March 10, 2022 6:46 pm ET
View of Polish Air Force MiG-29 fighters at the 22nd Air Base Command in Malbork, Poland on August 27, 2021.
Photo: Anadolu agency via Getty Images
It turns out that the US decision to deny Ukraine the supply of Polish MiG-29 fighters is even worse than we wrote on Thursday. The White House now confirms that the decision was made by President Biden, who vetoed the delivery of the aircraft so as not to provoke Vladimir Putin and escalate the war.
The logic seems to be that sending deadly anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons will not provoke the Russians, but 28 aircraft will. The distinction is hard to make out, especially when the Pentagon also says the Ukrainians don’t need planes because their other weapons are more effective. So sending less lethal planes will lead to World War III, not truly lethal weapons?
The bigger problem is that this fiasco sends a signal to Mr. Putin about NATO. The essence of reliable deterrence is to make the enemy believe that certain actions will cause a response. By defiantly not sending fighters and saying that the reason is fear of escalation, Mr. Biden is telling the Russian that he does not need to worry about. Instead of holding back Mr. Putin, Mr. Biden is letting the Russians hold back the US.
This becomes a model for the Commander-in-Chief. In Afghanistan, he demanded a quick and dirty exit by a certain date so as not to provoke the Taliban who had seized power. The result was an American humiliation that may have influenced Mr. Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.
This month, the administration halted planned US nuclear missile tests after Mr. Putin issued a vague nuclear threat. The test had nothing to do with Ukraine, and Russia knew about it, but Biden’s Pentagon stopped the test anyway. This is yet another blow to the credibility of US deterrence.
Meanwhile, Mr Putin is stepping up his attack on Ukraine anyway. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov admitted on Thursday that the Russians deliberately fired on a maternity hospital in Mariupol. Mr Putin knows what NATO won’t do to stop him.
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Published in print edition March 11, 2022