There is a pattern to the series of bad decisions coming from President Joe Biden’s Oval Office. They are increasingly putting the nation’s security at heightened risk by naively playing into the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Military setbacks in Ukraine, Chinese provocations in the Indo-Pacific and the placating of Iran with the release of frozen and sanctioned funds are all combining to put Americans and our allies in harm’s way. Given the totality of these unforced errors, it is difficult to believe that Biden is listening to the advice of his top military and intelligence advisers.
The Three Horsemen are coming for the U.S. and our allies. Yet Washington seems to be crassly predicating its national security moves based on election-year politics. That may work in a time of peace, but we are in global war right now against totalitarian regimes that reject our way of life and are intent on undermining, if not destroying, our democratic institutions. Hence Russia and China’s multipolar world concept and the formation of BRICS.
Biden is the chief executive now. He is no longer a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he once served as both ranking minority member and as chairman. Political calculus is no longer an option. Rather, the nation’s security must be his one and only guiding star if the U.S. is to thwart our enemies’ ambitions.
To the extent that Biden needs to factor in politics, he needs to do so by overcoming what Obama-era Secretary of Defense Robert Gates penned about him in 2014: “I think he [then-Vice President Biden] has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
Fast-forward to today, and Biden is arguably adding to that from a narrow national security perspective. He has created a permissive environment for our adversaries to operate in.
The most damaging of his mistakes have been a tolerance for open borders, surges in fentanyl overdoses and deaths due to Chinese drug trafficking, and the multi-faceted disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, followed by Moscow-backed coup d’états in Sudan and Niger, and Hamas’s attack on Israel have put him squarely on his back foot.
Meanwhile, Tehran’s nuclear ambitions continue unabated. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-backed proxy militias are attacking U.S bases throughout the Middle East, and Iran-backed Houthi rebels are attacking commercial and naval shipping lanes in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
China continues to threaten Taiwan and is actively harassing Filipino commercial vessels in the South China Sea. North Korea persists with its gamesmanship and provocations against South Korea and Japan. Yesterday, after hinting at peace talks, North Korean Leader Kim Jong-Un’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, ruled out any contact or negotiation with Tokyo.
Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are dictating the conditions; Biden’s Washington is constantly in reaction mode, and as a result, unacceptably failing, which makes the world a much more dangerous place. And election-year politics is making it more perilous still.
This may read as a political take. It is not. Rather, this is a call for Biden and Congress to take the politics out of national security. The letters D and R are secondary to “U.S.A.” Our messaging applies equally to Republicans and Democrats and as much to Biden as it does to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).
Politics simply cannot dictate national security. Nor will politics deliver us from the peril our country currently faces.
As crafted, Biden’s National Security Strategy does not provide a solution either. Biden is absolutely correct in his opening statement: “How we respond to the tremendous challenges and the unprecedented opportunities we face today will determine the direction of our world and impact the security and prosperity of the American people for generations to come.”
It is past time to get on with responding. It is time Washington started setting conditions. As they say in the military, “move out and draw fire.”
As retired Army Lt. General Ben Hodges, the former U.S. Army Commander Europe, recently argued, “We spend too much time worrying about what the Russians might do. Instead, we should make them worry about what we’re capable of.” The same line of reasoning must also apply to the Chinese, Iranians and North Koreans.
NATO’s newest member has a plan. While focused on Putin and his war of aggression against Ukraine, its core principles are globally germane. Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström said in an interview with Euractiv, “We have to create more strategic difficulties for Russia.” Billström is right, as is French President Emmanuel Macron, with his stated willingness to place French troops in Ukraine, if needed, as a redline.
Biden needs to heed the advice and counsel of the career professionals, as his political appointees have clearly taken him down the wrong path. Ice cream cones and “root cause” discussions will solve nothing. Biden needs to leverage his combatant commanders, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the retired Army four-star general serving as his secretary of Defense, as well as retired generals sitting on the bench.
The restoration of America’s influence and image in the world begins with a plan, not with a strategy to win a political election. That means playing well with others — and for Biden, that means Republicans. For the Speaker, that means Democrats.
Ukraine does not have the luxury of waiting until November. Nor, quite frankly, do the border states, sanctuary cities and neighborhoods now under siege by criminal gangs. It is that bad, and past time to do something about it.
Col. (ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as a military intelligence officer. Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy.
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