The world has become an exceedingly dangerous place.
Russia appears poised to unleash tanks and troops against a democratic European nation, Ukraine, any day now. Communist China’s aggression against our democratic ally, Taiwan, seems to have no bounds. Iran is getting closer and closer to developing nuclear weapons which will undoubtedly lead to other Middle Eastern nations rushing to develop their own. The madman whose family has enslaved North Korea for decades is close to putting its nuclear weapons on hypersonic missiles with which we have no defense. And the drug cartels are killing more Americans with their poison than we’ve ever seen before.
What to do about these growing threats? Here’s my humble opinion.
Unfortunately, with respect to Russia and Ukraine, the Obama and Biden administrations’ previous missteps have weakened our hand. When Putin took Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, Obama and the West’s response was so tepid that Putin figured he could take more of Ukraine down the road without paying much of a price. Well, we’re down the road now. And Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan told Putin that this was an administration with no stomach for confronting tough opposition.
Since it’s probably too late to get to Ukraine sufficient defensive weapons to deter Russia, making absolutely clear to Putin that the sanctions imposed by the US and the West would be so devastating that they would destroy the Russian economy, is probably the only possible way deterring Putin at this point.
As for China’s threat of taking Taiwan, the Afghan debacle likewise sent the wrong message to the Chinese Communist Party. The Biden administration looked feckless, weak, and unreliable. It’s impossible to unring that bell.
So what do we do? Reinvigorate our allies in the region to stand united with Taiwan: Japan, India, and Australia in particular, bolstered by South Korea, Vietnam, Philippines, New Zealand, and others. Dramatically increase and modernize our own military, especially The United States Navy. And encourage Taiwan to immediately increase its military spending and adopt a “whole of country” defense similar to Israel’s. China needs to know that should they successfully land forces on Taiwan before the US can get there, every man, woman, and child on that island would fight them with everything they had. If President Xi understands this, he’s less likely to pull the trigger and start a war.
As for Iran and the bomb, the first step is, don’t enter into another Obama-type flawed Iran deal. Barack Obama gave the mullahs billions of dollars, plus relief from sanctions, supposedly in return for a 10 year delay in Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon. Iran used that money to spread terrorism throughout the Middle East and across the globe, and continued to develop the bomb anyway. We should reimpose aggressive sanctions and make clear that if Iran continues to develop the bomb, we and our allies will stop them with any means at our disposal.
North Korea has been a thorn in our side for decades. The pattern has basically been, they promise not to develop nuclear weapons, and we give them food and fuel for the promise. Then they break the promise, we threaten them, enter into negotiations again, give them more stuff for another promise. Repeat.
The key to putting pressure on North Korea is China. They are the only country with any real leverage over North Korea. How do we get China’s attention so they actually pressure North Korea to back down? Well, China REALLY doesn’t want Japan or South Korea to develop nukes. We should DISCUSS, not move forward, but discuss with Japan and South Korea potentially developing nuclear programs of their own. That’s the only thing that would truly get China’s attention to lean on North Korea.
And finally, the drug cartels are killing more and more Americans every year here on our own soil, particularly with fentanyl. We’ve got to get control of our southern border, where most of the drugs are coming in. The Biden administration’s open border policies have got to stop. No more talk, just get control of the border.
Anyway, those are my suggestions as to how we address the five principal challenges we currently face. Unfortunately, I can’t say the Biden administration is likely to follow my advice.
