#weak america

[simply-ivanka]

Biden Leaves His Successor a World of Disorder

His policies have encouraged the advance of U.S. adversaries across the globe.

By The Editorial Board -- Wall Street Journal

President Biden will address the United Nations on Tuesday, in what is likely to be his last big moment on the world stage. A President’s foreign-policy legacy typically outlasts his term, so it’s worth taking a step back and considering the world Mr. Biden will leave his successor.

It is a far more dangerous world than Mr. Biden inherited, and far less congenial for U.S. interests, human freedom and democracy. The latter is tragically ironic since the President has made the global contest between democracy and authoritarians an abiding theme. Authoritarians have advanced on his watch in every part of the world—Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, and even the Americas.

***

• Mr. Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan was his single most damaging decision, and it has led to cascading trouble. The Taliban control the country and are reimposing feudal Islamist rule. His withdrawal has done more harm to more women than anything in decades, while jihadists have revived their terror sanctuary.

• More damaging is the message his withdrawal sent to adversaries about American will and retreat. The credibility of U.S. deterrence collapsed. Mr. Biden tried to appease Vladimir Putin by blessing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and refusing to arm Ukraine. Mr. Putin concluded he could invade Ukraine at limited cost, especially after Mr. Biden blurted out that a “minor incursion” might not elicit the same Western opposition.

After Kyiv bravely resisted, Mr. Biden sent weapons, but too little and too delayed at every stage of the war. Even now, after 31 months and 100,000 or more dead, Mr. Biden dithers over letting Ukraine use long-range ATACMS against targets inside Russia.

• His record in the Middle East is worse. Rather than build on the Abraham Accords he inherited, he tried to ostracize Saudi Arabia and he banned offensive weapons to fight the Houthis. From the start he courted the mullahs in Iran to renew the 2015 nuclear accord that had enriched Iran before Donald Trump withdrew. He refused to enforce oil sanctions, even as Iran spread mayhem through its proxy militias.

The U.S. was caught flat-footed when Hamas, aided by Iran, invaded Israel and massacred 1,200 innocents. His national-security adviser, Jake Sullivan, had to edit an online version of a Foreign Affairs essay already published boasting that “the region is quieter than it has been for decades.”

Here’s how quiet: Our foremost regional ally is now at war on multiple fronts. Israel’s defensive campaign in Gaza isn’t finished and a new and perhaps bloodier fight is unfolding with Hezbollah. The Houthis have all but shut down Western commercial shipping around the Red Sea, while Mr. Biden makes U.S. naval commanders play whack-a-missile.

Meanwhile, Iran marches undeterred to becoming a nuclear power. The Biden Administration mouths pieties that this is unacceptable, but its every action suggests it believes a nuclear Iran is inevitable and trying to stop it is too risky. When Iran goes nuclear, the security calculus in the world will turn upside down.

• Mr. Biden’s record in the Asia-Pacific is marginally better, at least diplomatically. He has strengthened U.S. alliances against China, especially with Australia, Japan and the Philippines. The Aukus defense deal is important, as is Japan’s move toward closer military integration with the U.S.

Yet diplomacy hasn’t been matched by hard power. The U.S. isn’t building enough submarines to meet its Aukus commitment and U.S. needs. American bases lack adequate air defenses and long-range missiles to defeat a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. State Department foot-stomping hasn’t stopped Chinese harassment of Philippine ships.

• Closer to home, Venezuela’s dictator has predictably stolen another election, exposing the Biden Administration’s deal to ease oil sanctions as naive. Mexico is tilting in an authoritarian direction without U.S. protest. Cuba continues to spread revolution wherever it can. The resulting human suffering reaches America in the flood of migrants that now burden our cities, from Manhattan to Springfield, Ohio.

• Most ominous is the collaboration of these menacing regional powers into a new anti-Western axis. Iran supplies missiles and drones to Moscow, which may be supplying nuclear know-how to Tehran. China is aiding Moscow, which now joins Beijing in naval maneuvers. North Korea also arms Moscow while being protected by China from United Nations sanctions it once voted for.

***

All of this and more adds up to the worst decline in world order, and the largest decline in U.S. influence, since the 1930s. Yet Mr. Biden continues to speak and act as if he’s presided over an era of spreading peace and prosperity. He has proposed a cut in real defense spending each year of his Presidency, which may be his greatest abdication.

Addressing this gathering storm will be difficult and dangerous. The first task will be restoring U.S. deterrence, which will require more hard power and political will. Whoever wins the White House will have to abandon the failed policies of the Biden years, lest we end up careening into a global conflict with catastrophic consequences.

Appeared in the September 23, 2024, print edition as 'How Freedom Faded on Biden’s Watch'

REPOST THIS EVERY TIME

[lonelyroommp3]

okay i have spent an embarrassing amount of my week cramming on sporcle until i could get 100% on this thing. now it's your turn but i'm only giving you one attempt because i don't play fair here 😈

take this quiz 🌍

[qqueenofhades]

I'll leave you with this thought for the night, gallows-humor though it is: even the lowest-informed, misguided, confused, and sometimes let-us-say-it flatly moronic people in America like to vote and take it for granted that they can meaningfully do so on a regular and expected basis. So if the evil orange and company actually try to make good on this whole no more democracy and/or actual elections thing, I really don't see it working out well for them.

