Why doesn’t President Biden go harder against the Russian offense that has destroyed whole building’s and hurt innocent civilians?
The Unknown of Russian President Validmir Putin….
Biden HAS ramped up certain things…
But he has also refrained from applying others….
The American President in mindful of allowing the Russian President a ‘off ramp’ from the Ukraine that save will lives and allow a Ukraine , smaller , to exist as a bumper against the Russian’s and Eastern Europe…
Senior White House officials designing the strategy to confront Russia have begun quietly debating a new concern: that the avalanche of sanctions directed at Moscow, which have gained speed faster than they imagined, is cornering President Vladimir V. Putin and may prompt him to lash out, perhaps expanding the conflict beyond Ukraine.
In Situation Room meetings in recent days, the issue has come up repeatedly, according to three officials. Mr. Putin’s tendency, American intelligence officials have told the White House and Congress, is to double down when he feels trapped by his own overreach. So they have described a series of possible reactions, ranging from indiscriminate shelling of Ukrainian cities to compensate for the early mistakes made by his invading force, to cyberattacks directed at the American financial system, to more nuclear threats and perhaps moves to take the war beyond Ukraine’s borders.
The debate over Mr. Putin’s next moves is linked to an urgent re-examination by intelligence agencies of the Russian leader’s mental state, and whether his ambitions and appetite for risk have been altered by two years of Covid isolation.
Those concerns accelerated after Mr. Putin’s order on Sunday to place the country’s strategic nuclear weapons on a “combat ready” alert to respond to the West’s “aggressive comments.” (In the ensuing days, however, national security officials say they have seen little evidence on the ground that Russia’s nuclear forces have actually moved to a different state of readiness.)…
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Mr. Biden’s policy, the official said, was not one of seeking regime change in Russia. The idea, he said, was to influence Mr. Putin’s actions, not his grip on power. And the sanctions, the official noted, were designed not as a punishment, but as leverage to end the war. They will escalate if Mr. Putin escalates, the official said. But the administration would calibrate its sanctions, and perhaps reduce them, if Mr. Putin begins to de-escalate.