Biden is tough on Russia and Trump is weak? Not so fast

History does not support either claim.

Yes, Biden warned before Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine that the invasion was coming. Yes, he helped prepare the West to respond to that invasion. Yes, he has supported Kiev despite pressure from elements of the Republican Party. But that’s only part of the story of Biden’s Russia policy.

Consider, for example, Biden’s holding back U.S. weapons from Ukraine prior to the invasion. Remember that it was Republicans in Congress who led the way in that. Also consider that the president barred U.S. allies from supporting Ukraine with their own supplies of U.S. weapons until the end of January 2022. This reluctance to take bolder action mirrored an extension of the Obama administration’s refusal to provide Ukraine with anti-tank weapons. Yet too many in Washington forget that Biden’s overall policy toward Russia was one of appeasement prior to Putin’s invasion.

Take Biden’s policy on energy security in Europe. Biden first scrapped Trump-era sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, the key component of Russia’s energy export strategy. Then Biden struck an energy deal with then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel that was, on its face, preposterous. As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine loomed, the White House warned only that Nord Stream 2 would be sanctioned if an invasion occurred. It did not immediately approve the pipeline, which would have been an important, proactive step to deter an attack on Ukraine.

Biden also tolerated Russian ransomware attacks, such as the highly disruptive Colonial Pipeline incident in May 2021, and accepted the Kremlin’s spin that the criminals were beyond the government’s reach. That spin was and remains belied by the fact that ransomware gangs openly flaunt their wealth in Moscow and St. Petersburg. They do so because they give a portion of their revenues to the FSB and act as contract agents for the security intelligence services. Thanks to US intelligence, Biden always knew this but preferred to pretend otherwise.

In 2024, of course, things are different. The United States remains Ukraine’s main source of military aid and a major element of its financial aid donor base. The Biden administration has rightly asserted that it will continue to support Ukraine until the war can be ended on terms acceptable to Kiev. Even today, Biden’s subservience to Putin remains significant.

Consider Biden’s refusal to allow Ukraine to use Western weapons against military targets in Russia. This authorization would be critical to Ukraine’s ability to strike logistics, fuel, and command and control forces at greater distances. An additive Ukrainian missile threat would require Russian forces to take time-consuming and expensive precautions to avoid detection and the resulting vulnerability to attack.

The UK has been pressuring the Biden administration for over a year to supply Ukraine with its Storm Shadow cruise missiles. It understandably wants to ensure that any decision is made with a transatlantic unity that deters Russian escalation. But Biden still says no, openly embarrassing British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who traveled to the White House last week expecting a deal. While Biden fears escalation, it is highly unlikely that Putin will use nuclear weapons against the West or Ukraine. That would destroy his critical relationships with India and China and invite Anglo-American destruction. Moreover, it is Russia that is escalating this conflict with its attacks on Ukrainian civilian targets and its campaign of assassination and sabotage across Europe.

Are there other signs of Biden’s reluctance?

The president has failed to implement secondary sanctions against entities and governments that allow Russia to circumvent or mitigate the impact of Western sanctions. U.S. spy planes over the Black Sea are kept farther away from Russian forces than their British counterparts. And the Biden administration opposes conventional sabotage operations in Russia, arrogantly claiming that such operations serve no clear military purpose. This claim is belied by the devastation caused by Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries and other targets.

Even where Biden has had some success, his Russia policy still has holes. The Russian arrest of American journalist Evan Gershkovich in March 2023 was spurred by Biden’s earlier willingness to trade for the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner. Griner was arrested in February 2022 and traded for arms dealer Viktor Bout in December 2022. Simply put, Putin learned that Biden was negotiating with hostage-takers and realized he had to keep holding Americans hostage.

So yes, while Biden has provided significant support to Ukraine and orchestrated the necessary Western unity in support for Ukraine, he has failed to respond to Putin’s multifaceted aggression with the necessary force.

Which brings us to Trump.

Starting with the premise that Trump is a happy footrest for Putin is not helpful. For one thing, Trump introduced new, low-yield nuclear weapons designed to counter similar Russian threats. Biden opposed these capabilities during the 2020 presidential campaign but later supported them. Trump also eased Obama-era restrictions on high-risk operations by the CIA and National Security Agency against Russia — restrictions that Biden then reimposed. When Russian intelligence officers carried out a nerve agent attack on the UK in 2018, Trump expelled dozens of spies from the Russian embassy in Washington. Also in 2018, when a Russian intelligence-led mercenary force attacked US forces in Syria, the Russians were destroyed. Trump sent in the US Navy to challenge sensitive Russian territorial claims. And, as noted, Trump approved Nord Stream 2.

That said, Trump has displayed a persistent delusion about Putin’s nature. Trump is uninterested in Russian history and culture and assumes Putin is the caricature he presents himself to be: a straightforward strongman — someone willing to compromise with other strongmen to maintain a mutually beneficial balance of power. This perception underscores in part why Trump is obsessed with “respect” as a prerequisite for effective leadership. The problem is that Trump is obsessed with simplistic presentations of strength, while ignoring the practical agendas of other leaders. Trump’s effervescent praise for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is a case in point. It’s brutally obvious that where Putin sees Orban as a useful idiot, Chinese President Xi Jinping sees him as his biggest political prostitute in Europe. Yet Trump deludes himself that Orban is a nationalist strongman who has America’s and Trump’s interests at heart.

By extension, Trump deceives himself into thinking that Putin wants to find a compromise with America. This makes Trump vulnerable to Putin’s political traps, such as during the 2018 leaders’ summit in Helsinki and with Putin’s nuclear brinkmanship rhetoric. Trump fails to recognize that Putin despises the United States for the defeat of the Soviet Union, Putin’s philosophical and professional touchstone. Putin’s rhetoric aside, his actions prove his agenda. But Trump fails to recognize that Putin wants to weaken American military, economic, and political power and the US-led alliance structure.

He should acknowledge this reality. It is no secret that Putin undermines American power wherever he can. Dialogue with Putin is fine, as long as it is based on reality. Treaties with Russia are fine, as long as they do not tolerate Russian violations, as in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The problem is that big deals with Putin would require abandoning American allies in the Baltics and Poland, all of which spend significantly more than 2 percent of their GDP on defense, and acquiescing to Russian bullying of democracies from Europe to Japan. The economic costs of accepting this move by America alone would be enormous. A central advantage of the US-led alliance structure is the provision for huge trade flows under the rule of law. Russia seeks only increased cronyism and economic dependence on those with whom it does business.

Trump’s desire for a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia is strong here. Putin has no interest in Trump’s art of the deal. That means that an early peace deal between Ukraine and Russia would be impossible without forcing Ukraine to give up its sovereign existence.

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The question is whether a second-term Trump policy toward Russia would be similar to that of his first term. And it is a very open question.

But to suggest that history shows that Trump is an easy puppet of Russia and that Biden is Putin’s greatest enemy is not serious. It is downright easy.