Driven by the weakness of President Biden’s leadership and national security policies, there has been a stunning acceleration of global threats in just the first two months of 2024.
Over the last week, Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels fired missiles that may have sunk a U.K.-owned container ship and fired advanced underwater drones for the first time that were intercepted by a U.S. Navy ship. The Houthis also shot down an MQ-9 Reaper combat drone with a surface-to-air missile. These attacks occurred after weeks of U.S. and U.K. airstrikes against Yemen and President Biden’s statement on January 11 that he sent a tough private message to Iran and, as a result, “they [Iran] know not to do anything.”
Last week, we learned Russia is planning to place nuclear weapons in space, reportedly to target American satellites. The New York Times reported on February 21 that U.S. intelligence agencies warned America’s allies in Europe that Russia could launch a nuclear weapon into orbit this year.
Russian officials announced the death of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on February 16. Western leaders questioned the circumstances of Navalny’s death because Russian intelligence operatives tried to poison him in 2021 and due to the many Putin political enemies who suffered suspicious deaths from accidents and poisoning. Biden officials said they would announce “major sanctions” against Russia in response to Navalny’s death.
On February 20, Russian authorities arrested Ksenia Karelina, a Russian-American ballerina, during a visit to Russia on charges of treason for allegedly donating $51 to a Ukrainian charity and attending pro-Ukraine rallies in the U.S. That same day, Russia extended the pretrial detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich until at least March 30. Gershkovich has been imprisoned on trumped-up espionage charges for a year.
As the war in Ukraine enters its third year, Russia recently took the strategic eastern city of Avdiivka and may be on the verge of making other gains on the ground as the Russian army attacks with waves of conscripts and Ukraine is running low on troops and ammunition.
China triggered panic in Taiwan this week after two Chinese coast guard ships boarded a Taiwanese tourist boat and conducted a forced inspection.
Last month, Customs and Border Protection officials announced that a record 302,000 illegal migrants crossed the U.S. southern border in December 2023 because of President Biden’s refusal to secure this border.
And as Israel prepares an offensive to take the last bastion of Hamas in Gaza and destroy its last battalions, the Biden administration is demanding it call off this attack and continues to press for a two-state solution peace plan over the Netanyahu government’s objections.
This rash of provocations from the Houthis, Iran, Russia, and China is a direct result of American weakness and a deterioration of U.S. deterrence under the Biden presidency. As a result, U.S. retaliation against Iranian proxies is not preventing them from staging more attacks. Threats of more U.S. sanctions will not dissuade Russian President Putin from persecuting dissidents, jailing U.S. citizens, or expanding the war in Ukraine. Beijing appears to be exploiting the disarray in Biden’s national security policies.
The Biden administration’s public feuding with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu over the war against Hamas is worsening this situation since it makes Biden look like not just a weak leader but also an unreliable ally.
Meanwhile, America’s liberal elite and the mainstream press are panicking that Joe Biden is down in the polls and Donald Trump might win the 2024 presidential election. Some European leaders are so horrified at the prospect of a Trump victory that they have called for European states to “Trump-proof” their policies.
It is extremely alarming to see such a surge in global destabilization over just the first two months of 2024. With the certainty that Biden will not suddenly transform into an effective and decisive president, global destabilization likely will continue to climb in the run-up to the 2024 election and before Mr. Biden potentially leaves office in January 2025. It is increasingly clear that America’s adversaries see 2024 as open season to cash in on the weakest American president in history.
The American left and European leaders will never admit that President Biden’s disastrous approach to national security is a major reason for his low approval ratings. These are elitists who are blindly Never-Trump and endorse Biden’s incoherent national security policies of American weakness and prioritizing climate change and an open southern border.
The American people are smarter than this. They realize President Trump’s national security policies of peace through strength were successful and that the world became much more unstable after Biden became president in January 2021. I believe most Americans will hold Biden accountable for his national security malpractice when they cast their votes in November.
But I am deeply worried about how much additional damage this incompetent president will do to American and global security before he potentially leaves office in 11 months.
Fred Fleitz previously served as National Security Council chief of staff, CIA analyst, and a House Intelligence Committee staff member.