Jim Hartman
China’s leader Xi Jinping traveled to Moscow on March 20 to meet with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, cementing the new axis against the U.S.
A straight line can be drawn between the U.S. debacle in Afghanistan in 2021 and the failure to deter Putin from invading Ukraine, Saudi doubts about the U.S. as a reliable partner, and increasing aggression from China in the Taiwan Strait.
Rather than acknowledge the Afghanistan chaos , the White House released a 12-page report on April 6 absolving Biden of culpability. It spins disaster as triumph.
It blamed the Trump administration; intelligence and military leaders; Congress; the Afghans; and, no one – because it wasn’t that bad.
More alarming than its fake history is the White House’s inability to connect the dots between the U.S. surrender in Afghanistan and increasing world disorder. The U.S. is not more respected in the world after surrendering to the Taliban despite the administration making that untenable claim.
Biden’s approval rating plummeted after the Kabul catastrophe – never to fully recover. Voters knew whose decisions resulted in the horrible scenes they saw on television, the result of Joe Biden’s awful judgment.
The Biden administration is also hoping the public has forgotten about the Chinese spy balloon that flew across the entire continental United States in February. Their narrative for that fiasco is less credible as more details emerge.
NBC News reports the Chinese spy balloon entered U.S. air space near Alaska on Jan. 28 and was able to collect intelligence on American military sites. It flew over Montana, home to inter-continental ballistic-missile fields and could fly in figure-eight pirouettes, lingering over areas of interest.
The balloon could pick up electronic signals and transmit information to China in real-time. It carried a payload the size of a regional jet and was capable of self-destruction on command.
The White House claimed the balloon couldn’t gather better information than Chinese satellites in low-earth orbit. Americans are supposed to believe the Chinese would build a global balloon flotilla for no spying benefit.
The administration went public about the balloon only after civilians in Montana spotted it. The latest stories make Biden’s decision to wait to shoot it down look worse, and Congress is obligated to investigate what American assets were compromised.
The Biden team also has gone dark on the three “unidentified objects” the U.S. military shot down shortly after the balloon, perhaps because Biden overreacted and shot down hobby aircraft.
Chinese officials mocked the U.S. response and China’s defense minister refused to answer a crisis line call from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
Biden insists the intelligence China gained wasn’t valuable, but voters can fairly conclude the president isn’t leveling with them.
With China a looming threat, Biden’s proposed fiscal year 2024 defense budget of $842 billion (3% of GDP) is inadequate. That represents an inflation-adjusted defense cut.
It needs to be increased and that’s something Republicans and Democrats in Congress seem to agree on.
For the third year in a row, Biden has sent to Congress a budget request that cuts military spending amid a more dangerous and complex threat environment.
This year’s budget is the last one that funds military capabilities likely to be fielded before 2027. That’s the year by which Xi Jinping says he wants the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to take Taiwan.
Biden’s budget shrinks the Navy (from 297 ships to 291), with no shipbuilding plan. China has the world’s largest Navy with 355 ships and submarines with plans to reach 420 ships by 2025.
Biden’s budget also shrinks the U.S. Army, Marine Corps and Air Force.
Current fears of running out of ammunition are testament to how much American defenses have atrophied since the Cold War.
This president isn’t doing nearly enough to protect the U.S. from the world’s multiplying dangers – particularly coming from an aggressive China.
E-mail Jim Hartman at lawdocman1@aol.com.