Critics of the U.S. handling of deterrence say that by being so clear about what the United States won’t do for Ukraine, Washington is potentially emboldening Russian President Vladimir Putin to act more aggressively than he otherwise would.

“I don’t think this is very productive when we say every so often, ‘We don’t want World War 3,’ or ‘We don’t want conflict with Russia,’ ” said Marko Mihkelson, the head of the foreign affairs committee of the Estonian parliament, who was in Washington last week to lobby for additional troops and equipment for NATO’s eastern flank. “That’s a green light to the Russians that we’re afraid of them.”…

The Biden administration “just cannot understand that there are times when you have to shut your mouth,” said François Heisbourg, a senior adviser for Europe at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and a past adviser to the French defense ministry. “Overall, the crisis has been well-managed, the diplomacy has been superb, and they haven’t really done any stupid stuff. It’s shooting off their mouth about what they won’t do.”

By staying silent about issues such as troop deployments, “you are not signaling that you are going to deploy troops, you are leaving an uncertainty in the mind of your adversary that there is just this chance you are going to deploy troops, but it’s for him to take the chance in escalating,” Heisbourg said.