In the remote Siberian prison in which Russian President Vladimir Putin incarcerated the charismatic dissident, Alexei Navalny died on Feb. 16, presumably at the hands of agents answering to Putin. Putin understood Navalny was a future president who won Russians’ loyalty based on principles and ideas rather than fear and repression. Putin also never forgave Navalny for exposing billions of dollars in embezzlement and corruption.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby promised new sanctions that President Joe Biden would unveil on Feb. 23 would “hold Russia accountable for what happened to Mr. Navalny.” Therein lies the problem with the Biden administration. The problem is not punishing Putin’s inner circle but rather doing it gradually and acting reactively rather than proactively.
Sanctions can be an effective tool, but only when they shock the system. Implementing them gradually only enables repressive regimes to firewall their economy and better adjust. Likewise, imposing blanket sanctions proactively enhances leverage as the State Department can bargain to ease or lift them.
Biden’s team must explain, however, if Friday’s new package of sanctions will be meaningful, why did Biden wait until Navalny’s death to implement them? Why were they not imposed after the invasion of Ukraine? Of, if capable of affecting change in behavior, could they not have been imposed after Navalny’s initial poisoning? Or when he was first imprisoned? Or to compel his release from the Arctic prison?
Consider the 2012 Magnitsky Act, sanctions imposed on those responsible for the torture and murder of Sergei Magnitsky in 2009. Like Navalny, Magnitsky deserved recognition. Why wait for Magnitsky’s death, though, to sanction those complicit in severe human rights violations? As with Magnitsky, Navalny acted not for a legacy of sanctions but rather for a better Russia. Likewise, why were the sanctions Biden now considers not imposed after the 2015 assassination of liberal politician Boris Nemtsov? It would have been more supportive for U.S. actions to increase pressure on Russia while they were still alive.
None of these questions is theoretical. If Biden virtue-signals with ineffective sanctions, then Putin may conclude he can get away with murder. The life of political freedom activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, who twice survived Putin’s poisons, is now at stake. Like Navalny, he has disappeared into Russia’s gulag. And if there is no meaningful response to the murder of Navalny, then Putin may conclude he can once again act abroad with impunity, much like he did when, in 2006, his agents poisoned Alexander Litvinenko with polonium tea.
Biden entered office declaring, “Diplomacy is back,” but he is confused. Diplomacy is not simply rhetoric but a strategy that includes economic, military, and psychological coercion. When Putin looks at Biden, he has lost his fear. He sees a man who supported “reset” and prefers the sound of his own voice to meaningful action. He takes neither Biden nor his much younger aides seriously.
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Biden’s team should recognize the time to leave sanctions in reserve has passed. Even if Congress unwisely skimps on Ukraine aid, Biden should move to destroy the Russian economy and detain under any legal pretext the family members of Russian elites who prefer to live in America while their parents serve Putin’s authoritarianism.
It is time to take the gloves off.
Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.