Yes, the World’s On Fire!
But it’s the CRINK axis and its cohorts that are getting smoked by the Biden-Harris administration
Didn’t “America First” conservatives not want us to be the world’s policeman?
In an August 28, 2024, New York Times report, “Trump Sees a World on Fire, and Says He Knows Who’s to Blame,” David Sanger noted, “In former President Donald J. Trump’s explanation of global events from the campaign trail, the world would not be aflame had he remained in the Oval Office.”
This “world in chaos” impression has been systematically disseminated by conservative pols, pundits, and media throughout the Biden-Harris administration’s term. This disingenuous campaign has been stepped up as the U.S. election season gets into full swing. In fact, Richard Grenell, the former acting director of National Intelligence in the Trump administration, in his address to the Republican National Convention on July 17, 2024, threw down the gauntlet, “After 16 years of wars and chaos, the world looked different when President Trump was in the White House. Russia invaded Ukraine under both Obama and Biden, but Putin did not dare escalate under President Trump.” He went on to add, “China was challenged under Trump, the Balkans were more peaceful under Trump, the Middle East signed historic peace deals, under Trump, Iran was broke.”
With the U.S. doing just fine from a peace and prosperity standpoint at home, it seems conservatives are instead focusing on the world’s problems, as a point of contention over the Biden-Harris administration’s handling of foreign policy. Didn’t “America First” conservatives not want us to be the world’s policeman? Nonetheless, let us look at how our CRINK adversaries — China, Russia, Iran, North Korea — have been faring during the Biden-Harris administration.
China — demography, deflation and a disastrous fallout from its zero-Covid policy.
In November 2023, around the first anniversary after China’s disastrous zero-Covid policy was abruptly terminated, Kellogg Insight highlighted its persistent effects in, “The Long Tail of China’s Zero-Covid Policy.” Then in January 2024, Time magazine published, “How China’s Government Keeps Inadvertently Hurting Its Own Economy.” The data show, after years of double-digit growth, China’s GDP has been bouncing around a ~5% annualized rate since the third quarter of 2021.
Towards the end of that same quarter, on September 22, 2021, I had written in my essay, “From A Summer of Discontent to The Fall of State Capitalism,” about fallout from “an ever-looming real estate crisis in China.” Now, almost three years later, CNBC in its September 2, 2024, report, “JPMorgan economist says China’s housing market crash is still not over,” warns, “China’s troubled housing market will continue to see softness as a slew of government stimulus and support measures have not been “satisfactory” in propping up the sector.” In addition, CNBC had reported a couple weeks prior, “China’s youth unemployment rate soared above 17% in July highest since new system began in December.” So, in the 21st century’s pre-pandemic era, a rephrased adage had it that “when China sneezes, the world catches a cold” to reflect its growing global economic clout. But post-pandemic, China has been sneezing since 2021, yet the United States — the world’s leading economy — has refused to catch a cold! Under the stewardship of the Biden-Harris administration in the post-pandemic era, notwithstanding a severe supply chain crisis that plagued the first year of the administration, the U.S. economy has not only proved resilient but has proved to be the strongest amongst all advanced economies by most measures.
More importantly, the Biden-Harris administration has simultaneously been making concerted efforts to counter China’s “Belt and Road Initiative,” which China had launched in 2013 — as its global infrastructure development strategy for investments in more than 150 countries — with a view to expand its global economic reach and influence. In February 2024, Australia’s Griffith University released a report, “China Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Investment Report 2023,” which details China’s decade-long progress with this mammoth effort. BRI has encountered several problems, especially with crippling debt problems that have plagued several of its client nations. Around the same time, Biden-Harris administration’s Commerce Department released its own fact sheet, “Two Years of Indo-Pacific Strategic Results: Strengthening Indo-Pacific Commerce for a Prosperous Future,” which included a progress report on a U.S.-led “Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF)” involving 14 IPEF partner nations in the region.
So, predictably, when an authoritarian regime has problems at home, it typically pokes the bear abroad. In the past few years, China has been increasingly asserting its hegemony generally across the Indo-Pacific region and specifically in the South China Sea. But the Biden-Harris administration has moved proactively and swiftly to check China’s expansionist designs. In September 2021, it announced the launch of AUKUS, a trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States intended to “promote a free and open Indo-Pacific that is secure and stable.” In this regard, on May 9, 2024, Defense News published a pertinent report, “What has the AUKUS alliance accomplished in the last year?” It outlines the progress made by the alliance, including Australia taking possession of a nuclear-powered submarine in 2032 for which, “Australia and the United States are already training the officers and sailors who will operate that Virginia-class attack boat and the civilians who will maintain it.”
