U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a media conference in Brussels, Friday, March 4.
Photo:
Olivier Douliery/Associated Press
We support President Biden’s efforts to assist Ukraine against Russia, and his Administration has raised its game considerably since the invasion. But one continuing frustration is the Administration’s habit of telling
what the U.S. and NATO will not do.
The tendency was on display again Friday at a NATO summit in Brussels, where Secretary of State
Antony Blinken
was asked at a press conference about the alliance imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine to prevent Russian air dominance. His response will not cause Russian tank drivers to lose any sleep.
“With regard to the no-fly zone,” Mr. Blinken said, “even as we are doing everything we can to give the Ukrainian people the means to defend themselves effectively against Russia, we also have a responsibility . . . to ensure that the war doesn’t spill over even beyond Ukraine.”
He added that “the only way to actually implement something like a no-fly zone is to send NATO planes into Ukrainian airspace and to shoot down Russian planes, and that could lead to a full-fledged war in Europe. President Biden has been clear that we are not going to get into a war with Russia.”
No one wants a U.S.-Russia shooting war, and Mr. Blinken makes an important point that a no-fly zone could require NATO pilots engaging with Russian planes. For that and other reasons we’ve said a no-fly zone would be hard to implement and might divide NATO.
But why tell Mr. Putin that he has nothing to fear no matter what he does in Ukraine? If he had some doubt about greater military assistance to Ukraine, the Russian might not be so willing to bomb cities with indiscriminate artillery and cluster bombs.
Mr. Blinken also led with weakness on possible sanctions on Russian oil and gas exports. “The immediate effect would be to raise prices at the pump for Americans and also to pad Russian profits with rising prices,” Mr. Blinken said. The latter point isn’t true if Russian exports plunged, and the former point tells Mr. Putin the West fears the political risk at home from rising gasoline prices more than it wants to deny financing for Mr. Putin’s war.
At least Mr. Blinken didn’t rule out those sanctions, so Mr. Putin has that to think about as he bombs away.
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Appeared in the March 5, 2022, print edition as ‘Everything America Won’t Do.’
