Biden’s foreign policy: Disaster upon disaster and missed opportunities

Biden’s halting and curious performances during his recent visit to Israel and in his presser aboard Air Force One are representative of a administration out of gas. Biden’s forays into public also constitute high drama, as no one knows what he will say or do at any given moment. Every public interaction with the press or public ceremony incurs the risk of bizarre behavior from Biden and a verbal and physical kaleidoscope of gaffes, stumbles, misstatements, policy reversals, and a surrealism more to be expected from a patient at a senior care facility than the leader of the free world.

That he is president is horrifying, not only for the American people but also for U.S. interests and allies. Moreover, those tasked with making the administration’s policy cannot be content, let alone confident, with their actions. The Biden administration, especially when it comes to foreign policy, has the Midas touch in reverse: Everything it touches turns to disaster.

The cavalcade of disaster started at the outset of the administration when Biden reversed the Trump administration’s policy and re-entered the Paris Climate Accords, which weakens the United States vis-à-vis the People’s Republic of China. The withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 against the military’s advice resulted in a chaotic scene at the Kabul airport reminiscent of the 1975 U.S. evacuations of Da Nang, Phnom Penh, and Saigon. This evacuation provided succor to U.S. enemies and dismay to the American people, military, and allies. Those images are indelible and will be forever tied to Biden’s administration.

On Taiwan, Biden has pledged to defend it from a Chinese attack, only to have those comments walked back by administration officials such as national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Venal vacillation is not helpful as Taiwan faces the full threat of invasion from the PRC. Plain and simple, Biden has not met Taiwan’s defense needs.

On the Ukraine war, Biden’s weakness has resulted in a deterrence failure. Since the invasion, the only certainties in life have been death, taxes, and that Biden will ask for billions more in U.S. aid for Ukraine.

Despite “expert” assessments to the contrary, Vladmir Putin and Xi Jinping now have a relationship “without limits” and so have greatly complicated U.S. defense planning, as Washington now must confront two major nuclear powers.

The Middle East has turned into a region of horror defined by atrocity, war, and the threat of escalation into larger wars. China has altered its position from being a bit player in the Middle East to now playing a major role, as witnessed by Beijing’s March 2023 brokering of relations between Riyadh and Tehran and support for Tehran in Israel’s war with Hamas.

Despite the Biden administration’s public release of major defense policy documents in 2022, including the National Defense Strategy, the Nuclear Posture Review, the Missile Defense Review, and, most recently, the Pentagon’s annual report on the PRC’s military, the administration still appears to be adrift when it comes to the China threat, as it emphasizes leveraging existing capabilities and recovery from disruption.

Sadly, the evidence reveals that Beijing has not been dissuaded from using aggression as a viable means of advancing the Chinese Communist Party’s goals that jeopardize U.S. interests, and the Biden administration is not proposing anything new to stop it.

At the same time, the administration announced in the Nuclear Posture Review that it would cancel the nuclear-capable sea-launched cruise missile and will retire the multi-megaton B-83-1 gravity bomb. Thus, it is in fact weakening existing U.S. capabilities at the very time when they need to be strengthened and expanded.

The Biden administration is diminishing our ability to extend conventional or nuclear deterrence credibly in the Indo-Pacific. As these documents show, the Biden administration consistently underestimates China’s conventional and nuclear capabilities and ambitions.

The Biden administration’s strategy documents reveal four major problems.

First, they assume that modernization of the triad, which is occurring this decade, will be sufficient to meet America’s extended deterrent obligations.

Second, collectively they assume the United States has time, that we can wait while our strategic systems are modernized, and that the right conventional force posture will provide for deterrence, as if the enemy will not act before then. In fact, Xi has stated, most recently at October’s 20th Party Congress and in a series of speeches in March 2023, that the U.S. is China’s foe and that he is determined to conquer Taiwan. It is worth noting that such statements implicitly mean that such an attack will, at a minimum, include U.S. forces in the region.

Third, the documents consistently underestimate the threat the PRC poses and the speed and scope of its military and political expansion.

Fourth, the documents were a rare and wasted opportunity to convey to the world that the United States will meet its extended deterrence requirements by explaining what steps the administration has taken to meet the grave threat. Each of these documents could have explained the threat from China and what the U.S. strategy is to match and defeat that threat, with additional details provided on nuclear issues in the Nuclear Posture Review and on ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missile defenses in the Missile Defense Review. Instead, this administration has signaled weakness, uncertainty, and an absence of strategic focus on the threat. While the threat from China is growing, the Biden administration is weakening U.S. military capabilities.

Across the Indo-Pacific, Biden’s vacillations have alarmed long-standing U.S. allies who continue to wait for the necessary major U.S. actions to offset China’s boldness. A series of visits from senior Biden administration officials to the PRC this summer started with Blinken in June and included a truly bizarre kowtowing visit by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Biden administration special climate envoy John F. Kerry. Lastly, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo visited in an effort to save China’s tottering economy and to re-establish “dialogue.”

These visits are unseemly and inappropriate, given Beijing’s recalcitrant attitude and aggressive actions. At root, they are an attempt to return to the old regime that governed U.S. policy toward China for over a generation. This was the Kissinger school of engagement, and it saw no downside to the flow of cooperation, investment, jobs, and knowledge transfer to the PRC, as year after year China became stronger and the U.S., in relative terms, became weaker, losing economic and moral strength as we lost manufacturing and U.S. communities lost livelihoods.

Finally, there is the opportunity cost of the Biden administration. Wasted opportunities, mistaken policies, and missteps are definitive of these years, and all of it will continue at least until 2025. Meanwhile, a growing body of evidence indicates China’s Communist Party leadership is in free fall. Xi and the CCP face problems that cannot be papered over by Xi’s prominence at international summit meetings. Yet we are not prepared to act.

The Chinese regime’s problems stem from a fundamental cause: communism. As such, the Communist Chinese regime is illegitimate and is suffering a lasting and insuperable crisis. Right now, the Biden administration has a historic opportunity to pressure the CCP. Instead, it appears determined to let the opportunity pass without acting. We won’t know the scope of the damage from Biden’s feckless approach until after he leaves office. It will be up to the next president to survey the wreckage and take forceful action to return the region to the peace and stability we had following World War II and the Cold War.

The years of the Biden administration have imposed a heavy cost on the American people. It will take a supreme act of statesmanship to recover.