Biden’s ‘stalemate strategy’ in Ukraine does not deter Russia and encourages China on Taiwan

At his news conference with President Volodymyr Zelensky, President Biden was posed this question by a Ukrainian journalist:

“When the full-scale invasion started, U.S. officials said that Ukraine cannot receive Patriots because, as you said, it might be unnecessary escalation. And now it is happening. … And now Ukraine desperately needs more capabilities, including long-range missiles — ATACMS. Maybe I sound naïve, but can we make a long story short and give Ukraine all the capabilities it needs and liberate all territories, sooner rather than later?”

After an awkward wisecrack and the requisite audience tittering, Biden rephrased the question:

“Why don’t we just give Ukraine everything there is to give? … [T]he idea that we would give Ukraine materiel that is fundamentally different than is already going there would have a prospect of breaking up NATO and breaking up the European Union and the rest of the world.  …[T]hey’re not looking to go to war with Russia. They’re not looking for a third World War. And I think it can all be avoided by making sure that Ukraine is able to succeed on the battlefield. … [T]here’s more to say, but I probably already said too much.”

Put bluntly, Biden was saying our European allies wouldn’t let America do all we could to help Ukraine for fear of further antagonizing Vladimir Putin. He was describing the reverse scenario from what occurred in March, when Poland offered Ukraine Russian MiGs to establish the no-fly zone that Biden had refused, and he vetoed Poland’s idea as well.

A consensus organization such as NATO necessarily operates on a lowest common denominator basis, which is why Turkey has been able to withhold its consent to the accession of Finland and Sweden until it receives concessions on unrelated matters.

History eventually may reveal the accurate mix of U.S. leadership and European trepidation, but it was Biden who mentioned the danger of WWIII even before Russia invaded Ukraine in February. Since Patriots now will be provided, either the NATO assessment has changed or Washington has decided to disregard it after all.

Taiwan is the other flashpoint for war, created by blatant authoritarian aggression against a vulnerable democracy. The tension between the West’s resolve and its fear of escalation on display in Ukraine has serious implications for American and allied security commitments to Taiwan. The democratic island is perilously close to attack from China, Russia’s “no-limits strategic partner,” and the United States is the only power that can deter or, if necessary, defeat it.    

The evolution of American and Western security commitments in the two situations offers ominous comparisons. When Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in 1997, the United States, United Kingdom and Russia guaranteed its security. In 2008, Washington led NATO in declaring that “Georgia and Ukraine will become members of NATO.”

Yet, when Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014, the U.S. and NATO did nothing.  And in 2021, when Washington’s intelligence was certain that Russia was preparing a fresh invasion of Ukraine, the West was unwilling or unable to deter it, again for fear of confronting Russia. So, Putin continues to escalate his inhuman aggression against the Ukrainian people and Ukrainian civilization and threatens even worse escalation if the West rallies further to Ukraine’s defense.

When the Carter administration in 1979 switched diplomatic relations from Taipei to Beijing and terminated the U.S.-Taiwan Mutual Defense Treaty, Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) to restore as much of the diplomatic and security relationship as possible. It declared Taiwan’s security “a matter of grave concern to the United States” and pledged to provide it with defensive weapons. It also required the executive branch to “maintain the capacity … to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion” against Taiwan — but it did not commit the U.S. to utilize that capacity.

In an almost totally ignored, but potentially momentous, provision, the TRA also stated that America’s decision to establish diplomatic relations with China was contingent on “the expectation that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means.” It would greatly strengthen U.S. deterrence if Biden, unlike all his predecessors, would invoke that language and publicly declare that Washington not only will defend Taiwan but will break off relations with Beijing until peace and Taiwan’s independence are secured.

What has become known as America’s  policy of “strategic ambiguity” has so shrouded U.S. intentions that neither Taiwan nor China, nor U.S. allies, nor Russia or other Chinese 

 Allies — perhaps not even Washington itself — knows for sure what the United States will do if China attacks Taiwan. Nor do they know how America will respond if Beijing imposes a sustained blockade on Taiwan like the no-fly, no-sail zone it temporarily established after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) visited the democratic island in August, without any significant Western action.

Biden has said four times that Washington will defend Taiwan, only to have his subordinates’ “clarifications” drain his remarks of meaning each time. Biden is clearly trying to dispel the ambiguity that began with the Clinton administration in 1995. The circumstances have changed in significant ways in the four decades since, many of which have eroded U.S. credibility and increased the danger of Beijing making a strategic miscalculation — so the need for clarity on Taiwan is even more compelling. What happens to Taiwan surely will impact the security fate of the entire region, just as Ukraine’s future is tied inextricably to Europe’s.  

Given the stakes in the democracy versus authoritarianism confrontation that the Trump and Biden administrations both correctly discerned, global security is also fatefully implicated.  The two administrations’ efforts to strengthen allies’ contributions to the collective defense, greatly intensified by the Biden team, provide a hopeful basis for avoiding in the Indo-Pacific what has happened in Europe — but only if it is bolstered by sustained U.S. leadership. 

Presently, Biden’s stalemate strategy in Ukraine well suits Xi Jinping’s “new normal” approach to squeezing Taiwan. Western strategic clarity is needed in both theaters to deter further Russia’s revanchism and China’s expansionism.

Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2006 and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010. He served in the Pentagon when Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia and was involved in Department of Defense discussions about the U.S. response. Follow him on Twitter @BoscoJosephA.