More significantly, as The Diplomat reported in its June 7, 2024 article, “What to Make of Biden’s Latest Promise to Defend Taiwan”:
“U.S. President Joe Biden has reiterated, on multiple different occasions, that his administration would respond militarily if Taiwan was attacked by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Biden publicly made that pledge on at least six occasions: August 2021, October 2021, May 2022, September 2022, and twice in May of this year, once at the commencement address of West Point and the other during an interview with TIME magazine.”
China’s ongoing economic weakness coupled with a strong U.S.-led military posture in the Indo-Pacific, has clearly put China on the backfoot, as it fights its own fires at home and attempts to contain BRI-related backlash with some of its partner nations abroad. Meanwhile, another one of China’s rescinded policies — the one-child policy that was in effect from 1979 through 2015 has only managed to confirm that demography is destiny, which has now begun to hurt China’s economic growth. The median age of China’s population has continued to increase from around 20 years in 1970 to around 37.5 years in 2020, in which year, about 17.9 percent of its population was 60 years or older. The only positive outcome of this aging crisis is that it puts a damper on China’s hegemonistic plans.
Russia — revanchism and the law of unintended consequences in Ukraine War.
Three weeks prior to invading Ukraine, Russian president, Vladimir Putin, visited China’s president, Xi Jinping. On the opening day of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, Xi and Putin declared a “no limits” partnership between their two nations. Then a day after the Beijing Winter Olympics concluded, Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The Imperial War Museums reports, “According to research by the think tank RUSI, when Vladimir Putin began his invasion, he expected to take control of Ukraine within 10 days.” It has been over two-and-half years and there is no end in sight to the Ukraine War. A September 4, 2024 Newsweek report, “Russian Losses in Ukraine Hit Four-Month Highs: Kyiv,” states, “If accurate, these latest reports would bring Russia’s losses since 2022 to 620,350 troops, 17,694 artillery systems and 8,618 tanks.” In fact, Ukraine recently went on a counter-offensive and per Foreign Policy’s September 1, 2024, essay, “How the Hundred Years’ War Explains Ukraine’s Invasion of Russia” states:
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“On Aug. 6, multiple Ukrainian brigades invaded Russia’s Kursk oblast in a daring offensive prepared in almost total secrecy. Within a week, they captured more territory than Russia’s entire advances in the Donbas region so far this year — at a tiny fraction of the cost in casualties.”
Putin badly miscalculated the outcome of his Ukraine strategy, which was part of a grand plan to reconstitute what Russia calls its “near abroad” — a term Russia uses to refer to the fourteen Soviet successor states that declared their independence following the breakup of the U.S.S.R. Putin not only failed to expand Russia’s influence with the largest member of its “near abroad” group of nations, but also per the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace conclusion in its May 16, 2024, treatise Putin’s misadventure has effectively brought about, “The End of the Near Abroad.”
Even more significantly, Russia’s incursion into Ukraine — which Putin constantly feared would sooner or later join the NATO alliance — forced an unexpected, more critical expansion of NATO. Soon after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Finland and Sweden applied for NATO membership in May 2022. Finland was admitted on April 4, 2023, and Sweden followed on March 7, 2024. The Biden-Harris administration has been a consistent and strong supporter of Ukraine and together with our western allies has provided substantial aid to Ukraine in its war effort. Per a May 9, 2024, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) report, “How Much U.S. Aid Is Going to Ukraine?”:
“Since the war began, the U.S. Congress has voted through five bills that have provided Ukraine with ongoing aid, doing so most recently in April 2024. The total budget authority under these bills — the “headline” figure often cited by news media — is $175 billion.”
In addition to causing setbacks to its grand “near abroad” military strategy, western nations have imposed severe economic and financial sanctions on Russia that amount to almost $1 trillion in frozen assets. Again, in its February 23, 2024, report, “Two Years of War in Ukraine: Are Sanctions Against Russia Making a Difference?” CFR provides a fair and comprehensive debate on the effect of these measures.
Even as Russia is bogged down in Ukraine, it’s defiant president, Vladimir Putin, is also dealing with a warrant for his arrest issued by the International Court of Justice for war crimes. It severely inhibits Putin’s international travel plans. In fact, the fires that Russia faces at home and abroad are likely worse than those confronting its “no limits” partner, China.
