Biden’s disdain for diplomacy in Ukraine is a deadly mistake

The folks over at Responsible Statecraft published an interesting piece last week from a former U.S. analyst and adviser, George Beebe. He made a persuasive case for why it is becoming more and more of a priority for Joe Biden to change his course of eschewing diplomacy and favoring instead a quixotic military victory.

Beebe points to three main factors to explain why it is more important than ever that Biden put more emphasis on reaching a diplomatic resolution with Russia. One is the mounting evidence that not only is the popular definition of victory — expelling Russia from all the lands it has illegally taken, including Crimea — out of reach, but even the more modest aim of reversing Russia’s gains in the past year, never an easy goal, is becoming less and less realistic.

Beebe’s second point is that there is a growing, partisan split in U.S. opinion on whether and how much to support Ukraine’s war effort. No matter what Biden promises, and regardless of how sincere his commitment to supporting Ukraine’s defense he is, he simply cannot guarantee that the United States will maintain its current level of support. Even less can he promise that Western Europe, where they feel the effects of the war far more than the U.S. does, will be willing to do so.