Washington Times: Biden’s Feckless Foreign Policy Provokes Dangerous Adventurism
How did we arrive at yet another confrontation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the United States? The short answer: President Biden.
He has been disastrous on border security, deceptively inept on inflation and the economy, absent and clumsy on the supply chain, and demonstrated an acute lack of planning and substance in the ongoing Afghanistan retreat and abandonment of Americans.
Yes, he is incompetent on domestic issues. However, his nonexistent foreign policy is empowering the world’s most aggressive adversaries of our nation.
Within a matter of days of occupying the Oval Office, Mr. Biden demonstrated a remarkable ability to endanger U.S. interests at home and abroad. He began by giving up a leverage point against Russia by granting a five-year extension to the New START nuclear armament reduction treaty, which was set to expire Feb. 5, 2021, and failing to get anything in return.
Russia obtained its goal — extension of New START without any changes to the flawed treaty. Russia can continue to exploit loopholes and gaps in the treaty to build new nuclear bombs, modernize its existing nuclear weapons, and develop new nuclear delivery systems while still claiming compliance with the treaty. All the while, the U.S., then led by President Barack Obama, reduced the number of deployed warheads and limited other nuclear war capabilities. Mr. Biden’s extension allows Russiato continue strengthening its arsenal, knowing Mr. Biden will never do the same.
That was done within two weeks of the Biden administration coming to power.
The Biden administration and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken claimed that they opposed the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline, which is almost complete and will make Germany further dependent on Russian energy. Yet, they removed existing sanctions against the pipeline builder in May 2021 and then agreed to complete the pipeline in July.
Again, the U.S. got nothing out of removing sanctions, and countries like Ukraine that oppose the pipeline were left more vulnerable. At the same time, the Biden administration has claimed that the pipeline is a security threat to Europe.
The weakness displayed by the Biden administration was only exacerbated by America’s loss of energy independence caused by Mr. Biden’s killing of the Keystone pipeline and the regulatory strangling of the exploration and development of American energy Mr. Biden put in place.
By the summer of 2021, Mr. Biden was pleading for oil-producing nations, including Russia, to increase the supply of oil to reduce the price of gas in the United States. Currently, the United States imports hundreds of thousands of barrels per day from Russia.
In our direct relationship with Russia, we have demonstrated our lack of resolve. In the disastrous retreat from Afghanistan, the entire world wondered at Mr. Biden’s incompetence.
Now, Mr. Biden is doing the saber-rattling. He claims he’ll put torturous sanctions on Russiawhile we are buying its oil. Mr. Biden’s threats of sanctions are floated while the economy of Europe and Russia has become so entangled that sanctions would cause some in Europe as much economic damage as they would Russia.
The distinction between Mr. Biden’s failure here and former President Donald Trump’s ability to bring stability to the world, including peace in the Middle East through the Abraham Accords, was that Mr. Trump understood strong leaders. He met them on their turf with a carrot and stick. However, Mr. Biden, being feckless and weak, cannot comprehend how strong leaders think and operate.
Frail leaders like Mr. Biden produce frail policies, which, in turn, results in a more dangerous world.