by James E. Fanell and Bradley A. Thayer
The current administration's overreliance on diplomacy through the State Department, sidelining the Defense Department, has led to disastrous foreign policy failures and weakened national security.
One of the hallmarks of the Biden-Harris administration has been their obsession to have the U.S. State Department be the lead agency for all of America’s foreign policy decisions regardless of the situation. This was infamously made evident during the events surrounding the retreat from Afghanistan in August 2021, which was motivated by partisan political reasons to be able to get American troops out of the country before the 20th anniversary of the heinous attacks on 9/11.
In the months leading up to that disastrous decision, the State Department operated as the lead agency of the U.S. government, making all decisions, even after it was clear that a non-combatant evacuation operation (NEO) was going to be required. Yet, despite this reality, the Department of Defense was relegated to a subordinate position, which ultimately led to their professional advice being ignored.
The results included the deaths of 13 American military service members, hundreds of Afghani citizens killed, and thousands who had supported the U.S. during the proceeding years being displaced and their lives ruined. Strategically, the loss of our airbase at Bagram was a strategic blow to America’s ability to hold the PRC at risk from their western flank.
Americans have seen similar results from the Biden-Harris administration, which has hobbled American foreign policy by their decision to make the State Department the lead agency rather than being balanced equally with the Defense Department under the President and National Security Council.
Similarly disastrous results have occurred since that failed retreat, for instance in the failure to deter Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and their failure to provide uninterrupted assistance to our ally Israel in the face of the devilish evil that was unleashed on October 7, 2023. The same is occurring as well in the Indo-Pacific as the world watches the PRC daily threaten our national interests with assaults against our treaty ally, the Republic of the Philippines and their increasing military alliance with Russia as their two militaries threaten another treaty ally—Japan.
In each of these tinderbox areas, the Biden-Harris regime has turned America’s decision-making over to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and has openly subordinated the Department of Defense to second-tier status on critical national security issues.
The results of this purposefully designed governance model have been devasting, with thousands dead and displaced in Afghanistan, over a million dead in the war in Ukraine, thousands dead in the war against Israel from Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the risk of a major war in Asia.
The Biden-Harris regime has chosen to make the Department of Defense a subordinate agency because of their disdain for the American military and their ideological belief that by “talking” with their adversaries they can convince America’s enemies to change their behavior.
An example of this unbalanced and dangerous approach to foreign policy and national security was revealed again this week as the Biden-Harris regime is accelerating miliary-to-miliary talks by inviting the Commander of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Southern Theater Commander to attend the Indo-Pacific Command’s Defense Chiefs conference in Hawaii.
The Biden-Harris regime, led by State Department mandates to increase talks with the PLA, asserts that these talks will make America and our allies safer. Their decision is made without any proof to support their belief in the value of talks and in the face of 40 years of evidence that objectively proves America’s national security is actually in a worse position since the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union.
As such, it seems clear that the Biden-Harris regime is suffering from a bad case of what we call “Engagementitis.” This is a dangerous and often fatal disease that afflicts the elite of a country and where the national security leadership threat deflates—consistently underestimated the existential threat from the PRC in favor of engagement with it. Another consequence is that the U.S. neglects the deterrent effect of military power in favor of pursuing precisely this foolish, unbalanced national security strategy. The Biden-Harris administration is dominated by a major cognizant dissonance regarding their singular obsession with talks and engagement with our enemies. They have “Engagementitis” and have it bad. For instance, inviting the PLA’s Southern Theater Commander to Camp Smith to attend the Indo-Pacific Defense Chiefs “defense conference” is a prime example. Why did the Biden-Harris administration invite their enemy to a forum that is specifically designed to combat the threat from the same enemy? These Indo-Pacific Defense Chiefs are going to Hawaii precisely to discuss plans and programs to defend themselves from the PRC.
There is a word for this type of behavior: madness. Imagine you have a Neighborhood Watch meeting in your home because of the increase in crime and home robberies in your neighborhood. Naturally, you would invite neighborhood homeowners to come sit around your kitchen table and discuss details on how you can collectively defend yourselves from the thieves that are burglarizing homes, even raping and killing people. This is what the Biden-Harris administration has done; they have gone out and asked the criminals who have been perpetrating these crimes to come into our home while we meet with our allies to discuss how to defend ourselves from the PRC.
Instead of the establishment speaking out against the idiocy of this kind of thinking, we have so-called experts at think tanks in Washington who gaslight the American people with the crazy claims that such an invitation to the PLA was a “good sign.” Instead, a “good sign” would be when we have a government that has a balanced approach to our national security that puts the Defense Department on an equal footing as the State Department, as was so successful during the Cold War, and rolls back PLA aggression against our national security interests in the Indo-Pacific and around the world.
The Biden-Harris regime is ideologically devoted to the utopian notion that diplomacy is the only tool America needs in its national security kit. This is another symptom of “Engagementitis.” This thinking has resulted in over a million deaths overseas and a half-million (or more) in America from PRC-supplied fentanyl over the past 3+ years. As President Trump said in Tucson this week, “they are destroying our country.” This is objectively true and thus makes the stakes on 5 November existential. The cure for “Engagementitis” is for Trump to return to the White House.
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James E. Fanell and Bradley A. Thayer are authors of Embracing Communist China: America’s Greatest Strategic Failure.
James E. Fanell and Bradley A. Thayer
Source: https://amgreatness.com/2024/09/15/the-unbalanced-foreign-policy-of-the-biden-harris-regime/
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