Putin, MiGs and Corn Pop

Journalists as of Friday were reporting that the Russians were maneuvering heavy artillery into firing positions aimed at Kyiv in Ukraine, apparently with the intent of leveling the city.

Right now the Ukrainians could certainly use the 28 MiG fighter jets that Poland was planning on delivering until President Biden personally nixed the deal. The plan was to fly the jets to a U.S. airbase in Germany so that Polish jets would be transferred to Ukrainian pilots at an American base on German soil.

It would be a thoroughly NATO operation. Those fighters would be helpful in neutralizing Russian artillery, but Mr. Biden canceled our role in the process at the last minute for fear that delivering the jets would anger Vladimir Putin.

As the Wall Street Journal (paywall) opines this is a fiasco that's going to result in the deaths of thousands of Ukrainians, and the president's thinking on this matter seems incoherent:

The logic seems to be that sending lethal anti-aircraft and antitank weapons won’t provoke the Russian, but 28 fixed-wing aircraft would. That distinction is hard to parse, especially when the Pentagon is also saying that the Ukrainians don’t need the jets because their other weapons are more effective.

So sending less lethal aircraft will lead to World War III, but not arms that are really deadly?

Evidently, all Mr. Putin has to do is threaten nuclear war and Mr. Biden hastily and shamefully retreats:

The bigger problem is the message this fiasco sends to Mr. Putin about NATO. The essence of credible deterrence is making an adversary believe that taking certain actions will draw a response. By so ostentatiously not sending the fighters, and saying the reason is fear of escalation, Mr. Biden is telling the Russian what he doesn’t have to worry about.

Instead of deterring Mr. Putin, Mr. Biden is letting the Russian deter the U.S.

Mr. Biden likes to talk like a tough guy but has repeatedly shown himself to be, as the Texans say, all hat and no cattle. When our military proposed an operation to get Osama bin Laden, then Vice-President Biden advised against it.

As president he ordered the disgraceful evacuation of Afghanistan leaving dozens, if not hundreds, of Americans behind, as well as thousands of Afghans who helped us in our war against the Taliban. Because he didn't want to provoke the Taliban most of those Afghans are likely dead by now.

And, as the Journal reports, this month the Administration stopped the scheduled test of a U.S. nuclear missile after Mr. Putin issued a vague nuclear threat. The test had nothing to do with Ukraine, and Russia knew about it, but the Biden Pentagon stopped the test anyway.

Meanwhile, as the White House dithered over those MiGs, reports have it that Russia has been preparing to use chemical weapons on Ukrainian troops.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, tough-talking Joe from Scranton told a cringe-worthy and rather dubious tale of his encounter with a "bad dude" of his youthful acquaintance named "Corn Pop." It's too bad for the Ukrainians that Mr. Biden isn't as steely-spined with Vladimir Putin as he claimed to have been with old "Corn Pop."