Putin will regret invading Ukraine

Where Biden is projecting optimism is that the West will remain united against Putin from here on out and that an invasion of Ukraine will prove costly to Moscow. The second contention may prove true no matter what kind of sanctions package can be cobbled together, depending on the extent of the Russian incursion.

We have had our own experience invading and occupying foreign lands over the past two decades. While Afghanistan and Iraq were far more alien to us than the Russian-speaking people of Ukraine are to the Putin regime, the lesson is clear that such exercises don’t always make the invading country stronger.

The Soviet Union’s own adventure in Afghanistan was similarly disastrous, hastening its defeat in the Cold War and ultimate collapse. Putin may seek to reverse the USSR’s disintegration, but Russia today is far poorer and weaker. It is no shape to occupy vast swathes of Ukraine past where the Russians might be welcome.