The Issue That Will Sink Joe Biden in 2024, and It Isn’t the Economy
For decades, Russia has been purposely marginalized and vilified by the West for one obvious reason: NATO. Without the Russian boogeyman, it is legitimate to wonder why NATO would need to exist at all. However, even raising a question about NATO’s purpose and mission sends neocons, and apparently modern Democrats, into a frenzy.
Why?
Could it be that there is a large contingent of multi-national corporations that benefit from the billions of dollars that flow through NATO every year? In truth, the fear of withdrawal from NATO has become a prominent Democrat talking point as the New York Times and other leftist publications accuse Donald Trump of wanting to disband the organization.
NATO is a sacred cow of sorts, so only un-American insurrectionists would question its existence, right?
Two generations of voting age adults have no idea that Boris Yeltsin stood on a tank outside the Parliament building in Moscow and demanded freedom and democracy for Russia in 1991. Even fewer know that Vladimir Putin (yes THAT Vladimir Putin) once requested admittance into NATO during the Clinton administration. Of course, he was rejected, and instead, the West successfully turned Putin into a dictator caricature long before Russia invaded Ukraine.
Regrettably, Putin willingly allowed the West to define him, and now he’s playing the tyrant-thug role quite nicely, thank you. His growing bitterness at the West’s encroachment, marginalization and purposeful mischaracterization (Russia collusion hoax) was obvious to anyone paying attention.
There is no doubt he took it all very personal.
Thus, when Putin made the decision to invade Ukraine, the West underestimated his resolve. He knew that anything less than victory would destroy his legacy in Russian history and likely lead to a coup or even assassination. That’s why reports that Russia has lost 87% of its active duty ground troops in Ukraine are irrelevant and only serve to validate Putin’s determination to fight on to the bitter end if necessary.
In mid-2021, anyone with an ounce of common sense could see the inevitability of a quagmire in Ukraine if the U.S. was drawn into a proxy war with Russia. Do you think there is any chance Donald Trump would have gotten us involved in this endless money pit?
No way…
However, Joe Biden no longer seems capable of second tier thought, which defines mild cognitive impairment. He may be able to understand a situation on a surface level, but when it comes to thinking the problem through to conclusion, he appears lost in a vast wasteland of cerebral emptiness.
Ukraine is Losing the War
So, the calculus is pretty simple: Will Putin’s resolve last longer than the American public’s appetite for the bottomless financial sinkhole in Ukraine?
I think we’re seeing how that is playing out.
Most recently, Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy made his return to Washington to demand more money and resources but left empty-handed. There was no hero’s welcome or blank check provided this time. To date, the U.S. has sent more than $75 billion to Ukraine with virtually no accounting as to how the money has been spent. It’s hard to get exact numbers, but it’s estimated Europe has chipped in about $40 billion.
Despite all the money borrowed and transferred to Kyiv at a time when the U.S. is paying $1 trillion in interest every year on the national debt, the situation in Ukraine is becoming increasingly dire.
Recent headlines regarding Ukraine’s prospects for the kind of victory sold to the American public when the war started are dim. While global interest has somewhat shifted to Israel-Hamas, it’s been under-reported that Ukraine is running out of troops. In fact, the average age of a soldier in Ukraine is now 43, up from 30-35 since March 2022. If Ukraine has killed or wounded casualties of 200,000 as estimated, and Russia has suffered 300,000 killed or wounded, the math doesn’t favor Ukraine, which has a population that is only one-fourth the size of Russia’s.
Ukraine’s failed spring offensive has only added to doubts about its prospects for victory, especially since Russia has made recent gains in the eastern provinces amidst extremely bloody fighting. Russia is advancing in the Kharkiv-Luhansk oblast border, along the Avdiivka-Donetsk complex and near Bakhmut. Recent missile attacks on Kiev have intensified, a harbinger of another winter without heat or electricity in the capitol city.
Ukraine will Sink Biden’s Campaign in 2024
Whether the Russian people support the war in Ukraine is largely irrelevant since over the past two decades, Putin has turned the government into the kind of dictatorship many in the West wanted. As optimism for a favorable outcome grows, rumors of a military coup and talk of replacing Putin have faded, especially since the failed insurrection and death of Yevgeny Prigozhin.
On the other hand, Joe Biden’s chances of remaining president are far more dismal if events continue to sour in Ukraine. Already, there is a growing chorus from those weary of the continued expense of the proxy war. Tired arguments from 1990’s Bush-era neocons like Nikki Haley fall on deaf ears:
“China’s watching what we do with Ukraine. They’re watching who we’ve sanctioned. They’re watching what other countries are joining us. If they see us stay true in Ukraine with our allies, they will hold off on Taiwan. That’s the big issue of why this all matters,” Haley said at a recent Iowa town hall.
We learned a very costly lesson about the “domino theory” when we entered the Vietnam war. If we forgot those lessons, we had a refresher course in Iraq and Afghanistan. The idea the Xi Jinping will base any Taiwan invasion plan on the results in Ukraine is utterly absurd. Equally ridiculous is the notion that Putin, whose military is decimated, will invade Poland or the Baltics and directly engage NATO if he achieves his objectives in Ukraine.
That’s why politicians like JD Vance are beginning to suggest that peace in Ukraine will likely involve ceding land to Russia:
“What’s in America’s best interest is to accept Ukraine is going to have to cede some territory to the Russians and we need to bring this war to a close,” Vance (R-OH), said on CNN’s State of the Union. “The idea that Ukraine was going to throw Russia back to the 1991 border was preposterous – nobody actually believed it.”
All of this is very bad news for Joe Biden. In 2024, he will be actively campaigning (or not) as the Ukraine war likely sinks further into a morass of stagnation on the battlefield coupled with ever greater Zelenskyy demands for more money. Meanwhile, Putin’s confidence grows by the day as he watches the American public’s mounting dissatisfaction with the billions flowing into Ukraine while critical needs in the U.S. are neglected.
In the alternative, any terms that are forced on Ukraine and result in Russia gaining the territories it wanted before the war began will be equally as disastrous for Biden. One can imagine Trump pummeling his opponent over the billions that were spent for absolutely nothing, the horrific loss of life and property, and the billions that will be needed in the future to rebuild Ukraine.
Of all the issues facing Biden, Ukraine is the one that is least susceptible to temporary fixes and short-term manipulation, and if the Republicans don’t choose Nikki Haley as their candidate, Ukraine will be the issue that sinks Joe Biden’s presidency for good.
