Vladimir Putin has overplayed his hand–a hand in a poker game where Donald Trump is the croupier.  

Putin is banking on the invasion of Ukraine to unite Russians–not just with those in Ukraine but also those back in Mother Russia–against the threat of democracy.  The threat is, of course, to him, not them, but he’s wrapping his aggression in the same brand of nationalism coming from the American right wing:  all ethnically-proper people must unite and fight for their (fictional) heritage.

Whether it was for cultural purity as Putin claims, or more likely Putin’s greed to control a productive economy, the invasion comes under conditions very different than Russia’s previous aggressions, including the fact that it was tacitly endorsed by a US presidential administration.

Retrospectively looking at actions of Donald Trump’s during his single term in office, he and his policies dealt the cards that enticed Putin to militaristically flex his muscles.  He did everything he could to soften the ground for Putin to invade.

So if Trump made it so easy to invade, you’ll rightly ask, why didn’t Putin invade when Trump was president?  I believe Trump vowed to Putin that he would not allow Ukraine to join NATO, and Putin thought Trump would win the 2020 election.  Believing in Trump’s reelection win, Putin assumed he would have four years under Trump to manipulate US foreign policy to weaken Ukraine; if necessary, he could invade in 2024.

But Trump lost, and Putin had to act swiftly before Ukraine became a stronger candidate for NATO membership.  

[Also, it’s possible (but not likely) Putin intended to invade in 2020, but that pesky coronavirus pandemic got in the way.  A 2020 invasion would certainly have twisted the US presidential election more than any social media campaign, something Putin would’ve loved to see.]

Look, though, at how Trump set the table for Putin, with Ukraine being the meal.  

Weakening NATO:  First, Trump spent four years tearing apart the NATO alliance.  Trump threatened to kick various nations out of the pact.  He questioned whether certain nations merited membership.  He intimated that the US wouldn’t send troops in defense of member nations.  The US posture under Trump was one of retreat and isolation–a tone reflected by Tucker Carlson.

Less than a year in office, President Biden made very swift and effective outreach to NATO members to repair those relationships, and it seems to have worked in gaining support for a unified response to Russia.  Biden’s leadership and diplomacy have been stellar so far, although he could not get support for widespread sanctions prior to the invasion.

Lifting sanctions:  While he wasn’t successful–thanks to significant pushback from Congress–Trump attempted to lift sanctions on Russia the Obama Administration had put in place after the Crimea invasion.  A significant portion of those sanctions were on Putin’s personal assets as well as the assets of his fellow Russian autocrats.  

Destabilizing democracy:  Trump (and Carlson) are fond of autocrats and oligarchs.  Like Trump and Carlson, Putin despises democracy.  Trump has continued a fervent battle to undermine the public’s confidence in American democracy–a battle he started with his 2016 campaign.  Putin leveraged this by claiming the Ukrainian administration of Volodymyr Zelensky was illegitimate–and he threw in a Nazi reference to boot.  

Undermining US intel credibility:  Throughout his four year term, Trump endlessly sought to undermine the US Intelligence Community, claiming they were partisan, anti-Trump nincompoops.  This caused many in the media and the public to question the intelligence assessment.  In fact, even Ukraine’s government is said to have doubted what US analysts were predicting.  

The thing is, the US analysts were right.

While it’s true that under Republican-chosen leadership, the information referred to from the USIC by those leaders ignored highly relevant information–like Iraq DIDN’T have weapons of mass destruction and like Russia DID interfere in the 2016 elections–Democratic leaders do not.  But the damage was done on the domestic and international stages:  don’t believe what Intel tells you.

Minimizing Ukraine:  Did we forget why Trump was impeached the first time?  It was because he tried to use the threat of withholding military aid from Ukraine to gain political benefits in the 2020 election.  Ukraine had no value to Trump.  It was a pawn Trump could sacrifice to gain favor with Putin, his idol.  Many Republicans still feel the same way, if you look at statements from Carlson and Michael Flynn. 

While Trump cued Putin that he would accept an annexation of Ukraine while he was in office, the current situation is a lot different.  This also isn’t the same as the last time Russia invaded a neighbor, Afghanistan.  Moscow doesn’t have the ability to plunder resources from satellite countries anymore.  And Putin isn’t dealing with Western leaders failing to coalesce because the American leader wanted to be in Putin’s entourage.  

Trump may not have been in office when Putin invaded Ukraine, but he laid the groundwork for Putin’s decision to go in.  We cannot afford to have another President who supplicates himself to the Russian bear or any other world leader again.  

[EDIT 9:06 p.m.:  I forgot to mention another thing Trump helped Putin with:  Trump withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.  The INF Treaty prohibited the signatories from developing mid-range nuclear weapons, like those Russia might use of EU targets in Central Europe.  Now, Putin has a massive threat for nations in that area.]