Niall Ferguson on Biden and the West's ineptitude

NIALL FERGUSON: First, Biden betrayed the Afghans to the Taliban. Now, he’s thrown Ukraine to the wolves

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Western world entered a strange interlude in which we forgot about the realities of great power politics. In a way, 79-year-old President Joe Biden personifies that forgetfulness.

During the 1990s, the West turned a blind eye to genocide in Rwanda and only woke up to the Balkans War after a great deal of dithering. In Bosnia and Kosovo, belated US intervention bailed out Europe.

After 9/11, we became laser-focused on a threat from an ideology – political or radical Islam or Islamism – not from a great power. We ‘went to war against terror’. The US led and Europe mostly followed.

In the end, we succeeded, and failed.

We succeeded in preventing another 9/11, killing Osama Bin Laden, and crushing Islamic State. We mostly failed to create a stable Iraq and utterly failed to create a stable Afghanistan.

But the real failure was to ignore the resurgence of two of the old great powers, China and Russia. Not just to ignore, but to enable their rise.

Americans helped China’s rapid growth, especially after the Beijing government was allowed into the World Trade Organisation. Americans told themselves a fairy story that China would liberalise.

As for Russia, its return to military power was enabled by Europeans buying Russian natural gas and oil and turning a blind eye to Putin’s increasingly despotic rule. Europeans told themselves a fairy story that Russia would liberalise.

We had ample evidence that we were making a mistake.

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DOMESTICALLY the administration is in disarray with inflation higher than at any time since 1982, violent crime surging and the Southern border overwhelmed with illegal immigrants.

But the picture abroad is worse.

Last year, Biden abandoned the people of Afghanistan to the Taliban. This year it is the turn of the people of Ukraine to be thrown to the wolves.

There was never the remotest chance that the threat of sanctions would deter Putin from invading.

It didn’t help when Biden seemed to suggest he wouldn’t necessarily penalise a ‘minor’ incursion.

The only thing that would have made Putin think twice was the presence in Ukraine of significant military hardware, but the Biden administration slowed deliveries of arms to Kyiv.

Last year, it removed sanctions on companies building the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, designed by Russia and Germany to bypass Ukraine. What’s more, Biden discovered that China and Russia are hand in glove after he tried to get President Xi Jinping to dissuade Putin from invading Ukraine.

The naivety would beggar belief if Biden was not manifestly in his second childhood.

As Donald Trump might tweet: Sad!