July 14: Biden bets big on Ukraine

In which, Biden paints himself into a corner on Ukraine, Sweden finally gets the NATO nod, and I’m still not convinced by the economy cheerleaders.

Biden bets big on Ukraine

As narratives get tested and refined for the coming election cycle, it's clear that President Biden will be looking to run on two big components of his first term: The economy (Bidenomics) and Ukraine (defending democracy).

I’ll revisit the economy in a moment, but in Ukraine, the blunted Ukrainian offensive appears to be undermining the chorus of confidence that the Biden administration has been maintaining for the last several months. Thus, President Biden decided to circumvent international law to attempt to supply Ukraine with cluster munitions last week (pretty ideal for busting through entrenched positions), However, Congress was quick to push back on the cluster munitions decision, which now presents a domestic political problem for Biden: Do you ignore critics in your own party to (hopefully) ensure success in Ukraine?

At the NATO meeting in Vilnius this week (more below), the theme appeared to be “how soon do we let Ukraine in?”, but President Biden appeared to throw cold water on that notion in about the worst way possible: conditioning Ukraine’s entrance into NATO on an end to the fighting. Maybe Biden is trying to push Zelensky to the negotiation table with Russia, but such a condition is likely to keep Russia fighting as a “forever war” will ensure Ukraine is not brought into NATO. 

To recap, the Biden administration wants to see a victory in Ukraine, but the slow offensive has them in a tough political predicament on cluster munitions, and the President’s stated policy on Ukraine’s NATO entrance will likely be counterproductive to getting either Ukraine or Russia to the negotiating table.