President Biden is botching national security policy

The Biden administration’s policy weaknesses and disorganization are the unifying denominator in the two current national security crises that we are facing:

The emerging supremacy of China, and Russia’s impending overpowering of Ukraine.

These two causes, together with the daily confusion in Washington produced by a president who is not up to the role of governing the world’s sole superpower, and his staff of weak, ineffectual and compromised Cabinet and national security officials, have placed the U.S. in an unpleasant position.

Both China’s and Russia’s policies are influenced by the Brookings Institution. The Chinese Communist Party exerts significant influence on and funds it.

The United States’ relationship with Taiwan has been affected by decades of shifting policy goals, molded primarily by global war and its aftermath.

President Biden has sown international confusion with his statements on the “Taiwan agreement,” most recently in his call with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The Taiwan agreement does not exist; Biden is referring to a concept that isn’t real.

After losing the civil war with the Communist Chinese in 1949, Chinese Nationalists (anti-Communists) evacuated mainland China, forming the People’s Republic of China. The Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 added to the “strategic ambiguity” of U.S. policy. For decades, we have been strategically allied with the Taiwanese people.

From 1949 to now, the PRC has steadily eroded diplomatic prestige and international connections with Taiwan, resulting in a diplomatic and commercial focus on the PRC in the U.S., as well as worldwide.

Nonetheless, we have supported Taiwan with strategic, intelligence and military support over the years. Taiwan is also a significant commercial partner.

We have no similar history with Ukraine, on the other hand. Ukraine’s relationship with the Soviet Union, and later the Russian Federation, has changed over many years as the political winds in Ukraine and Russia shifted back and forth, both during the Cold War and following the former Soviet Union’s disintegration. Russia and Ukraine have a large geographical border.

The underlying denominator is once again the United States’ feeble policy declarations and weak stance in projecting strength and policy purpose to both China and Russia in two complicated, critical strategic engagements.

To oppose Russia’s military buildup on Ukraine’s border, policy choices are easily available. Biden exacerbated the current problem by shutting down the Keystone XL Pipeline with Canada as soon as he took office and then approving the Nord Stream 2 Russia pipeline to transport natural gas to Germany and Central Europe.

Russia is preparing to station up to 175,000 troops and equipment near Ukraine’s border.

The U.S. is powerless to prevent a Russian military entry into Ukraine.

If Biden still retains any form of political knowhow, he will immediately begin working to change the tide of history in the United States’ favor, ensuring that the country is once again energy independent, economically powerful and, most importantly, a dependable and steady international partner.

On a fair playing field, Russia and China cannot compete economically with the United States.