Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates' observations about President Joe Biden should offer no comfort as America and the free world encounter ominous Russia-Ukraine developments in the Black Sea region, Beijing menacing Taiwan in the South China Sea, and ever-growing Iran threats against Persian/Arabian Gulf nation security.
As Gates has warned, Joe Biden has "been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades."
Weak Responses to Putin's Ukraine Invasion
President Joe Biden has followed his former boss' "lead from behind" policies in responding to Vladimir Putin's criminal military assault on the sovereign Ukraine nation.
As massive Russian troop and armament positionings at Ukraine border areas had evidenced a clear invasion intent, the Biden administration slow-rolled military aid which it deemed might draw the U.S. and NATO into the conflict rather than afford a deterrent effect.
Whereas Biden had predicted Russia "will move in" to Ukraine, he weakly broadcast disunity within NATO over how to respond to an undefined "minor incursion."
That candid assessment laid bare a continuing leadership struggle in creating meaningful consequences and deterrents which remain militarily and economically intertwined with our European partners.
President Biden has repeatedly denied urgent requests by Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for Polish-owned MiG-29s to be flown by in by his pilots over Ukrainian territory.
White House explanations for turning down that plea are twofold: that supplying those offensive rather than defensive aircraft to a non-NATO country might escalate the conflict, and that U.S. military experts believe that those decades-old MiGs won't be decisively useful.
These arguments, in turn, beg two fundamental questions. If those MiGs aren't effective or essential, then why would they provoke an escalation?
And add to that, who is in a better position to assess what Ukraine needs if not those who are defending their own country?
On March 24, the U.S. president will meet with leaders from all 30 NATO nations to discuss how best to help Ukraine defend against this unprovoked onslaught without provoking a World War III.
Meanwhile, as conflicted Siberia oil and gas-dependent NATO representatives continue to debate and dither over economic sanctions and defense assistance, Russian decimation of the port city of Mariupol alone has already killed more than 100 children and destroyed an estimated 80% of all homes.
Such brutal savagery and suffering are unequalled since Joseph Stalin's 1940 murder of 22,000 Polish officers and intellectuals in Katyn forest during WWII.
Beijing Watches to Weaponize Biden Blunders
President Xi Jinping and influential Chinese oligarchs are assuredly watching responses of U.S. American and allied NATO members to Russia's Ukraine invasion as they contemplate their own actions against Taiwan.
Days after Russia's invasion, Chinese officials reiterated that they were committed to "resolving the Taiwan question," and in a 2-hour March 18 Biden telephone call with Xi Jinping, China's president reportedly seemed more concerned about the fate of Taiwan than the war in Ukraine.
Although there has been no release of transcripts or White House statements about issues discussed, we can be assured that any good news outcomes would have been reported immediately and enthusiastically.
We can also be very certain that President Xi and Vlad have taken comfort in Joe Biden's past track record of appeasements in calibrating prospective U.S. pushbacks to their expansionist regional ambitions in Taiwan and Ukraine, respectively.
This, after all, is the same former Vice Presidetn Biden who had advised against going after Osama bin Laden, Barack Obama's signature presidential achievement.
This is also the same President Biden who presided over the Afghanistan debacle: who withdrew troops before the civilians; who left hundreds of American citizens behind and 13 service members dead; and who abandoned the vitally strategic U.S. Bagram Air Field along with $85 billion in advanced weaponry to the Taliban and Chinese allies.
Although China and Russia have a long history of not liking or trusting each other very much, they nevertheless signed a military cooperation pact last year that should greatly concern the entire free world.
China can be impacted by the Ukraine outcome in two opposite ways.
A weakened and global trade-isolated Russia in the Ukraine aftermath may also transform Moscow into a captive petrochemical Beijing satellite as China continues to extend its economic influence and territorial conquests into the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe.
On the other hand, sweeping punitive sanctions on Russia also suggest that an invasion of Taiwan could result in severe economic pain for China whose trade and banking systems are closely intermingled with Western powers.
Empowering Middle East Mayhem by a Nuclear Iran
In a single year, the Biden administration has transformed America from being energy independent and a net oil and gas exporter to an energy pauper that desperately pleads with Russia, OPEC, Venezuela and Iran for self-inflicted supply bailouts.
Piling parody on top of paradox, the same White House leadership is now also relying upon Russia to negotiate on America's behalf to resurrect an infamously disastrous Obama administration 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which the Trump administration had prudently ended in 2018.
Also known as the so-called Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA provides a clear pathway for Tehran mullahs to have a nuclear bomb and intercontinental rocket delivery system capable of reaching our mainland within five years.
As with talks between Biden and Xi, no information regarding terms of JCPOA negotiations involving the U.S., Russia and Iran are currently being shared with our American Congress.
It is publicly known, however, that Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov had demanded a written guarantee that sanctions "launched by the U.S. will not in any way harm our right to free, fully fledged trade and economic and investment cooperation and military-technical cooperation with Iran."
Also widely reported, the Biden administration is considering removal of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), Tehran's most feared military branch, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, just as it has failed to sanction responses to attacks on the UAE by Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen, and to designate Houthis as a terrorist group.
There's little wonder why neither the Emirates nor Saudi Arabia leaders will take Biden's calls for help.
It would have to be a remarkable mere coincidence that U.S. JCPOA sanction relief is now being considered for the same Tehran that threatens death to Israel and to America in exchange for some temporary help in getting energy-driven inflation-besieged American Democrats through upcoming congressional 2022 election challenges.
Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and the graduate space architecture program. His latest of 11 books, "Beyond Flagpoles and Footprints: Pioneering the Space Frontier" co-authored with Buzz Aldrin (2021), is available on Amazon along with all others. Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.
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