Why Biden won’t send troops to Ukraine

President Joe Biden has spent enormous diplomatic capital on countering Russian aggression toward Ukraine. His administration relentlessly broadcast doomsday warnings about an impending invasion - which proved to be correct - and declared that no less than the international order was at stake.

But Mr Biden has also made clear that the Americans are not willing to fight, even though the Russians clearly are. Furthermore, he’s ruled out sending forces into Ukraine to rescue US citizens, should it come to that. And he’s actually pulled out troops who were serving in the country as military advisers and monitors.

No national security interests
Ukraine isn’t in America’s neighbourhood. It is not located on the US border. Nor does it host a US military base. It does not have strategic oil reserves, and it’s not a major trade partner. But that lack of national interest hasn’t stopped former presidents from expending blood and treasure on behalf of others in the past. In 1995 Bill Clinton intervened militarily in the war that followed the collapse of Yugoslavia. And in 2011 Barack Obama did the same in the Libyan civil war, both largely on humanitarian and human rights grounds.

Biden doesn’t exercise military interventionism
This has something to do with President Biden’s noninterventionist instincts. He opposed Obama’s intervention in Libya as well as his surge of troops in Afghanistan. He resolutely defends his order to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan last year despite the chaos that accompanied it and the humanitarian catastrophe left in its wake.

Americans don’t want a war either
A recent AP-NORC poll found 72% said the US should play a minor role in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, or none at all. They are focused on pocketbook issues, particularly rising inflation, something Biden has to be mindful of as midterm elections loom. The danger of a superpower confrontation That’s the bottom line - Putin’s stockpile of nuclear warheads.
Biden doesn’t want to spark a “world war” by risking a direct clash between American and Russian troops in Ukraine and he’s been open about that.