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The sophistication of Biden’s handling of Putin

ataraxia

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It’s nice to finally have someone with some knowledge and work experience in the White House. All the foreign policy experience and study of Putin for decades is now paying off, and that’s how Biden has been able to corner Putin as he has.

“ Since the beginning of his time as President, Biden has relied on his sense of the Russian leader to guide his own response. It's even guided the way Biden deals with Putin in their conversations, repeatedly interrupting what he and aides see as the Russian President's strategy of going off on tangents meant to muddle and undermine.

According to a dozen interviews with White House officials, members of Congress and others involved in the effort, Biden has deliberately worked with allies abroad to deny the Russian leader the one-on-one, Washington vs. Moscow dynamic that the President and his aides think Putin wants. Publicly and privately talking about the war as a fight for freedom and democracy, Biden has left other leaders to speak with Putin.

He has moved just as deliberately at home to depoliticize opposition to the invasion of Ukraine so that, even among Republicans, support for Putin has been forced to the fringes so that vilifying the Russian leader has become the one major area of bipartisan agreement since Biden took office. This week Biden ratcheted up his rhetoric by calling the Russian President a "war criminal," a "murderous dictator" and a "pure thug."

"What Putin is trying to do is surround and encircle Kyiv," said Rep. Greg Meeks, a Democrat who is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "What Biden is trying to do is have the whole world surround Putin."

Part of the lesson Biden took from being involved as vice president during Putin's 2014 invasion of Crimea was that NATO nations would need a much faster, more humiliating and more cohesive response than the months of infighting that produced sanctions so weak that Putin rode them out. Yet administration officials admit privately that if Putin had invaded Ukraine a year ago, events might have unfolded much differently coming right off four years of former President Donald Trump's damaging relationships and calling NATO obsolete.

Campaigning in 2020, Biden spoke about the confrontation he saw coming.
"Putin has one overriding objective: To break NATO, to weaken the Western alliance and to further diminish our ability to compete in the Pacific by working out something with China," Biden told CNN's Gloria Borger at the time. "And it's not going to happen on my watch." “

Man, so glad to see a knowledgeable and experienced hand at the helm through this complex crisis- like a skilled surgeon, rather than a stupid bull in a China shop. Thank you, Mr. president.
 
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He hasn't done a terrible job, I think he should have been quicker on some calls against him. But Trump would have rolled out the red carpet for Putin, so there's that.
 
He hasn't done a terrible job, I think he should have been quicker on some calls against him. But Trump would have rolled out the red carpet for Putin, so there's that.

Not sure what Trump would have done- except whatever it would take to get re-elected. That was his overarching concern. Everything else, including what’s actually right for the nation, was always a secondary or even tertiary consideration.
 
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Not sure what Trump would have done- except whatever it took to get re-elected. That was his overarching concern. Everything else, including what’s actually right for the nation, was always a secondary or even tertiary consideration.
Well if he were President now, it would be his second term, and thus he wouldn't have to worry about reelection. And his love for Putin and other tyrannical despots is well known.
 
It’s nice to finally have someone with some knowledge and work experience in the White House. All the foreign policy experience and study of Putin for decades is now paying off, and that’s how Biden has been able to corner Putin as he has.

“ Since the beginning of his time as President, Biden has relied on his sense of the Russian leader to guide his own response. It's even guided the way Biden deals with Putin in their conversations, repeatedly interrupting what he and aides see as the Russian President's strategy of going off on tangents meant to muddle and undermine.

According to a dozen interviews with White House officials, members of Congress and others involved in the effort, Biden has deliberately worked with allies abroad to deny the Russian leader the one-on-one, Washington vs. Moscow dynamic that the President and his aides think Putin wants. Publicly and privately talking about the war as a fight for freedom and democracy, Biden has left other leaders to speak with Putin.

He has moved just as deliberately at home to depoliticize opposition to the invasion of Ukraine so that, even among Republicans, support for Putin has been forced to the fringes so that vilifying the Russian leader has become the one major area of bipartisan agreement since Biden took office. This week Biden ratcheted up his rhetoric by calling the Russian President a "war criminal," a "murderous dictator" and a "pure thug."

"What Putin is trying to do is surround and encircle Kyiv," said Rep. Greg Meeks, a Democrat who is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "What Biden is trying to do is have the whole world surround Putin."

Part of the lesson Biden took from being involved as vice president during Putin's 2014 invasion of Crimea was that NATO nations would need a much faster, more humiliating and more cohesive response than the months of infighting that produced sanctions so weak that Putin rode them out. Yet administration officials admit privately that if Putin had invaded Ukraine a year ago, events might have unfolded much differently coming right off four years of former President Donald Trump's damaging relationships and calling NATO obsolete.

Campaigning in 2020, Biden spoke about the confrontation he saw coming.
"Putin has one overriding objective: To break NATO, to weaken the Western alliance and to further diminish our ability to compete in the Pacific by working out something with China," Biden told CNN's Gloria Borger at the time. "And it's not going to happen on my watch." “

Man, so glad to see a knowledgeable and experienced hand at the helm through this complex crisis- like a skilled surgeon, rather than a stupid bull in a China shop. Thank you, Mr. president.
It is fortunate we have an adult at the helm again, there is no doubt.
 
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