These are indeed rough days for the Biden Administration, and while foreign developments are certainly farther outside the President’s control than domestic affairs, the President has done just about everything he can do to make a bad situation impossible.

Russia is currently poised to attack the Ukraine from any or all of three directions. And as we approach the point beyond which anything the U.S. might do would be too late, it is difficult to imagine a scenario where the Western response could be any more fragmented and tepid.

Options available to the U.S. and NATO are limited, but not non-existent. No U.S. troops will actually set foot on Ukrainian soil – Ukraine is not currently a NATO ally, which is part of the problem – and it should be clear by now that negotiating with Moscow will be no more fruitful than it ever really has been. Nor is the somewhat hollow threat of posthumous sanctions appearing to be all that much of a deterrent.

What the U.S. can do – or should have done – is make an invasion (or even a minor incursion) prohibitively expensive for the Russians. That means expedited weapons delivery to Kyiv, the stuff they need – modern anti-tank, anti-aircraft, and anti-missile weaponry, secure communications and advanced imagery technology, maritime defenses, and so forth. It also means imposing particularly crippling economic sanctions – including denying Moscow access to the Swift international financial system – now, rather than after an attack.

Other options are on the table as well; but the most potent deterrent weapon in the armamentarium of the West is a unified show of strength and resolve piloted by bold American leadership. This weapon is nowhere to be found.

The moral imperative aside, age-old problems between Russia and its former Union of Synthetic Socialist States – especially the Ukraine – are not the problems of the U.S. government. What is a problem of the U.S. government is the size and strength of an emboldened Russia, freshly engorged on the substantial resources of the Ukraine.

The centerpiece of Biden’s foreign policy has been to rebuild America’s alliances. This is not a bad strategy; the problem is that the President has been utterly unsuccessful in implementing it. Consider even an incomplete litany of the strategic missteps of the current administration that have led to this point:

• The reversal of U.S. opposition last summer to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a decision which almost instantly granted Russia an immense amount of leverage over Europe. An effort the White House doubled down on when it actively lobbied against renewed NS2 sanctions in the Senate earlier this month.
• The hideously bungled and inexplicably precipitous withdrawal (some might say abandonment) from Afghanistan last year, done without even letting our NATO allies know it was happening, which simultaneously weakened U.S. global influence and signaled to friend and foe alike that American will to back allies was fragile at best.
• And, of course, the President’s inexplicable, and inexcusable “minor incursion” gaffe at a press conference a week ago. Jen Psaki, Secretary for Damage Control, exercised her almost daily charge to roll back, clarify or counteract the President’s remarks, but the damage was done. The statement was undoubtedly read by Putin as a permission slip to engage in activities short of outright Blitzkrieg.

The more serious damage was in illuminating for the world the underlying schism in western unity. Among Biden’s strategic mistakes was his over-correction regarding Germany, pandering almost coquettishly to the outgoing Angela Merkle, never one to demonstrate any spine against Russia, and the even invertebrate Social Democratic Party coalition which replaced her. Germany is increasingly NATO’s weak link, still well shy of meeting the 2% of GDP defense spending threshold technically required of NATO members, despite being one of the member countries which can most easily afford it.

Germany has lashed its economy to Russia, having committed to giving up virtually all of its domestic energy-production capability in favor of tying itself umbilically to Russian natural gas via Ukraine-bypassing Nord Stream 2 pipeline. And the one country which could have exerted the influence necessary to bring Germany back fully into the western democratic fold appears either unwilling or unable to do so.

Biden may have been right about the need to repair U.S. alliances. But virtually every decision he has made on the world stage had done the opposite. Biden seems no more equipped to provide the leadership the West needs at a critical juncture than Donald Trump before him, or Jimmy Carter a generation ago. The cost will be a stronger Russia, a weaker western alliance and a devastated Ukraine.

Kelly Sloan is a political and public affairs consultant and a recovering journalist based in Denver.