The U.S. just lost to the Taliban. We'll see if it can deter Putin

Can an aging superpower still control the course of events in eastern Europe, where Russian troops are massing along Ukraine's border?

We're about to find out.

The United States is counting on new economic threats and old alliances to deter what it says is a possible plan to invade Ukraine by early next year.

It's tempting to write the Americans off.

After all, sanctions didn't make Russia leave Crimea in 2014. And the U.S. position has deteriorated since then on multiple fronts, at home and abroad.

Nowadays the U.S. is preoccupied with China. It not only left a fight with the Taliban, it pleaded for its foe to protect U.S. personnel on the way out of Afghanistan. And, this year, America's own democracy was nearly wrecked by internal divisions.

That brings us to the current standoff over Luhansk and Donetsk, areas in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine on the border with Russia.

American intelligence says nearly 100,000 Russian soldiers have gathered nearby, and more are on the way, and Russia has prepared a series of other destabilization and disinformation measures to support an invasion.

The U.S. insists it has levers to pull and friends willing to help, setting the stage for a test of the Biden administration's broad belief in the value of alliances when standing up against authoritarians.

Tuesday — after Biden spoke for over two hours with Russia's Vladimir Putin, urging him to back off, and later with the leaders of four European countries — offered a better sense of what that might look like in practice with public appearances by two administration officials.

Biden's national security adviser said the warnings include bank sanctions tougher than anything the U.S. imposed after the invasion of Crimea.

"Things we did not do in 2014 we are prepared to do now," Jake Sullivan told a White House briefing.

Another administration official, Victoria Nuland, offered additional details as she testified before the U.S. Senate.

She said these sanctions would be applied in increments and the U.S. was already talking to allies about what to do after the first day, the fifth day, and the 10th day of an invasion.