Biden Needs to “Finish the Job” in Ukraine

Why Biden’s campaign for reelection and presidential legacy should help Ukraine

American foreign policy analysts have articulated a wide range of views about U.S. national security interests regarding Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Some blame the United States for forcing Putin to launch a preemptive war to stop NATO expansion. Others see the war as a distraction to U.S. core security interests in Asia. Another perspective frames the war as ‘same as it ever was’ in our nasty, anarchic, realpolitik world. As Christopher Caldwell writes, “this war is not at heart a clash of values. It is a classic interstate war over territory and power, occurring at a border between empires.”

I have a different view. First, yes, NATO and its expansion is an enduring issue in U.S.-Soviet and later U.S.-Russian relations, though periods of NATO-Russia cooperation punctuate the zigs and zags of confrontation. These are inconvenient facts for those blaming Biden and NATO for Putin’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine. (More on that history here: “What Putin Fears Most.”)

Second, yes, the China threat and preserving peace in Asia constitute the greatest national security challenge for U.S. foreign policymakers over the next several decades. However, this challenge is highly intertwined with the current war in Ukraine as I wrote about here (and the U.S. is in much better shape to win than commonly assumed as I explain here.)

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to the United States of America in December 2022. Source: President of Ukraine

And third, yes, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine feels very retro, echoing bygone times when expanding territory and seizing ports were the ways to enhance one’s security. But Putin’s invasion is not just about land. Reuniting the Slavic nation is also part of his warped mission.

But in addition, in my view, liberal democratic values are also at stake in Putin’s war. And the United States has an interest in defending them. An autocracy invaded a democracy. We should care about that. We don’t have an interest in seeing dictatorships succeed in using military force to destroy democracies since many of them are our allies today. Putin is trying to recolonize Ukraine. The world spent the second half of the last century trying to get rid of imperialism. We can’t be indifferent to its return. Putin’s war is also one of conquest and annexation. A return to this kind of international system does not serve American interests, or really anyone’s, except for powerful autocrats.

But even if you don’t agree with my explanation of the war and American interests in helping Ukraine win it, President Biden has another very self-interested political reason in “finishing the job” – his frequent refrain from his State of the Union address – in Ukraine. 

Helping Ukraine achieve its freedom and independence would mark an extremely successful chapter in his legacy as president. A victory in Ukraine also would partly erase the less complimentary chapter of his messy and tragic exit from Afghanistan. Should he choose to run again (the decision he seems to have already made), finishing this job in Ukraine also would give momentum to his campaign for reelection.

Therefore, as I argued in Foreign Affairs recently, Biden should go all in now. He should equip Ukraine with more and better weapons and impose better and more comprehensive sanctions to achieve a breakthrough against Russian occupiers this year. Such a strategy is good for Ukraine, good for American interests and values, and good for Biden.

Conversely, failure or even stalemate on the battlefield is obviously horrific for Ukraine, damaging to the U.S. interest and values, and especially bad for Biden personally. Nobody will remember Biden’s heroic efforts in 2022 if Ukraine begins to lose in 2023 or 2024. Imagine how Biden’s opponents will describe the president’s leadership in the weeks leading up to the presidential election in November 2024 if the war is not going well. His critics, especially his electoral opponents, will code Ukraine as another “loss” for the United States, as another sign of Biden’s weakness, and link it (unfairly of course) to American defeat in Afghanistan. Some will say that we wasted our resources in 2021 by funding a losing effort. Others will argue that we did not do enough. Both of those positions are already being articulated by leaders of the Republican Party now. They will only get louder if the war drags on inconclusively, or worse yet, Putin takes the offensive. Biden can’t afford these narratives. For his own legacy and for his reelection prospects, he needs a win in Ukraine.

Had Biden chosen a different strategy at the beginning of the Russian invasion, his options today might have been different. He could have listened to other analysts, who argued that getting bogged down in a European war would distract from the China challenge, that this war was nothing new and not our problem, or been persuaded that Putin’s legitimate security interests could only be secured by invading Ukraine. Thankfully, Biden and his foreign policy team rejected these narratives and went all in to help. But by doing so, they also created path-dependent consequences for our national interests, Biden’s political fortunes, and the fate of Ukrainians. Stopping Russian aggression is a moral imperative for the lives and livelihoods of Ukrainians. A win in Ukraine also advances our national security and our democratic values. A win also benefits Biden personally. A loss is detrimental to all.