In an hour or three, our intrepid president, Joe Biden, will stumble behind a lectern in the White House and address the nation on what he intends to do about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (Putin Officially Launches a Full Invasion of Ukraine, Lodges Disturbing New Threats Against the West).

On Monday, after a security conference in Munich headlining our very own homegrown Sun Tzu, Kamala Harris broke up, Vladimir Putin recognized the independence of two insurrectionist (to use the popular parlance) states in eastern Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk (Vladimir Putin Runs the Table in Ukraine and Shows Joe Biden to Be a Feckless and Unreliable Security Partner). He followed that up by ordering Russian peacekeepers into those newly created states (Vladimir Putin Orders Russian Peacekeeping Troops Into Eastern Ukraine) to bolster Russian troops that have been stationed there for about a decade.

In response to what looked, even at the time, to be Putin testing the waters for something bigger, Biden offered up a uniquely flaccid program of sanctions. He targeted five Russian ships (which never seem to have traveled to America), three Russian oligarchs (who appear to have already been under sanctions, two Russian banks (one without a commercial presence and one which has been under sanctions since 2014), and he limited the ability of Russia to sell sovereign debt created after March 1 (if you have a calendar, you’ll see that is next week). These sanctions only apply to direct dealings with US companies and banks; they don’t apply to any other country. See Potemkin Sanctions by a Potemkin President; One of the Banks Sanctioned by Biden Was Sanctioned in 2014 for more details.

Joey SoftServe is expected to announce even more sanctions; the question is, what will these sanctions look like. Will they be real (okay, I’m joking), or will they be more blue smoke and mirrors designed to look like action was taken while still avoiding actions. I’ll credit Marshall Billingslea,  Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing in the Trump Treasury department, for this list. They represent the most severe tranche of sanctions ranked from most serious to least. Even the least serious option in this list is significant.

• Sanction the Russian Central Bank.
• Sanction the full financial sector sanctions rather than a handful of banks.
• Ban Russia from SWIFT.
• Sanction other export sectors (minerals, timber).
• Impose full export controls
• Sanction Putin, personally.
• Sanction all the major oligarchs.
• Require payments for oil and gas into blocked escrow bank accounts held by non-Russian financial institutions outside Russia.

The junta has apparently placed sanctioning of Russia’s energy sector off-limits because it is afraid of the blowback.

(Reuters) – The Biden administration is not expected to target Russia's crude oil and refined fuel sector with sanctions cutting off trade, due to concerns about inflation and the harm it could do to its European allies, global oil markets and U.S. consumers, officials say.

— Phil Stewart (@phildstewart) February 23, 2022

I’d add one of my own, any sanction that does not involve secondary sanctions can be written off as eyewash. Imposing restrictions on US firms dealing with Russia while allowing Russia to deal with impunity with China, Switzerland, or Germany makes no sense.

My forecast is that we shouldn’t get our hopes up. American weakness is a feature, not a bug, of Biden’s foreign policy. In the end, Russia will do what it wishes as Joe Biden goes back to eating ice cream and daydreaming of hot summer days and kids braiding his leg hair by the swimming pool.