Biden Will Have Few Options If Putin Invades Ukraine

In 2008, during the Olympic Games in Beijing, Russia invaded Abkhazia and South Ossetia, breaking them up from Georgia.

This week, Russian President Putin is attending the Winter Olympics in China in the midst of a confrontation between Russia and Ukraine.

Fourteen years ago, while the world attention was focused on the Olympics, Russia sized two important territories from Georgia and brought them within its sphere of influence. This year, by boycotting the Beijing Olympic Games, President Biden has left the center stage to Putin in this global sports event. Putin could use the Olympics again as a diversion to expand westward.

The Biden administration threatened sanctions against Russia in case of an invasion of Ukraine. In particular, Biden declared that the startup of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would supply Russian gas directly to Germany, would be blocked.

It may be too late. In fact, last year Biden waived sanctions on the company that is building the pipeline and lifted sanctions on its CEO, de facto giving green light to the project.

Now the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is completed, and it will be difficult to prevent it from becoming operational. Oddly, at the same time, the Biden administration revoked the permit of the Keystone XL pipeline, an oil pipeline that would have connected the Canadian oil fields with refineries in Texas and Illinois, risking to undermine American energy security.

Although Trump was falsely accused of collusion with Moscow, he assumed a tougher stance than Biden on Russia during his term, imposing sanctions on companies and individuals that are financing the pipeline.

Germany is already the most reluctant NATO member to criticize Putin because of the strong bilateral trade with Russia. After the Nord Stream 2 pipeline becomes operational, Russia will inevitably increase its political influence on Germany, to the detriment of European independence and security.

The issue is whether Russia will invade Ukraine to prevent the neighboring country from joining NATO. Unless Ukraine formally requests to join NATO, and the North Atlantic Alliance puts on the agenda the expansion of its membership to Russia’s neighbor, Putin would have no reason to move its troops to Ukrainian territory.

Russia's main reason of concern is that,if Ukraine joins NATO there wouldn’t be a buffer zone between Russian borders and NATO forces, although Ukraine would not be the first neighboring country to join NATO. Estonia, Latvia and Norway are already NATO members, and they share a border with Russia.

However, Putin showed that Russian troops are ready to quickly move into Ukraine and, considering the overwhelming superiority of Russian forces with respect to the Ukrainian counterparts, he has the ability to break up the country, creating a buffer zone east of the Dnieper River, where most of the Russian-speaking population resides.

After losing the bargaining chip of Nord Stream 2, in case Putin decides to invade Ukraine, the Biden administration would have limited options to stop Russian expansionism.