Biden invokes the G-word, ramps up arms to Ukraine; Japan’s ex-PM calls for explicit U.S. defense of Taiwan

(Originally published April 13 in “What in the World“) U.S. President Joe Biden, speaking at an Iowa ethanol plant, accused Russia of genocide in Ukraine. Biden said he’d let lawyers decide whether what Russia has done qualifies as genocide, but the formal definition is fairly broad: any effort to intentionally destroy even part of any ethnic, national, racial or religious group can be construed as genocide.

So far, the war has killed at least 17,000 of Ukraine’s 44 million people, including 3,400 civilians. At least 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed, by NATO estimates. By that measure, Putin is committing genocide against the Russian people, too. Covid, by comparison, has killed 112,000 Ukrainians, none of them combatants. But the virus isn’t sentient and its killings therefore unintentional.

Whether or not Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s population constitute genocide, declaring them so will undoubtedly help serve as moral underpinning for whatever additional intervention the U.S. government decides to make, while conversely hardening Russia’s negotiating position. Indeed, Russian President Vladimir Putin said peace talks had stalled, accusing Ukraine of retreating from earlier promises made in Istanbul, and said he had no choice but to continue his offensive in Ukraine. Former U.S. President Barack Obama said in an interview on NBC’s Today that Putin had long nursed a sense of Russia’s historical grievance, but his invasion of Ukraine demonstrated a new level of recklessness.

Biden is expected to announce today $750 million in additional military aid for Ukraine, including Soviet-designed helicopters, anti-ship missiles, armored Humvee vehicles, howitzers and coastal defense drones. And top U.S. defense officials will meet today with key military contractors to determine how the companies can gear up to replenish U.S. ammunition stocks while supplying Ukraine as the war drags on.

Washington has, meanwhile, responded to North Korea’s repeated missile tests by sending an aircraft carrier to the Sea of Japan. Analysts said the deployment was only likely to provoke Pyongyang and demonstrate further its need for nuclear capability.

Prior to arriving in the waters North Korea habitually lobs its missiles into, the USS Abraham Lincoln cruised into the South China Sea, challenging China’s claim to that body of water. It then stopped in Manila for joint exercises with forces from the Philippines, which is fending off China’s efforts to claim islands off Philippine coast, including Scarborough Shoal and the Spratly Islands. It then steamed by Taiwan, which China claims as a renegade province.

In a provocative op-ed, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe argues that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has ended the usefulness for U.S. “strategic ambiguity” over Taiwan. In the past, the U.S. has declined to say whether or not it would come to Taiwan’s defense if attacked. That kept Beijing and Taipei guessing, and kept either from taking U.S. actions for granted. But with CHina’s military might growing, he argues, the risk is that Beijing confusees Western restraint in Ukraine with a yellow light to take Taiwan. While both Japan and the U.S. respect China’s claim to Taiwan, Abe argues that strategic ambiguity is now contributing to regional instabilty. The U.S., he says, should now pledge to defend Taiwan if China invades.

Blessed is the one who fears the Lord always, but whoever hardens his heart will fall into calamity.

— Proverbs 28:14