Brooks: Sanctions Against Russia Are ‘Weak’ and Russia-China Alliance Is ‘Strong,’ But Biden’s Done ‘Quite Well’

 

On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks said President Joe Biden has done a good job of handling the crisis in Ukraine, despite the “weak” sanctions that are due to Europe and the U.S. relying on Russian energy and the “reasonably strong” alliance between China and Russia.

Host Judy Woodruff asked, “A lot of people watching President Biden very closely because of what happened in Afghanistan. But what’s your assessment of how he has managed this, handled this so far?”

Brooks responded, “I think quite well. He’s organized the alliance. For once, we won the information war. He really leaked all the intelligence, and it was all vindicated. Our intelligence community was excellent in predicting what the Russians were going to do. And they went ahead and did it. So, he did that part well.”

Brooks continued, “He is playing with an extremely weak hand. Putin is willing to commit troops. We, wisely, are unwilling to commit troops. That’s one disadvantage. Second, we’re unwilling and our European allies are unwilling to impose sanctions that would impose any costs on Putin. To do this right, we’d have to go after the Russian economy, which is essentially going after the energy sector. We’re not going to do that. Because European and American economies don’t want to impose any costs on themselves. So, I think the sanctions are weak.”

He concluded, “I think the alliance between Russia and China, which seems to be reasonably strong, is extremely troubling. The hope I have, and I think the place to focus our efforts and our attention, is on the Ukrainian resistance. If the Ukrainian resistance, with the help of the west, can make the occupation of Ukraine very costly, then this whole thing does backfire on Putin. But I would focus on that, rather than, say, the sanctions, which have been symbolic and not nothing, but clearly not strong enough to impose any real costs on the Russians.”