By Victor Davis Hanson
Thursday, April 15, 2021
Wars often arise from uncertainty. When strong
countries appear weak, truly weaker ones take risks they otherwise would not.
Sloppy braggadocio and serial promises of restraint can
trigger wars, too. Empty tough talk can needlessly egg on aggressors. But mouthing
utopian bromides convinces bullies that their targets are too sophisticated to
counter aggression.
Sometimes announcing “a new peace process” without any
ability to bring either novel concessions or pressures only raises false hopes
— and furor.
Every new American president is tested to determine
whether the United States can still protect friends such as Europe, Japan,
South Korea, and Israel. And will the new commander in chief deter U.S. enemies
Iran and North Korea — and keep China and Russia from absorbing their
neighbors?
Joe Biden, and those around him, seem determined to upset
the peace they inherited.
Soon after Donald Trump left office, Vladimir Putin began
massing troops on the Ukrainian border and threatening to attack.
Putin earlier had concluded that Trump was dangerously
unpredictable, and perhaps best not provoked. After all, the Trump
administration took out Russian mercenaries in Syria. It beefed up defense
spending and upped sanctions.
The Trump administration flooded the world with cheap oil
to Russia’s chagrin. It pulled out from asymmetrical missile treaties with
Russia. It sold sophisticated arms to the Ukrainians. The Russians concluded
that Trump might do anything, and so waited for another president before again
testing America.
In contrast, Biden often talks provocatively — while carrying
a twig. He has gratuitously called Putin “a killer.” And he warned that the
Russian dictator “will pay a price” for supposedly interfering in the 2020
election.
Unfortunately, Biden’s bombast follows four years of a
Russian-collusion hoax, fueled by a concocted dossier paid for by the
Democratic National Committee and the campaign of 2016 Democratic presidential
candidate Hillary Clinton. Biden and others claimed Trump was, in the words of
Barack Obama’s former director of national intelligence, James Clapper, a
“Russian asset.”
If Biden is seeking to provoke a nation with more than
6,000 deliverable nuclear weapons, he is certainly not backing up his rhetoric
with force.
Biden may well decrease the Pentagon budget. He also
seems to have forgotten that Trump was impeached for supposedly imperiling
Ukraine, when in fact he sold Ukraine weapons.
While Biden was talking loudly to Putin, his
administration was being serially humiliated by China. Chinese diplomats
dressed down their American counterparts in a recent meeting in Anchorage,
Alaska. They gleefully recycled domestic left-wing boilerplate that a racist
America has no moral authority to criticize China.
If Trump was unpredictably blunt, Biden is too often
predictably confused. And he appears frail, sending the message to autocracies
that America’s commander in chief is not fully in control.
Biden has not, as he promised, demanded from China
transparency about the origins of the COVID-19 virus in Wuhan. By summer, that
plague may have killed 600,000 Americans.
More disturbing, as Russia puts troops on the Ukrainian
border, China is flying into Taiwanese airspace, testing its defenses — and the
degree to which the United States cares.
For a half-century, American foreign policy sought to
ensure that Russia was no closer to China than either was to the United States.
Now, the two dictatorships seem almost joined at the hip, as each probes U.S.
responses or lack thereof. Not surprisingly, North Korea in late March resumed
its firing of missiles over the Sea of Japan.
In the Middle East, Biden inherited a relatively quiet
landscape. Arab nations, in historic fashion, were making peace with Israel.
Both sides were working to deter Iranian-funded terrorists. Iran itself was
staggered by sanctions and recession. Its arch-terrorist mastermind, General
Qasem Soleimani was killed by a U.S. drone strike.
Under Trump, the United States left the Iran nuclear
deal, which was a prescription for the certain Iranian acquisition of a nuclear
weapon. The theocracy in Tehran, the chief sponsor of terror in the world, was
in its most fragile condition in its 40 years of existence.
Now, U.S. diplomats bizarrely express an interest in
restoring cordial relations with Iran, rebooting the Iran deal, and dropping
sanctions against the regime. If all that happens, Iran will likely get a bomb
soon.
More importantly, Iran may conclude that the United
States has distanced itself from Israel and moderate Arab regimes. One of two
dangers will then arise. Either Iran will feel it can up its aggression, or its
enemies will conclude they have no choice but to take out all Iranian nuclear
facilities.
Biden would do well to remember old American diplomatic
adages about speaking softly while carrying a big stick, keeping China and
Russia apart, being no better friend (or worse enemy), and letting sleeping
dogs lie.
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