President Biden Prepares a Parting Gift for Putin

Right on

Faulty intelligence—or faults deliberately embedded in the intelligence?

No president is ever immune to this shadowy threat that often turns their leadership into disaster. Putin was led to believe Ukraine could be conquered in three days. President Biden was assured the Pentagon could deliver a clean exit from Afghanistan. Bush was told weapons of mass destruction lay hidden under Saddam Hussein’s palace(!). The list goes on.

The latest addition? American intelligence claiming it was North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s idea to send his troops to fight in Ukraine.

When North Korean troops began arriving in Russia this fall, some Western officials believed it was a sign that the Kremlin had reached out in a desperate need for more soldiers.

But U.S. intelligence agencies have now assessed that the deployement was North Kroea’s idea and not Russia’s, though President Vladimir V. Putin quickly embraced it, American officials say— NYTimes

This is the kind of intelligence President Biden is being fed. Sometimes it fans his fears. Other times, it nudges him to overestimate Putin. And occasionally, it encourages him to underestimate American strength. But it’s on him for not firing the entire top brass of the Pentagon, all the way to the National Security Advisor, the day after they botched Afghanistan withdrawal. That would have shown them their place. Instead, he let the moment slip, and now the world is paying the price for leaving the levers of control with Obama-era national security holdovers.

This is the same group that allowed Putin to annex Crimea, enter Syria, and turn the Middle East into chaos.

Putin is losing troops at three times the rate he did in 2022. His coffers are running dry. He’s waiving loans for new conscripts and has appointed an economist to lead the defense ministry. How hard is it to see that he’s struggling to recruit? If he’s burning through troops at unprecedented levels and desperate for reinforcements, would he be the one asking North Korea for help—or the other way around?

Putin wants the world to believe he’s stronger than he is, and American intelligence officials are quietly pushing the same narrative to Biden. Putin couldn’t be happier. I can’t help but feel sorry for the President—he’s being undermined from within.

Last year, I predicted that the Democrats would lose if Ukraine was still fighting by November 2024. People don’t want leaders who look like losers, and that’s a fair response. The same is true for Putin: if he loses in Ukraine, he’ll be knocked off his throne. The best way to push him closer to defeat is by tightening the economic screws. That was true when the war began, and it’s even more so now, with Russia’s economy deteriorating.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer understands this. Since mid-October, he’s been slapping a new round of sanctions on Russia every two weeks. His relentless pursuit is pulling allies in the same direction. Reports now suggest President Biden is preparing a sharp sanctions package targeting Russian energy exports.

President Joe Biden is weighing major new sanctions against Russia’s energy sector in his final weeks in office, four people familiar with the matter said, as the administration considers a parting blow in its financial war against Vladimir Putin.

The move would also give the incoming team of President-elect Donald Trump more leverage in its negotiations with Putin over ending Russia’s war with Ukraine, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe deliberations that aren’t public.

The thrust of the sanctions would be to target the so-called “dark fleet” of international ships carrying Russian oil to non-Western countries as well as targeted Russian oil exporters, who have not been sanctioned up to now, according to several of the people familiar with the matter. The options also include revoking a license enabling banks to process Russian energy transactions, said the people. - WaPo

Some in the Western media were quick to speculate about the impact new sanctions might have on oil prices, but that conclusion is premature. From the outset, Western sanctions were never intended to stop Russian oil from reaching global markets. The strategy has always been to cut the Kremlin’s revenues without reducing supply.

After two and a half years of sanctions, Putin has exploited every loophole, using a shadow fleet of hundreds of oil tankers to transport oil to Asian countries and Turkey. In fact, he is now exporting more oil than he did before the war.

Then why is the Russian economy in such pain? The reason is that there’s always a ceiling to how much oil Russia can export. Putin can’t simply increase production from 3.5 million barrels per day to 4 million overnight. The oil market is delicately balanced, and increasing production capacity takes years. Any significant increase in output would also push oil prices down, negating the gains.

Additionally, Russia consumes a massive amount of oil to keep its war machine running. Putin is already exporting as much as he can, with no room to increase it further. Revenue has a hard ceiling, but war spending doesn’t. Each year, the costs escalate. From deploying 200,000 troops to the Ukrainian front, he now has over half a million fighting. From losing 400 soldiers a day, he’s now losing 1500 to 2000 daily.

The skyrocketing costs are draining Russia’s coffers. Sanctions, even if they shave just ten or twenty billion dollars from monthly revenue, will inflict immense damage on the Russian economy, making it increasingly difficult to sustain the war effort.

President Biden needs to go big and bold. He would do well to take a page from Keir Starmer and listen to British intelligence officials rather than his National Security Advisor. The anticipated sanctions could provide Ukraine with a crucial advantage when negotiations eventually begin.

This is promising news, and I firmly believe President Biden is on the right track.