Mayank Chhaya-
President Joe Biden potentially took his first major misstep in an otherwise well-calibrated response so far to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by saying that President Vladimir Putin “cannot stay in power.”
On the face of it, Biden’s comment “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power” meant that he was advocating a regime change in Moscow but a White House official was reported by Reuters and The New York Times as saying that that is not what the president meant.
It is hard to comprehend what else the phrasing “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power” could mean other than clear advocacy of regime change. Even after making concession for Biden’s well-known penchant for off-the-cuff and occasionally tactless comments his enunciation during a major speech out of Warsaw in Poland was so forceful that it seems inconceivable that in the moment he did not mean precisely that.
“The president’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region,” a White House official was quoted as saying by The New York Times.
Biden’s comment prompted a quick response from Moscow with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov telling Frederik Pleitgen of CNN this: “This not to be decided by Mr.Biden. It should only be a choice of the people of the Russian Federation.” Considering the aggressive nature of Biden’s pronouncement, Peskov’s response came across as rather measured.
Although Biden’s foreign policy is specifically against regime change, his seemingly impromptu declaration has the potential to be interpreted as making an exception in Putin’s case. It is inevitable that Biden’s comment would push the State Department to clean up after him.
The speech was aimed at bolstering unity among the NATO allies, saying rather dramatically “Don’t even think about going on one single inch of NATO territory.”
It is hard to walk back a specific comment of the kind Biden made without making Putin even more aggressive in his war against Ukraine. If the Russian president has become paranoid about the world as some analysts in the U.S. suggest he has, then a comment like the one Biden made could only aggravate that condition.
Broadly, the U.S. president continued to cast the current situation as a standoff between democracy and autocracy. In this context it would be interesting to find out what Biden thinks in his private moments about the world’s largest democracy, namely India, having to do a tightrope walk in its response to Russia. Several abstentions at the United Nations votes over Ukraine later, New Delhi’s predicament is still well understood in Washington given India’s historically heavy dependence on Russia for its military supply needs. It is a historic relationship that India cannot and will not sacrifice in its national interest even while raising some eyebrows in Western capitals about its peculiar balancing act.
As the war on Ukraine entered its second month and Putin’s apparent calculation that Kyiv would cave in quickly being totally belied, there are expectations that the NATO allies would step up indirect support to President Volodymyr Zelensky. There is a growing perception in Western capitals that Putin has realized that he overestimated his military forces’ ability to wrap up the invasion early. That could drive him to extremes such as using chemical weapons and perhaps even tactical nuclear weapons.
Any use of tactical nuclear weapons will unfailingly drag America and its NATO allies in and lead to a much larger and far more dangerous conflict. There is nothing to suggest that Putin is preparing to use tactical nuclear weapons soon or ever. However, he has dangled threat less than subtly.
