade even with the threat of sanctions. The hope was showing the Kremlin that the U.S. and its allies would impose penalties together might lower the chance of troops crossing into Ukraine, but not eliminate it.
Two hours later that same day, White House press secretary JEN PSAKI pushed the same line. Making up numbers to illustrate her point, she said “if there’s a 95 percent chance of Russia invading without the threat of sanctions … and a 65 percent chance that they will with them, you’re obviously going to go with the threat of sanctions because you want to reduce the threat of an invasion. So, there is a deterrent.”
But Republicans don’t see it that way. OMRI CEREN, Sen. TED CRUZ’s (R-Texas) national security adviser, has openly called out the administration for changing its tune. He wrote an extensive Twitter thread showing nine separate instances in which Biden’s team made the sanctions-as-deterrence argument. Other right-leaning officials and experts have piled on, with the Hudson Institute’s REBECCAH HEINRICHS tweeting, “Biden supporting natsec commentators repeatedly made this case and said those calling for sanctions before the invasion ‘failed to understand deterrence.’”
We went back to the White House as the sanctions deterrence debate is being relitigated once again. Per a spokesperson, “we said all along that if Putin was willing to bear the cost of crippling his economy, weakening Russia’s strategic position, and isolating himself from the world, that was a choice he could make.”
In other words, the U.S. and its allies gave Putin a choice: Don’t invade, or else. The problem, of course, is that Putin chose “or else,” leading to the devastating scenes in Ukraine and Russia’s collapsing economy.
To NatSec Daily, that sounds like an admission that the U.S.-led sanctions plan didn’t work. But the question remains: Would Russia have invaded no matter what the West did? The president and his team seem to be arguing that.
“I did not say that in fact the sanctions would deter him. Sanctions never deter,” he insisted during a Thursday news conference following an extraordinary NATO summit. The point of the economic punishment threatened before the incursion, and now imposed, “is to be sure that after a month, we will sustain what we’re doing not just next month, the following month, but for the remainder of this entire year. That’s what will stop him.”
NatSec Daily’s eyebrows raised after hearing that, and they moved closer to our collective hairline after looking back at administration statements from earlier this year.
“The purpose of those sanctions is to deter Russian aggression,” Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN said in January, adding “if they’re triggered now, you lose the deterrent effect.”
Here’s one more for good measure, linking Biden directly to this argument: “The president believes that sanctions are intended to deter,” national security adviser JAKE SULLIVAN stated in February.
We’ve spoken to U.S. officials about this for weeks now, not just since Biden’s remarks in Brussels yesterday. The general argument we hear is one Vox’s DYLAN MATTHEWS tweeted on Feb. 24: The administration believed Putin was likely to invade even with the threat of sanctions. The hope was showing the Kremlin that the U.S. and its allies would impose penalties together might lower the chance of troops crossing into Ukraine, but not eliminate it.
Two hours later that same day, White House press secretary JEN PSAKI pushed the same line. Making up numbers to illustrate her point, she said “if there’s a 95 percent chance of Russia invading without the threat of sanctions … and a 65 percent chance that they will with them, you’re obviously going to go with the threat of sanctions because you want to reduce the threat of an invasion. So, there is a deterrent.”
But Republicans don’t see it that way. OMRI CEREN, Sen. TED CRUZ’s (R-Texas) national security adviser, has openly called out the administration for changing its tune. He wrote an extensive Twitter thread showing nine separate instances in which Biden’s team made the sanctions-as-deterrence argument. Other right-leaning officials and experts have piled on, with the Hudson Institute’s REBECCAH HEINRICHS tweeting, “Biden supporting natsec commentators repeatedly made this case and said those calling for sanctions before the invasion ‘failed to understand deterrence.’”
We went back to the White House as the sanctions deterrence debate is being relitigated once again. Per a spokesperson, “we said all along that if Putin was willing to bear the cost of crippling his economy, weakening Russia’s strategic position, and isolating himself from the world, that was a choice he could make.”
In other words, the U.S. and its allies gave Putin a choice: Don’t invade, or else. The problem, of course, is that Putin chose “or else,” leading to the devastating scenes in Ukraine and Russia’s collapsing economy.
To NatSec Daily, that sounds like an admission that the U.S.-led sanctions plan didn’t work. But the question remains: Would Russia have invaded no matter what the West did? The president and his team seem to be arguing that.
What Biden means by ‘sanctions never deter’
www.politico.com