Joe Biden Goes To Poland, Allies React With Dismay and Terror

If our allies in Easter Europe aren’t buckling on their brown pants they are missing a great opportunity to do so.

The NATO alliance is facing the most significant test of its solidarity since the nuclear freeze movement of the early 1980s. Ukraine, not a NATO member but a participant in the NATO Partnership for Peace program, was invaded by Russia. A fake independence referendum was generated in a Russian majority enclave. The results of that referendum were used by Russia to annex a part of Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that Russia has a duty to protect ethnic Russians living in Eastern Ukraine so it is unlikely that this particular crisis winds down quickly.

Putin gave little ground, according to a Kremlin account of the telephone conversation. Calling the Ukraine situation “extraordinary,” he charged that Ukrainian “ultranationalists,” supported by the U.S.-backed interim government that took over last week in Kiev, were threatening “the lives and health of Russian citizens and the many compatriots” living in Crimea.

“In the case of any further spread of violence to Eastern Ukraine and Crimea,” a statement issued by Putin’s office said, “Russia retains the right to protect its interests and the Russian-speaking population of those areas.”

It is doubtful that Russia’s ambitions are so limited.

In 2008, Russia used the excuse of defending ethnic Russians as a reason in invade Georgia (for the Ron Paul Institute members, this refers to the nation, not the state)

Earlier, in 1991, Moldova, another former Soviet Republic has seen a strip of its territory torn away by ethnic Russians aid and abetted by Moscow and with the assistance of Soviet military forces and made into the Potemkin nation of Transistria. This region has now asked to be annexed by Russia.

Now the low hanging fruit has been eliminated and it is a matter of months until Putin turns to “protecting” the ethnic Russian minorities in NATO members Latvia (33% ethnic Russian), Lithuania (7% ethnic Russian), and Estonia (28% ethnic Russian). The groundwork is being laid. From the Wall Street Journal, Russian’s Comments Rile Latvia:

Russian Ambassador Aleksandr Veshnyakov created a new wave of concern in Latvia with recent remarks saying it may soon become easier for ethnic Russians in Latvia to obtain Russian citizenship.

Mr. Veshnyakov told Latvian Radio 4, a Russian-language public broadcasting channel, that proposed legislation in Russia would allow granting Russian citizenship to ethnic Russians in Latvia to “save the Latvian noncitizens out of poverty by giving them citizenship and a pension without having to stay in Russia.” Russians constitute 27.6% of Latvia’s population of 2 million, the largest ethnic group among the minorities living in Latvia.

The Obama administration is on the job, though. Having thoroughly blundered their way through the Crimean annexation, they are now determined that NATO shall not escape their expertise.

Joe Biden has been sent to Poland to convince (emphasis on “con”) our allies that we will uphold our obligations under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. It must be noted that this meeting was not the idea of the Obama administration. The meeting was called by Lithuania under Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty.

Recent experiences with Russia also fuel Estonia’s concerns. The removal of a Soviet-era war statue from the capital city of Tallinn in 2007 led to riots among ethnic Russians (who make up almost a quarter of Estonia’s population) and diplomatic outrage from Moscow. Shortly thereafter, a concerted, three-week cyberattack crippled Estonian government agencies, banks, news outlets, and other organizations—a vital blow to what some have called “the most wired country in Europe.” Estonian officials blamed the Kremlin for the cyberattacks, a claim Russian officials vociferously denied.

Linas Linkevicius, Lithuania’s foreign minister, responded on Saturday by invoking Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty, whereby NATO member states consult one another if their territorial integrity or political independence is threatened, for only the fourth time in the alliance’s history (Ukraine is not a NATO member).

The messenger is often the message. In this case, Obama could have saved a lot of time an US taxpayer money by simply flipping the Baltic States and Poland the bird and being done with it.

Biden is not part of the inner circle of the administration, probably one of the only rational decisions they have made, and Biden knows this. From the NY Post, Biden: Obama gave me “every s—t job in the world”:

Vice President Joe Biden groused that President Obama gave him “every s- -t job in the world,” but still doesn’t fully trust him.

…

But Obama’s inner circle held a grudge and became increasingly hostile toward the VP.

The slights that followed included barring him from strategic planning meetings, cancelling plans for Biden to headline fundraisers and limiting his public appearances.

The Obama aides even interfered with Biden’s staffing decisions, blocking two of his picks for a new chief of staff.

Not only is he out of the loop, but, unsurprisingly, he is wrong on nearly every major foreign policy issue he has touched: Charles Krauthammer via Newsbusters:

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: The Vice President has been over the last 30 years holds the American record for wrong on the most issues in foreign affairs ever. And the list starts with the nuclear freeze in the early ’80s against Thatcher and Reagan and Cole which is one of the follies of the era. He supported it. He was against aid to the Nicaraguan Contras which in the end brought democracy and ended the Sandinista rule at the time. He was against Reagan’s expansion of the defense budget which bankrupted the Soviet Union and led to the end of the Soviet Empire. He was against Reagan on Strategic Defenses, which is the big advantage that we have now in the missile age.

And look at where he was on Iraq. He opposed the first Iraq War, the Gulf War that liberated Kuwait that everybody agrees was a good thing. He supported the Iraq War which he, not I, which he says was a terrible mistake. And then when the surge happened, he opposed the surge in Iraq which rescued a losing war and ended with our leaving with our heads held high and some promise in the future.

This is amplified by Robert Gates in his book, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War:

Gates, a Republican, writes about Obama with an ambivalence that he does not resolve, praising him as “a man of personal integrity” even as he faults his leadership. Though the book simmers with disappointment in Obama, it reflects outright contempt for Vice President Biden and many of Obama’s top aides.

Biden is accused of “poisoning the well” against the military leadership. Thomas Donilon, initially Obama’s deputy national security adviser, and then-Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, the White House coordinator for the wars, are described as regularly engaged in “aggressive, suspicious, and sometimes condescending and insulting questioning of our military leaders.”

Biden’s statement in Poland was a model of saying nothing. From the Washington Post, In Eastern Europe, Biden finds uncertain allies:

At its core, Biden’s message here and in Poland was a simple reaffirmation of what one senior administration official called a “bedrock commitment”: The United States would honor NATO’s basic premise that if one member nation is attacked, all would come to its defense.

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite termed it “symbolic.” Well he should. What is at stake in the Baltic states is not an invasion, but rather an fomented insurrection that will result in another declaration of independence such as we’ve seen in Moldova and Crimea and the invitation for Russian troops to move in to protect the rights of ethnic Russians—a task Putin has said he feels obliged to undertake.

Delivering the non-message was the one man in Washington least likely to be listened to by anyone. For as Biden himself has noted, Obama gives him the “s–t jobs.” In this case, it was telling the Baltic States and Poland they were on their own and letting Brussels know that Obama considers NATO an impediment to his foreign policy.

Small wonder our allies are worried. They would Joe Biden if they weren’t.