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A month after the invasion of Ukraine began, President Biden’s visit to Brussels has sealed the unity of the Western bloc. The American leader stresses that Vladimir Putin has not achieved his military objectives nor has he divided the United States and Europe. But the superiority of the Russian army may lead the heroic Ukrainian resistance to give in in the coming weeks. Only a substantial increase in sanctions and military aid would level the playing field, at least for a while. The risk is that if Putin feels cornered he will tend to escalate the conflict with deadlier weapons.
The Balts and Poland are clearly in favor of curbing imports of Russian gas, which
they finance aggression on a daily basis, but not the rest of the Europeans. Regarding aid, the precedent that could serve as inspiration is the Lend-Lease Act, promoted by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in October 1941. The president asked Congress for unlimited help to the allies in the form of tanks , planes, ammunition, etc., on the grounds that their security was essential to the defense of the United States. A few months earlier, Jean Monnet proposed the idea that he should speak of his country as “the arsenal of democracy,” and in this way prepare American public opinion for a future intervention in the war.
In the case of Ukraine, Biden does not want to put troops on the ground or create a no-fly zone, to avoid a direct confrontation with Russia. He remains an unpopular president with only one in five Republicans approving of his handling of the war. But he is aware that Putin is a danger to democracy, not just in his neighborhood. President Zelensky, in one of his recent messages, called for one percent of NATO’s military capabilities. With them, he argued, his country could resist and even defeat Russia. But it is not yet clear that the Western bloc is going to help him turn his moral victory into an effective one.
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