Biden needs to put Russia on its heels

Joe Biden should turn things around and get Ukraine to invade Russia. Or at least threaten to. That would show Vladimir Putin who was boss. It would also give the Russian bully a taste of his own medicine. Why should Putin do all the threatening?

While he was at it, he could also get the attention of Chinese Communist dictator Xi Jinping, another bully, by getting Taiwan to threaten to invade mainland China, and not the other way around.

They don’t actually have to launch invasions, you understand, but only make the threat and see if it works.

It would be like the classic Peter Sellers movie “The Mouse that Roared.” It is a cold War satire in which a small, fictitious country — the Duchy of Grand Fenwick — declares war on the

U.S. hoping to lose in order to get foreign aid.

Why should these guys have all the fun while scaring the rest of the world? Maybe it’s time to frighten them.

If nothing else, a bully understands a punch in the nose. The whole world would be cheering because everybody loves underdogs, even when they lose.

It is something akin to rewarding the millions of illegal immigrants who invaded the U.S. from Mexico with cash, health care, food, transportation housing, jobs and schooling. They can even vote in New York.

But Biden doesn’t have it in him to stand up to tyrants, or to the Mexican drug cartels behind the border invasion. It is easier to appease them.

He’d rather punch Americans who do not agree with him around than he would adversaries who promise real harm.

Putin, with 100,000 troops amassed at the Ukraine border, is threatening to invade Ukraine unless the U.S. and NATO concede to his demands, the main demand being that Ukraine does not become a member of NATO.

That demand is apparently a non-starter even as officials from the U.S., Russia and NATO continue to meet to discuss the situation.

While no match for Russia, Ukraine has an army of 297,000 soldiers, most with combat experience. Russian has an army of 1.5 million.

Biden has promised “severe economic sanctions” of Russia invading Ukraine, but given his humiliating retreat from Afghanistan, few take him seriously.

Also, Biden got nothing in return when he dropped sanctions against Russia so it could complete the construction of its Nord Stream 2 pipeline that transports energy from Russia into Germany.

But with Biden you never know. By the close of the meetings, he is liable to invite Russia to become a member of NATO. If Bulgaria, Romania Slovenia and Slovakia can be members, why not Russia?

That way Putin would no longer be able to complain about NATO expansion because he would be part of it. Biden might even give him a deal on dues.

However, given Putin’s belligerent attitude he most likely would reject the invitation and, like Groucho (not Karl) Marx say, “I wouldn’t want to join a club that would have me as a member.”

Besides, he would have to answer to Xi Jinping, who wants to gobble up Taiwan the way Putin wants to gobble up Ukraine.

Tiny Taiwan is no match for China, even if it is separated from the mainland by the Straits of Taiwan. The population of China is 1.4 billion. The population of Taiwan is 24 million. The Chinese People’s Liberation army is 2.1 million soldiers strong. The army of Taiwan has only 165,000 troops.

So, it is absurd to think that Taiwan would invade China, just as it is also ridiculous to say the same about Ukraine and Russia. But one never knows what a stray missile carrying a nuclear weapon can do

And with half the Chinese people locking up the other half over the wild spread of the COVID virus across mainland China, some military leaders in China might take the threat seriously, which could lead to real problems.

But not to worry. Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, would give the Chinese plenty of warning.

In the Sellers movie, a small group of invaders land in New York and find the city deserted because of a citywide disaster drill. The men wander into a hightech lab and unintentionally capture a unique “Quadium” bomb that can destroy the world.

With the threat of the bomb, they win the war.

But it’s only a movie.