So how many billions of dollars in costs and a weakened economy will Joe Biden tolerate as the price of anti-Putin sanctions that will blowback on the American people?
How much suffering will he tolerate being inflicted on the long-suffering Russian people? What will be the impact on the civilian population of more severe sanctions? And who is he to talk as if he doesn't have to be authorized by Congress to go further into this state of belligerence, short of sending soldiers, which he said he would not do?
Is Congress to be left as a cheerleader, washing its hands of its constitutional oversight and foreign policy duties?
Also, watch Republicans and Democrats in Congress unify to whoop through more money for the bloated military budget as pointed out by military analyst, Michael Klare.
What energy will be left for Biden's pending "Build Back Better" infrastructure, social safety net, and climate crisis legislation?
In recent weeks, the State Department said it recognizes Russia's legitimate security concerns but not its expansionism. Well, what is wrong with a ceasefire followed by support for a treaty "guaranteeing neutrality for Ukraine similar to the enforced neutrality for Austria since the Cold War's early years," as Nation publisher and Russia specialist Katrina Vanden Heuvel urged. (See: Katrina vanden Heuvel's Washington Post article and her recent Nation piece).
Putin, unable to get over the breakup of the Soviet Union probably has imperial ambitions to dominate in Russia's backyard. Biden has inherited and accepted the U.S. Empire's ambitions in many other nation's backyards.
Events have polarized this conflict over Ukraine which is not a security interest for the U.S., into two dominant egos - Putin and Biden - neither of whom want to appear weak or to back down.
This is a dangerous recipe for an out-of-control escalation, much as it was in the lead-up to World War I. Neither the people nor the parliaments mattered then as seems to be the case today.
Putin isn't likely to make a cost-benefit assessment of each day's militarism. But Biden better do so. Otherwise, he will be managed by Putin's daily moves, instead of insisting on serious negotiations.
The Minsk II Peace Accords of February 2015 brokered by Germany, France, and the United Nations, that Russia and Ukraine agreed to before falling apart due to disagreements over who should take the first steps still makes for a useful framework.
It is too late to revisit the accords to stop the invasion but it should be proposed to introduce a climate for waging peace.
Already, New York Governor Kathy Hochul, has spoken about an increase in cyberattacks and ransomware demands in her state in recent weeks.
Has Biden put that rising certainty in his self-described decades-long foreign policy expertise?
Watch out for what you can't stop, Joe.
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