Putin’s coming moves toward Ukraine will depend on his risk/reward calculation. That calculation will greatly depend on his evaluation of the resolve of the United States under the Biden administration.
The Obama administration withdrew the last of U.S. armor from Europe in October of 2013. NATO works when the U.S. leads, and the absence of U.S. Armor meant that no meaningful NATO ground response to the early 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea and subsequent Russian aggression in Eastern Ukraine was possible. A feasible option should have been a large NATO tank exercise in Poland. Of course, the Russians would consider such a move provocative –that is why it would be done. Whether this would have been the best option is not the issue. The issue is that it was not an option, and Putin knew this. NATO allies would not participate in such a provocative exercise without U.S. participation.
The Obama administration scrambled to develop some reaction to Russian aggression and began with a $1 billion one-year program to deploy a rotational armored brigade to Europe. This led to a large NATO exercise in Poland in 2016, two years too late. The administration followed with a $3.4 billion fiscal 2017 budget request for what it titled the European Reassurance Initiative focused on continuing a rotational armored presence in Europe. In the spring of 2016, the administration probably anticipated the program would be implemented by a Hillary Clinton administration.