Iran — the mouse that keeps roaring.
Since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini inspired the Iranian revolution in 1979–forcing the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran into exile — and ushered in a Shia theocracy, America has been considered “The Great Satan.” In addition, “Death to America” is the go-to chant that follows most public sermons and political speeches in Iran. More significantly, following the 9/11 attacks on the homeland and the subsequent U.S. occupation of Iraq in 2003, Shia Iran has sought to become the de facto leader — in a direct challenge to Saudi Arabia’s leadership — in a largely Sunni Middle East.
In the wake of the October 7 terrorist attacks in Israel by Hamas, its benefactor, Iran had been threatening to fulfill its age-old pledge seeking the destruction of Israel. Accordingly, in the early morning hours of April 14, 2024, Iran launched a wave of more than 300 drones and missiles in its first-ever direct attack on Israel. Per an April 16, 2024, Department of Defense report, “Israel, U.S., Partners Neutralize Iranian Airborne Attacks”:
“Among the weapons launched from locations in Iran, Syria and Yemen were over 110 medium-range ballistic missiles, more then 30 land-attack cruise missiles, and over 150 uncrewed aerial vehicles.
U.S. Central Command forces, supported by the U.S. Navy destroyers USS Arleigh Burke and USS Carney, destroyed more than 80 one-way attack UAVs and at least six of the ballistic missiles…”
Iran’s attack on Israel was an abysmal failure — in large part due to the repeated alerts and warnings provided by the Biden-Harris administration in the weeks prior to the attack. The U.S. and its allies helped Israel prepare for a well-coordinated response and Iran has been relatively silent in the region since that fiasco. Iran’s 3-H proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis — continue to cause occasional flare-ups, but the Middle East outside of Gaza has not seen a much-anticipated, larger war instigated and supported by Iran.
As far as its nuclear program goes, a chastened Iran recently signaled a willingness to return to nuclear negotiations with the United States but ABC News in an August 27, 2024, report, “Biden administration throws cold water on prospect of renewed Iran nuclear talks” indicated that the Biden-Harris administration was skeptical and appeared to be “shutting down the possibility of any renewed talks with Iran right now comes amid heightened tensions in the Middle East…” The Biden-Harris administration and our western allies have effectively clipped Iran’s wings, and we are likely to hear more bluster than action from Iran for the foreseeable future.
North Korea — is it a “failure to launch” or have the missiles been rerouted?
Per a May 29, 2024, AP report, “North Korea fires missile barrage toward its eastern waters days after failed satellite launch” was the last time Kim Jong Un flexed his “missile muscle” at the west. But then Kim has been diverting some of his weapons’ stockpile to Russia to boost its depleting arsenal that has been consumed by the Ukraine War. This was reported on June 17, 2024 — just prior to Putin’s visit to Pyongyang — in the New York Times, “What Weapons Is North Korea Accused of Supplying to Russia?”
More significantly, the shift in the U.S. presidential race from Biden-Trump to Harris-Trump has North Korea reviewing its U.S. strategy. If Trump loses, Kim will need to revamp his “missile muscle” strategy as flattering words and “love letters” are not going to cut it with Kamala Harris. But as long as the Ukraine War continues, North Korea will continue to divert more of its short-range Hwasong-11A ballistic missiles to Russia. While Kim can still conduct the occasional long-range and ICBM missile tests, he will not be seen as much of a threat in his immediate neighborhood to our allies, such as Japan and South Korea.
The CRINK axis is on the defensive thanks to the Biden-Harris administration’s robust foreign policy.
When I had warned about “The CRINK in U.S. Foreign Policy” back on March 20, 2023, it was ascendant and I had written, “The CRINK axis is undoubtedly the biggest foreign policy challenge faced by the United States, since the birth of the Soviet Union and the onset of the Cold War.” But since then, the Biden-Harris administration has taken significant steps to alleviate the CRINK threat, as I have outlined above. Yes, the “world is on fire,” but the Biden-Harris administration has kept the flames at bay and beyond our shores. It’s the CRINK nations and their 3-H proxies that have been getting singed — there can be no doubt about that. The United States is a stronger nation today than it was four years ago — both from a national security and defense standpoint as well as on the economic front — the record is there for everyone to see. Let’s hope Americans recognize how well the Biden-Harris administration has dealt with the global chaos and reinforced America’s global leadership. God bless America!
