“My guess is he will move in. (Putin) has to do something,” President Joe Biden said today at the White House, predicting Russia would invade Ukraine in coming weeks.
It’s not often the chance of a major war leaps within a matter of minutes.
If the president’s two-hour marathon press conference, his second solo performance in almost a year in office, was meant to hose down critics, it was a failure.
Honesty might be a virtue, but the president’s candour, accidental or otherwise, slashed the shock value of any Russian invasion, making some sort of confrontation almost a forgone conclusion.
Vladimir Putin, notoriously vain, wouldn’t want to appear weak before the world, after all.
“Wow” indeed, as the Washington Post’s foreign policy correspondent Josh Rogin put it.
Worse – certainly from Ukraine’s point of view – a “minor incursion” by Russia into Ukraine, Biden said, wouldn’t necessarily elicit much of a response, conceding NATO members were divided on how to respond.
“It depends on what (Russia) does, to what extent we will be able to get total unity on the NATO front,” Biden said, in comments that sent shockwaves through Kiev, where “minor incursions” would naturally appear less minor than they do in Washington.
These were bizarre comments of the president to make when his own secretary of state Antony Blinken had just left for a snap visit to Ukraine, Berlin and Geneva, where he is meeting European allies and Russia’s foreign minster to negotiate a peaceful outcome.
NATO allies have been trying to at least create the impression of unity in the tense, multi-month stand off with Putin over the future sovereignty of the former Soviet state.
The president’s press secretary Jen Pskai felt compelled to issue a press release immediately after the president’s press conference, to confirm that Russia would be “met with a swift, severe, and united response” if it invaded Ukraine.
For a veteran politician, with decades of experience in foreign affairs, these were obviously unintentional and foolish mistakes, that will raise questions about the president’s judgment.
Perhaps none of this was news to Putin, who’s amassed over 100,000 troops on Ukraine’s border, transferring additional jets and troops to Belarus in recent days.
But if he was in any doubt about whether France, Germany, the UK and the US were on the same page, he’s not now.
The rest of Mr Biden’s speech was uninteresting by comparison, at least for an international audience, filled with the usual platitudes, delivered in the usual stumbling manner Americans have come to expect.
Democrats are planning to break up his Build Back Better legislation into components to increase the likelihood some of them will pass.
His plans for 2022 included getting out and talking to the public more, and seeking more advice from experts.
Yes, Kamala Harris will be his running mate in the 2024 presidential election.
Yes, Covid-19 and inflation were problems but his administration was doing all it could to help, including, taking legal action against four large meat processing companies.
The President, who also revealed he’d been working 12 to 14 hours a day, said he hadn’t overpromised or under delivered, on the contrary his administration had exceeded expectations, which must have drawn some sniggers given despite dreadful poll in a midterm election year.
“I have no idea”, the president said, when asked by one reporter why a large proportion of US adults, 49 per cent according to one national poll, don’t think he’s mentally fit for office.
His press conference today, stumbling and rambling as usual, was unlikely to have dissuaded them.
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