By supplying him advanced missiles with conditions, Biden has handed the gas pedal for American involvement to the Ukraine’s besieged leader

(Originally published June 2 in “What in the World“) Reversing his early rejection of such a move as too aggressive, U.S. President Joe Biden has decided to send Ukraine advanced mobile missile launchers to help it evict the Kremlin’s forces. The missiles are part of a $700 million military aid package that is in turn part of the $40 billion in aid the U.S. Congress approved last month. While earlier reports suggested the U.S. would send its M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System, it will instead be sending the even more advanced M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System.

It’s a decision so likely to provoke Russian President Vladimir Putin and escalate the war in Ukraine and even beyond it that Biden penned an op-ed published in The New York Times justifying his about-face.

For the American public, the piece could have been cribbed from the most jingoistic Cold War-era agit-prop, invoking the domino theory to justify mounting aid to Ukraine not only as the righteous defense of a sovereign nation against aggression, but a warning to any other would-be aggressors (hello, China!) and, yea, a defense of the very free world against tyranny:

Standing by Ukraine in its hour of need is not just the right thing to do. It is in our vital national interests to ensure a peaceful and stable Europe and to make it clear that might does not make right. If Russia does not pay a heavy price for its actions, it will send a message to other would-be aggressors that they too can seize territory and subjugate other countries. It will put the survival of other peaceful democracies at risk. And it could mark the end of the rules-based international order and open the door to aggression elsewhere, with catastrophic consequences the world over.

So far, this doesn’t entail the commitment of American lives, at least not directly. This is the president, after all, who had the cojones to abandon Afghanistan. So read Joe’s lips: no new caskets. Indeed, Biden’s rather unconvincing warning to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, is that we’ll arm you only so much: “…we will not be directly engaged in this conflict, either by sending American troops to fight in Ukraine or by attacking Russian forces.” Never mind that the Pentagon has already confirmed that it has supplied intelligence to Ukrainian forces allowing them to locate and kill Russian generals. And Biden goes on to warn Ukraine that “We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders.”

But in that promise of no troops, Biden has already built in the condition under which he can break it: “So long as the United States or our allies are not attacked….” Biden has thus put Zelensky in the driver’s seat of American foreign policy.

Biden also has a warning—and an assurance—in here for Putin. The arms won’t stop, but we won’t escalate if you don’t expand attacks beyond Ukraine: “We do not seek a war between NATO and Russia. As much as I disagree with Mr. Putin, and find his actions an outrage, the United States will not try to bring about his ouster in Moscow.” Implicit in this, though, is Washington’s hope that Russia’s people get sick of the war and somehow manage to depose Putin the way Americans did Johnson and Nixon, an outcome for which the U.S. seems dangerously unprepared.

Indeed, Moscow responded by accusing Washington of trying to prolong the war, with the Kremlin saying it was “adding fuel to the fire” and encouraging Ukraine not to negotiate. Biden makes the point in his piece that peace talks have broken down because Russia keeps trying to seize territory and that the U.S. will keep supplying weapons to Ukraine so it can negotiate from a position of strength.

While Biden says only diplomacy will end the war (apparently ruling out military victory by either side), he rejects what many pundits say might placate Putin: convincing Ukraine to cede the Russian-speaking eastern Donbas and perhaps the land bridge between it and Crimea to Ukraine. Nor does he address Russia’s original gripe that NATO was menacing Russia by steadily beefing up forces and weapons in the former Soviet eastern bloc such as the Aegis Ashore missiles in Poland, which appears to have violated earlier agreements. On the contrary, Biden now says “we will also continue reinforcing NATO’s eastern flank with forces and capabilities from the United States and other allies.” The U.S. is also ready to welcome Finland and Sweden into the alliance.

Crucially, what Biden doesn’t say is what he’ll do if this additional investment fails. Despite stumbles and setbacks, Russian forces still appear to be winning. What if Russia manages to seize Donbas and the land bridge and win surrender of Ukraine’s forces, as has now happened in Mariupol and reportedly Severodonetsk? Is the U.S. willing to accept Russian victory? Or will it simply escalate to keep the war in an endless stalemate until Russia ousts Putin or collapses?

Secondly, what will the U.S. do if, in the heat of battle, a few American missiles land by accident or on purpose across the border in Russia? Will it cut Zelensky off? (Zelensky has moved to mute such concerns by saying Ukraine has no plans to attack Russian territory. Indeed, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Zelensky has promised not to.)

Conversely, what happens if a Russian missile lands by accident or on purpose across the border in, say, Poland? What if U.S. diplomatic personnel in Kyiv, or the special forces the Pentagon is considering sending to protect them, fall victim to a stray bomb?

Instead, Biden tries to assuage warnings that Putin could resort to nuclear weapons if the war goes badly and defeat likely. Biden assures readers that Russia has given no indication it intends to use such weapons. But it’s unclear what indications Biden is missing. Putin has warned he might use nuclear weapons, and Russia has tested nuclear and nuclear-capable weapons repeatedly in recent months. Short of withdrawing to a hardened bunker, it seems unclear what indications Biden needs short of an Outlook calendar invite.

The Times’ own reporters deduce from this what this newsletter has been worrying about for months—we’re back in a Cold War, complete with the constant threat of nuclear annihilation.

Besides telling us what we already know, the Times’ article adds the very worrying detail that, in addition to Russia and the U.S. having abandoned arms limitations, China has been building up its own nuclear arsenal in the Gobi Desert well beyond the minimum required to assure destruction of the United States. This raises the question not only whether it intends to use the threat of nuclear force to bully Taiwan into talking reunification, but whether it intends to offer any allies in its Global Security Initiative protection under a Beijing-held nuclear umbrella.

As much as Biden has wrapped his Ukraine policy in the rhetoric of a global crusade against evil, Beijing and Moscow are doing the same, with Putin justifying the invasion of Ukraine as part of a wider battle against an American “empire of lies.”