The US president travels to Brussels to combine sanctions in the energy sector and measures to prevent Russia from circumventing them
There are pictures that are worth a thousand words. Today it will not be that of Joe Biden with Volodímir Zelensky in kyiv, but that of the NATO leaders closing ranks in Brussels. Perhaps this Thursday the one of the North American president hugging some Ukrainian refugee in Poland, but that photo is still out of focus. Biden has big ambitions for the story, though not necessarily for the trip that begins this Wednesday.
It will be the third of his presidency to Europe, the only continent he has traveled to, and the first since Ukraine grabbed the headlines of international news and the day-to-day life of the White House. Biden wants to go down in history as the president who united allies, strengthened NATO and prevented a third world war. That is incompatible, from his point of view, with providing fighters to Ukraine or risking a trip to the capital of a country at war.
Other leaders have done so, but Poland, Slovenia or the Czech Republic do not have the specific weight of the United States. “In addition to security considerations, a visit by a US president would require an enormous amount of resources on the ground,” White House spokeswoman Jan Psaki apologized Monday. Other leaders have traveled to war zones, as long as they could limit the risk. Roosevelt met in 1945 with Churchill and Stalin in the Crimea to coordinate the final offensive against the Nazis. Eisenhower made a surprise three-day visit to Korea in 1952; Johnson, to Vietnam, in 1961; Clinton, to Bosnia, in 1996; Bush son, to Iraq, in 2003; Obama, to Afghanistan, in 2009, and Trump, to Iraq, in 2018.
In all these cases, the strong detachments of US troops -or allies in Crimea- guaranteed the security of the president on trips that, except for Trump’s slips or the forecast of the Yalta Conference, were kept secret. In the case of Biden, the White House not only assesses the president’s personal risk, “also that of an escalation.” And it is that “the president’s vision is that the way in which we have to avoid the third world war is by preventing the United States from being directly involved militarily on the ground and the same for NATO,” spelled out his spokeswoman.
No troops on the ground
That leaves zero chance of NATO coming to Ukraine’s rescue. “The president has made it very clear that we are not going to send US troops to fight Russian troops,” the White House spokeswoman said. “It’s not in the interest of the American people or our national security.” That also rules out the Polish idea of sending blue helmets from the UN and even the delivery of planes. Vladimir Putin marks the line that the US and NATO must not cross, under penalty of unleashing a nuclear war.
THE KEYS TO THE TRIP:
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Unit.
Biden wants to confirm that the US and its allies are still on the same wavelength and send Russia the message that the West remains united a month after the start of the war. -
Very fine balance.
Europe, NATO and the G-7 must examine what new punishments apply to Moscow without stepping on the red lines that would re-emerge the threat of the third world war, but also not seem too lax. After the previous sanction packages, the margin is already slim. -
Leadership.
Biden has the opportunity to underline that he is in international command of the crisis days after the Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelensky, demanded that he be the “leader of the world” and of “peace”. -
Poland.
His visit to Poland will allow him to come as close as possible to fulfilling kyiv’s request that he travel to Ukraine to show solidarity. -
East.
Biden will be able to press the opinion of the allies on what they would do in case China decided to support Russia. -
Capitulation.
The NATO summit will address for the first time the scenario that would open up if Ukraine capitulates to Moscow.
That is why the package of sanctions that the allies will announce to ratify their determination to put pressure on Russia is expected as one more twist on the Russian oligarchs that surround Putin, energy sanctions and financial measures that prevent Russia from evading sanctions with the help from third parties such as China. “This is an important part of the next phase,” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan acknowledged on Tuesday. “We have applied enormous economic pressure and in order to be able to sustain and scale it over time, part of that will be adding new designations and new targets, but also a big part of that will be to enforce and prevent evasion.”
There will also be a joint announcement on energy matters to reduce European dependence on Russian gas, although the White House has made it clear that the president will not demand from the allies a break as sharp as the one made by the United States. Western leaders will discuss the best way to continue providing Ukraine with military aid to continue fighting Russia, without crossing the line that Putin has drawn, increasingly frustrated by the slow progress of the invasion.
Humanitarian aid
Humanitarian aid cannot be lacking, for which Washington has announced new contributions to mitigate the suffering of civilians and the continuous flow of refugees. The details of these three legs of the strategy in the Ukrainian crisis were jealously guarded in the White House on Tuesday, so as not to sabotage the impact of the announcement with the Western leaders with whom Biden wants to speak with one voice. “Unity with our European counterpart, unity with NATO, unity in the G7,” Psaki summed up, before retiring from the trip after testing positive for covid. “Unity has been front and center of the president’s response and what will see us through over time,” he promised.
Time is the other factor that the world leaders gathered there will have to discuss. “There are difficult days ahead for Ukraine and the Ukrainians,” warned the White House security adviser. “This war will not be over soon my easily.” It is time to decide how to face the next phase, the long-lasting one. And, of course, maintaining the morale of the US troops stationed in Poland, which President Biden will visit on Thursday, after meeting with his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda.
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