President-elect Joe Biden, 78, will have some heavy lifting on the Russia front when he’s inaugurated Jan. 20, 2021, threatening yesterday to retaliate against 68-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin for the apparent Russian hack on SolarWinds network management software updates that infected U.S. government computers. Biden said yesterday he would respond “in-kind” once he knows for sure the origin of the hack, most assuming it was the Kremlin. But just as Biden condemned Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn for violating the 1799 Logan Act during the 2016 transition for talking to former Russian Amb. Sergey Kislyak, he shouldn’t be commenting yet on American foreign policy. Biden accused Flynn of meddling in U.S. foreign policy after former President Barack Obama ousted Dec. 31, 2016 35 Russian diplomats from Washington, insisting Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election.
Funny there’s zero accusations today from Democrats or the press on Russian meddling in the 2020 election because they got Biden elected. But despite no accusations of Russian meddling in the election, Biden blames Russia for hacking into U.S. computers. In case Biden or the Trump White House hasn’t noticed, Putin’s done much more damage to Ukraine’s sovereignty by undermining the pro-Western government of 42-year-old former comic Volodymyr Zelensky. Biden has his own history with Ukraine while serving as Vice President, heading up Obama’s anti-corruption task force. During that time Biden landed his son Hunter and business partner Devon Archer lucrative jobs on Ukraine’s Burisma Energy Holdings board, paying his 50-year-old son Hunter $83,000 a month. Hunter made millions on Burisma’s board between 2014 and 2019, then took his business to China.
Whoever becomes Biden’s attorney general, Biden will make sure they take a loyalty oath not to the Constitution but to the Biden family, trying to thwart a Department of Justice investigation into Hunter’s overseas business dealings and taxes. While most of Biden’s Cabinet has been picked, he’s up in the air over attorney general because his top priority will be protecting Hunter, and indirectly, himself. Joe emphatically stated that he had no knowledge of Hunter’s overseas business dealings, something refuted by Hunter’s former business partner Tony Bubulinski. Bobulinski confirmed to Fox News Tucker Carlson Oct. 28 that he met with Joe Biden twice ob a proposed lucrative China business deal. Joe denied knowing anything about Hunter’s business deals. So as Joe gets closer to inauguration Jan. 20, 2021, his life will get more complicated picking the next U.S. attorney general.
Putin has been busy supporting anti-regime forces in Ukraine’s pro-Russian Donbass region, and, more recently occupied Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region where ethnic Armenians have lived for centuries. No matter what the objections from Yerevan, Putin’s troop no have a lasting impact on the region, prompting concerns that Putin could annex the territory like he did in Crimea, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Georgia. Meanwhile U.S. and EU officials do nothing to restrain Putin from occupying more real estate outside the Russian Federation. Putin backs the For Life Party in Ukraine led by 66-year-old pro-Kremlin Viktor Medvedchuck. “There’s no trust in Zelensky or his party, said Mdevedchuk, whose daughter’s godfather is Putin. Medvedchuck believes Ukraine should resume close ties with Moscow, like Zelensky’s predecessor Viktor Yanukovych.
While all this happened on Trump’s watch, Biden’s anti-Kremlin foreign policy won’t give the U.S. much leverage in the region, certainly not in Nagorno-Karabakh where Armenians face a brutal crackdown. “I say openly that we should walk the same road with Russia, that we need to do everything to restore relations,” Medvedchuk said, agreeing with Putin that Donabass should cede from Ukraine just like Crimea. Approaching Putin with fresh accusations of Russian hacking is bound to send U.S.-Russian relations to new lows. Trump’s approach of avoiding conflict with Russia opened up an era of cooperation, something roundly rejected on Capitol Hill. Instead of looking at Trump strategy as effective, Capitol Hill lawmakers threw every roadblock possible into improving U.S.-Russian relations. Biden looks to turn back the clock to Obama’s failed Russian diplomacy.
Because of Biden’s advance age, he’s going to have great difficulty in foreign relations, relying heavily on his Secretary of State Tony Blinken and State Department officials. When it comes to dealing with Putin, Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un or other anti-American dictators around the world, Trump had it right that you can’t beat them initially with a big stick. Watching Putin seize more power in Ukraine and, most recently, Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region, it doesn’t help U.S. leverage to antagonize Putin. Biden better hope that he’s not bogged down with inquiries into his son Hunter’s overseas business dealings that connect-the-dots to himself, Dealing with anti-American dictators is bad enough without any foreign policy baggage. When you add to that endless investigations into Hunter’s business dealings, it’s going to hamper Joe’s foreign policy.
