US and allies need to confront coordinated security challenge from Russia and China

In December 2021, President Biden launched the Summit for Democracy to prevent “democracy retreating under … outside pressure from autocrats. They seek to advance their own power, export and expand their influence around the world.”

Biden called on fellow democracies to join with America and “push back on authoritarianism, fight corruption, promote and protect human rights of people everywhere. To act. To act.” He promised, “The United States is going to lead by example, investing in our democracy, supporting our partners around the world at the same time.”

While he was speaking, autocrat Vladimir Putin was massing 100,000 Russian 

forces in preparation for Russia’s second invasion of democratic Ukraine, now the most deadly and destructive military conflict in Europe since the Second World War. 

In early February 2022, Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping issued a joint statement of “no-limits strategic partnership” and stated their intention to lead a new international order. They pledged mutual support for their Ukraine and Taiwan policies, respectively, to further a “redistribution of power in the world”

They effectively replied to Biden’s call for democracies to oppose autocracies, accusing the United States and the West of responsibility for the dangerous tensions in Europe and the Indo-Pacific: “Certain States attempt to impose their own ‘democratic standards’ on other countries, to monopolize the right to assess … compliance with democratic criteria, to draw dividing lines based on the grounds of ideology … establishing exclusive blocs and alliances of convenience.”

Within weeks of their meeting at the Beijing Olympics, Russia did its part to create the new international order by launching its second invasion of Ukraine. U.S. intelligence knew it was coming and alerted the world, but the mere threat of future economic sanctions did not deter Putin, whom Biden has called “a thug.”  

That was Lesson No. 1 for China in its planning for action against Taiwan. Despite the name-calling and soaring rhetoric, and even when it knew the aggression was coming, the West would take no action to prevent it, beyond promising later economic penalties. It would even preemptively rule out a direct military response against a nuclear power because of the risk of “World War III,” as Biden did.

A week after the start of the invasion, Biden opened his first State of the Union address with these words: “Putin sought to shake the foundations of the free world, thinking he could make it bend to his menacing ways. But he badly miscalculated. He thought the West and NATO wouldn’t respond. And he thought he could divide us at home. Putin was wrong.”

Fourteen months into the war, Putin’s miscalculation does not seem as ill-founded as the West has been pleased to celebrate. True, the free world did not “bend to his menacing way” as readily as it had when he invaded Georgia in 2008 and Eastern Ukraine and Crimea in 2014 — after NATO, at U.S. urging, had pledged to welcome both former Soviet Republics into the alliance.

Biden did successfully rally a suddenly awakened NATO to the existential threat along its own borders by providing weapons, intelligence and training to Ukraine, but only to the point of not “provoking” Putin. His own hesitance encouraged the reluctance of some major NATO members, like Germany and France, to confront Russia’s aggression more forcefully, and he explicitly urged restraint on others, like Poland, who wanted to respond more vigorously to Ukraine’s plight.

Washington, for example, refused to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine for fear of provoking a clash between Russian and U.S. planes, and even blocked Poland from delivering old Russian MiGs so Ukraine could do the job itself. More than a year later, the first few of Poland’s aircraft are finally being delivered to Ukraine.

Members of the Biden administration have also dropped hints that it does not share Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s enthusiasm for a longer war to liberate Eastern Ukraine and Crimea, occupied by Russia since 2014, favoring instead negotiations to end the fighting even at the cost of abandoning parts of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, several members of Congress, led by a few vocal members of the Republican Party — traditionally strong on national security — have begun to question the financial cost and possible risks of continued U.S. support for Ukraine.

Lesson No. 2 for China on Taiwan: Even if the U.S. initially and reluctantly resists a military action against one of its security partners that is less than a formal ally, it will soon grow weary of the financial burden. And when American lives are factored into the equation, Washington’s will to resist can be expected to evaporate, according to Chinese thinking.

“What the United States fears the most is taking casualties,” Adm. Luo Yuan, the deputy head of the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, said in 2019. He noted that sinking a U.S. aircraft carrier or two would kill 5,000 to 10,000 American sailors. “We’ll see how frightened America is then.”

Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron enhanced Beijing’s deterrent message by delivering a body blow to Western unity on both Ukraine and Taiwan. Having earlier warned against “humiliating” Putin, he said since Europe cannot “end the war in Ukraine” it should stay away from any conflict over Taiwan.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who is consistently clear-headed and resolute, reacted somewhat hastily when he said if the rest of Europe agrees with Macron, the U.S. should step back and let Europe handle Ukraine on its own.

Fortunately, European leaders made it clear they do not share Macron’s view, calling it, among other things, “geopolitical blindness.” During a Washington visit, Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki echoed Biden’s argument on the global stakes of the struggle between Russia and China on one side and the West on the other. He said Europe is at a historic turning point and “Ukraine has proven that they belong [with] the free world” because they “defend our values.”  Morawiecki quoted Xi on his recent visit to Moscow, that, “Now there is one exceptional chance to change the global order.”

Biden needs to re-galvanize both his own will and that of the West, including Japan and South Korea, to confront the increasingly coordinated effort by our common adversaries, led by China and Russia. If the West does not win Cold War II, it will face a new two-front shooting war.

Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2006 and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010. He served in the Pentagon when Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia and was involved in Department of Defense discussions about the U.S. response. Follow him on Twitter @BoscoJosephA.