January 17, 2025 | The Wall Street Journal

What Happens in Kyiv Doesn’t Stay in Kyiv

Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal sent a signal. So will Trump’s Ukraine policy, whatever it may be.
January 17, 2025 | The Wall Street Journal

What Happens in Kyiv Doesn’t Stay in Kyiv

Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal sent a signal. So will Trump’s Ukraine policy, whatever it may be.

Regarding your editorial “Biden Looks at His Record and Approves” (Jan. 14): It is true that NATO and the broader trans-Atlantic alliance is stronger now than it was when President Biden took office. NATO member defense spending has also improved. Mr. Biden deserves some credit for these outcomes, but Vladimir Putin and Russia’s unprovoked aggression in Ukraine deserve most of it.

Unfortunately, Mr. Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan underscored widespread perceptions of weakness in the White House and likely played a role in Mr. Putin’s thinking as he was contemplating the largest invasion in Europe since World War II.

This connection between disaster in Afghanistan and invasion in Ukraine should inform U.S. policy toward Ukraine in the second Trump term. If failure in Afghanistan contributed to Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, how much more will failure in Ukraine potentially increase the chances of Communist China’s aggression toward Taiwan?

What President Trump does or doesn’t do in Ukraine will have consequences around the world. That’s because an important component of deterrence is adversary perception of U.S. political will, and those perceptions transcend regional boundaries.

If we don’t have the political will to provide Ukraine the means of self-defense without putting any U.S. service members in harm’s way, why would Beijing believe we will send thousands of Americans to fight in the Taiwan Strait? That perception would make Beijing’s aggression against Taiwan more likely.

Bradley Bowman is senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at FDD. Follow him on X @Brad_L_Bowman.

Issues:

Issues:

Afghanistan China Indo-Pacific International Organizations Military and Political Power Russia U.S. Defense Policy and Strategy Ukraine

Topics:

Topics:

Russia Europe Afghanistan Joe Biden Donald Trump NATO Ukraine Beijing White House Vladimir Putin World War II Taiwan Chinese Communist Party Kyiv Taiwan Strait Bradley Bowman