Biden Unifies Western Alliance, Gives Zelensky ‘Iron Fist’ Against Putin

The more the Russian President Vladimir Putin try break NATO, the stronger it gets.

It is not the first time during war in ukraine what Joe Biden take Decisive measures to close the cracks in the alliance. At Wednesday (25), the American president announced that he would send 31 advanced tanks for the Kiev armed forces, in a movement that caused a reluctant Germany to give in and send its tanks themselves, and which can generate similar movements in all over Europe.

This represented a symbolic and quite significant for Ukraine. The country hopes that its new “fist of iron” attack the entrenched Russian front lines in the east, strengthen an advance on the Crimean bridge to the south, and avoid a feared Russian offensive during the spring in the northern hemisphere.

Biden’s statesmanship managed to end the division Western most public and harmful of the war until now.

The USA previously said that their Abrams tanks were too complex, too high maintenance for the Ukraine war and that were not suited to the terrain. But the change in attitude of Biden, who backs Germany, underscores Washington’s view that Western unity against Putin is key to saving The Ukraine.

Indeed, Putin’s main objective outside the battlefield is to forge divisions among Western allies and to interrupt or stop the flow of arms on which Ukraine’s survival as an independent nation depends.

Its failure, despite Russia’s furious threats to intimidate European nations into refusing the transfer of tanks, also appears after a mild winter that took from the Russians another of his strategies: that of making the Europeans suffer in the cold with the reduction of gas imports, in the hope of putting pressure on their leaders to stop supporting Ukraine.

“Putin hoped that the determination of Europe and the United States States weakened,” Biden said at the White House on Wednesday.fair. “He expected our support for Ukraine to crumble with time. He was wrong… He was wrong from the start and still wrong. We are united”.

An extraordinary strategic shift

As the first anniversary of the Russian invasion approaches, Biden and the West are in an extraordinary position that few strategists would have considered it possible a year ago.

NATO is the strongest and most unified in years. This is a strategic disaster for Russia. The feeling of drifting from alliance in the early 2000s was pushed aside by the memory of founding purpose of the bloc: the common defense against Moscow aggression. Putin’s behavior will ensure that this lesson that fosters alliance endures for decades.

Biden established his legacy in a major land war in Europe, in which the United States became embroiled in a proxy battle with its nuclear rival.

This struggle – which is, in some ways, the last battle of the Cold War – is a test of toughness between an American president and a Kremlin autocrat deeply influenced by the US-Soviet standoff.

Biden is leading the most significant foreign policy move since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. His success is critical to America’s credibility as well as his own. The magnitude of the mission will likely overshadow much of the rest of his presidency – including the current investigation into misplaced classified documents – in the context of world history.

Biden has restored America as a strong global leader, reviving its transatlantic alliance and guiding allies with diplomacy intense and successful. For now, the balancing act of the American president – ​​between increasingly channeling weapons powers for Ukraine and avoid an escalation with Putin, who could lead to a confrontation with the West, or even the Moscow’s use of a smaller-scale nuclear weapon – is working.

A second year of war in Ukraine and the deepening NATO engagement will test this equation as never.

The most impressive aspect of the developing relationship between the West and Ukraine is that one of the alleged motivations of Putin for the war was to avoid the possibility that the formerSoviet state to join NATO, something that would be a even greater humiliation for Moscow than the accession of nations that were once part of the Warsaw Pact, like Poland, Romania and Slovakia.

Now, however, the war effort of the Ukraine is being armed and financed by the West, almost as if it were a de facto NATO state, with access to some of the alliance’s most sophisticated weapons systems.

The West’s justification for this support also lies in development. Before, the main objective was to allow a defenseless nation prevented a gratuitous invasion, so that its people had the freedom to choose its political system and its sovereignty. Now, alliance leaders seem to see Ukraine as a strategic and vital bastion.

“If President Putin wins, it is a tragedy for Ukrainians, and also a danger for us,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told Kate Bolduan of the CNN , arguing that an authoritarian nation cannot be allowed to exercise its will and profit from threats. “It is in our security interest to support the Ukrainians,” she added.

What comes next?

Even if it continues to fail, Putin is unlikely to stop of trying to dismantle the western alliance. The hostility towards to the US and its allies and a quest for revenge has been the basis of his more than twenty years in power.

Limit the supply of weapons to Ukraine and promote western war fatigue remain crucial to their hopes of winning or avoid a decisive defeat.

Moscow reacted angrily to the decision on tanks, calling it extremely dangerous, and adding that it took an already bloody conflict to another level.

Biden, still seeking to avoid an escalation that could lead to a direct confrontation between NATO and Russian forces, he stressed that the new tanks do not pose an offensive threat to the Russia – if only Putin would withdraw his troops from Ukraine.

You critics of the war and the massive flow of western weapons will be increasingly concerned that the West may end up fueling a bloody stalemate that will result in the slaughter without sense of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian troops and civilians.

As Moscow and Kiev seem to believe they can still win the war, there is almost no opening for a diplomatic move of ceasefire or even peace.

However, Western military strategists warn that Moscow, after an already bloody attack, is preparing a new spring offensive.

“It is dangerous to underestimate Russia,” Stoltenberg declared in a speech in Oslo on Wednesday, noting that the country mobilized an extra 200,000 troops and was willing to run big risks and face huge losses.

Ukraine will ask for more, as always

Ukraine will now be under pressure to show it can use these new tanks in joint military operations and duly planned, which maximize its advantages but minimize their weaknesses to make important gains on the field.

Although German tanks, known as the Leopard 2, can arriving in a few weeks, John Kirby, coordinator of National Security Council strategic communications from the US, told CNN that it will still take “many months” for Abrams tanks arrive, which still need to be purchased from American manufacturers.

Still, the chain of diplomatic and military consequences generated by Biden’s willingness to send in the tanks sent a important message for Moscow.

“They are more important because they are a symbol of the commitment from the US and Europe,” commented General Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, to Wolf Blitzer, from CNN .

Ukraine asked for at least 300 tanks. Although not yet know how many you will receive in new shipments from allies, the total may be approximately 100. However, the country expects that, once started, the flow of new weaponry continues to flow. This is what has consistently happened during the war.

At the time of the invasion, in February of last year, the US and the allies were reticent to provide even basic weaponry. But as the brutal war raged on and Ukraine inspired the world with its resistance, the barriers to sending more help fell apart.

Today, Kiev receives weapons, ammunition, drones, Javelin anti-tank missiles, armored vehicles, missiles Patriot, and now some of the most sophisticated tanks in the US and of allied soldiers.

When in Washington just before Christmas, President Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelensky warned that the needs of his country were so big that it would never stop asking for more weapons.

To date, the supply of fighter jets – the most ambition of his administration — it’s a line Biden is not taking. willing to cross. It is also a request that has already caused divisions in the alliance in the past.

But the pattern of this war is: what Ukraine asks for, it ends up receiving, even if the extension of your requests for specific equipment is not always met.