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America’s Crumbling Global Position
Oct. 26, 2021
...
In other words, on one of the central foreign policy challenges of our time, the president can’t get his facts straight. On another, he can’t seem to get his message across. On the third, it’s unclear whether there’s any coherent policy at all.
America’s position in the world as a credible ally to embattled friends and a serious foe to adventurist enemies is visibly crumbling.

The roots of this decline stretch back for years, and the blame to go around is nearly endless. But Biden was elected on a promise of wisdom, experience and competence. Can anyone seriously say that we’ve gotten that?

And it’s not just about Taiwan, Iran and Russia.

The administration entered office with a sense of where it thought the world was heading. Donald Trump’s exit would dramatically improve relations with our allies and at least facilitate diplomacy with our adversaries. A more humane policy on the
southern border would ease the humanitarian crisis. The burden of the pandemic would substantially ease by the Fourth of July. We would make a safe and popular exit from Afghanistan by Sept. 11. The economy would prosper.

Now every expectation has gone sideways, with little indication that the administration did any thinking about what might go wrong, much less any planning in case it did.

Afghanistan? “There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy,” the president said in July, barely a month before the world saw thousands of Afghans begging to be airlifted from a country surrendering
to fanatics.

Relations with allies? “President Biden says he hears no criticism from America’s allies about the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and the collapse of the government,” The Times’s Steven Erlanger reported in August. “But the criticism in
Europe, at least, is loud and persistent.”

The border? In March, Biden assured the country that the surge in migration was merely seasonal, and that it “happens every single solitary year.” Instead, Border Patrol encounters with migrants reached a record high in the last year.

The economy? In July, the president dismissed price increases as “expected, and expected to be temporary.” Current headline in The Times: “Rising Prices, Once Seen as Temporary, Threaten Biden’s Agenda.”

Even the administration’s one genuine strategic accomplishment — the U.S.-British-Australian nuclear submarine deal, signed at France’s expense — was botched. Expect Paris to serve its diplomatic revenge cold the next time we need its help.
All of these errors are unforced. And all of them ultimately lie at the feet of the president — a painful reminder, as former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said pithily in 2014, that Biden has a long history of being on the wrong side of major foreign
policy and national security issues. But it’s also true that the president is being badly advised.
... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/26/opinion/us-military-russia-china-iran.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------



On Saturday, May 22, 2021 at 5:40:24 PM UTC-5, ltlee1 wrote:

The Businessinsider article includes the following three items:

". Biden told the NYT he's worried that the world is increasingly looking to China as a global leader.
. The president pointed to Trump's COVID-19 response as deeply damaging to US credibility.
. Biden views competing with China as a top priority in order to restore confidence in democracy."

https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-worries-world-thinks-america-cant-lead-after-trump-2021-5?op=1

Whether the world is increasingly looking to China as a global leader is up to the world. But confidence in Western democracy could not be readily restored. People still believe in democracy. But there is no reason to narrowly equate ritualistic voting

with democracy.

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