Biden to send troops to E Europe, some Americans & allies baulk

Germany Reportedly Did Not Let UK Use Airspace To Fly Military Aid To Ukraine

- Chidanand Rajghatta

Washington: US President Joe Biden said on Friday he will deploy American troops to eastern Europe sometime “in the near term” even as he struggled to keep Nato allies and skeptics at home on the same page in the ongoing face-off with Russia over Ukraine. The US president is failing even to build a domestic consensus in the stand-off against Russia, with many Trump Republicans saying he is exaggerating the threat from Moscow at the expense of the threat from China, while implicitly supporting Russian stand on Ukraine.

“Ukraine is primarily a European issue to solve... Instead of being bogged down in a nonNato European issue, we should (be) recognising China as the preeminent emergent threat to America,” Lt Gen Kellogg, a Trump administration national security mandarin said in a commentary amid a perceptible lack of enthusiasm among Americans for any foreign deployment after the debacle on Afghanistan. But Biden pressed ahead with the proposed deployment, apparently in an effort to deter Russia from invading Ukraine, something his commanders say is imminent. “I’ll be moving troops to eastern Europe and the Nato countries in the near term,” Biden said, adding, “Not too many.” The postscript was evidently aimed at assuring Americans that the US will not get bogged down in another foreign intervention and the deployment is meant only to deter Russia.