[bixels]

Always an experience watching the leftism leave FNAF fans when someone mentions that Scott Cawthon financially backed fascist politicians.

The switch from posting hardline leftist tweets about boycotts and signal boosts and critical takedowns of politicians and celebrities to ‘ohhh, well. everyone makes mistakes. who can blame him, listen he. he donated money to gay charities too. that makes it ok! a millionaire in his forties is allowed to have political beliefs. does it even matter? just let it go!’ is whiplash inducing. The antivaxxer celebrities have got to go, but this one horror dev who quietly handed wads of cash to antivax lawmakers? He’s chill, he can stay.

The charity thing is so funny too because suddenly utilitarian positive-negative point counting is the way to go. Maybe an abacus would help calculate the net good of donating to the Trevor Project minus donating thousands of dollars to Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump. -10 points if I push a kid in a lake but +11 points if I help an old lady across the street, so I’m chill. You can’t judge me. Hey, maybe. Just don’t push a kid in the lake period. How fucking low is the bar when we’re excusing maxing out the possible dollar amount of donations to Mitch fucking McConnell. That should be like. Default you’re a bad person.

[calliopesartblog]

captain america : the first avenger

[a-dorky-american]

Just imagine that Prussia takes Germany with him to Valley Forge songe can get his "first taste of life in war" as Prussia puts it, and this is where he meets America for the first time.

Germany looks at this disheveled and half starving kid that's not that much younger than him, and wonders exactly what Prussia sees in this guy?

That is, until he starts training with him. That's when that fiery passion for freedom comes out and destroys anything in its path. It's something to be feared, yet respected. The Battle of Trenton commences and he is still amazed that this kid has still not managed to kill himself yet (after all, what they just did could be interpreted by many as a potential suicide mission). It is after this battle that a deep friendship begins to take root and blossom (even long after the war which later turns romantic wHAT who just said that-)

[firstxprince]

Sneak peek at the Actors on Actors AU that I'm working on 🫣🫣.

[where-is-my-whump]

Avengers Endgame

[simply-ivanka]

[steveybucky]

Okay but Steve saying “I can do this all day” to Tony in CACW while mirroring the same stance he had at the beginning of CATFA seems to awaken some sort of deep instinct in Bucky??? He’s lying on the ground clearly in a ton of pain and probably thinks he’s about to die, energy completely depleted, then he hears steve say this, and he looks over and sees Steve in that stance and ALL he can see is his Steve as he knew him, because how many times has he seen and heard this? He sees the small 16 year old kid in a back alley in Brooklyn standing back up after being told to stay down, and Bucky feels that need that he’s felt time and time again, to run in and help and get steve home and take care of him

Because RIGHT AFTER steve says this, bucky seems to get this burst of energy, and grabs Tony’s leg to distract him, thus allowing steve to finish it

Ugh these boys and their primary instinct to protect each other I SWEAR

[britisharmymilitaryintelligence]

BITCHES FROM ALDERAAN AND CHANDRILLA WHO HAVE BEEN ON THIS PLANET FOR A VERY LONG TIME ARE BEING MANIPULATED BY OTHERS IN MANY WAYS INCLUDING THROUGH INFORMATION MANIPULATION SUCH AS PROVIDING INCORRECT DATA, WHICH IS EASIER BECAUSE BITCHES LIKE THEM DO NOT HAVE ACCESS TO DEVICES ON THIS PLANET. CRIMINALS WANT TO KEEP THE BITCHES FROM ALDERAAN AND CHANDRILLA HERE TO USE THEM AND WE WANT THEM TO LEAVE THIS PLANET IMMEDIATELY.

[cyanityy]

Thinking about how secondary schools usually have three-word Latin mottos on the emblem to show which virtues are most exercised ("Modeste, Strenue, Sancte", "Stet Fortuna Domus"..) so having the original Bully game named Canis Canem Edit was a jab at this system while hinting at what Bullworth's climate is like.

[ilions-end]

iphigenia among the taurians is my first encounter with the variant where agamemnon had to sacrifice iphigenia because years before, he made a vow to sacrifice to artemis "the fairest thing that the year brought forth" (and ofc it turned out to be the year iphigenia was born)

conceding that he might have made the vow even before marrying clytemnestra (and could apparently comfortably ignore his promise for at least another decade), what DID he imagine he'd have to sacrifice? like, was he really into arts and crafts that year? was his livestock birthing very nice-looking calves and lambs? was he hoping his fields would produce a particularly attractive broad bean? i keep thinking about it

[kayvsworld]

this comic is ruining my life

[nando161mando]

Blue MAGA is blaming Biden's weak performence at the debate on... cuban space lasers

[steveandnatlover76]

Steve: Oh, no, oh, no! I hope it‘s not too late!!

Yelena: What‘s wrong?! What happened?! Something happen to Natasha?!! The kids?!!

Steve: No, there‘s a 20 percent off sale at Nat‘s favourite donut shop today! Nat told me about it two days ago and I forgot!!

Yelena: Oh my gosh! You better run Captain America if you love your life!!