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Prof. ST Hsieh

Director, US-China Energy Industry Forum

626-376-7460

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October 25, 2022

The following article makes valid but critical criticism of Biden’s National Security Strategy (NSS) released two weeks ago. But Biden’s weakness is not his obsession with China. Rather, Biden is obsessed with his own leadership capacity. His ego is as big as Trump’s, and both are dangerous. If we reflect upon Biden’s statements or gaffes, many can be attributed to his self-righteousness. He boasted that he understands Xi the best, better than any contemporary global leader. To back up that he is tough on Xi, Biden often says on record that he told Xi in person that “you do not have a bone of democracy in your body.”

Biden also says that he told Putin in person that “you do not have soul.” Putin replied that “we understand each other!” These unprofessional, undiplomatic statements by Biden exposed his personal judgement of other leaders who probably would tell their staffs later that “what an old fool!”

It is also clear that there is no real US global strategy, only high goals under Biden. Because Biden runs the full show in the White House, everything is under his control. But if something did go wrong, then it is someone else’s fault. Biden’s typical reaction would be “all options are on the table” and “we are thinking about it!”

The US-China relation needs a reset, and the risk is a global disaster. But Biden has not released a promised China Strategy yet, then Biden administration acts unilaterally with sanctions and embargos. The State Department has announced that Secretary Blinken planned to establish a “China House” to coordinate US interactions with China. A few months have passed, and there are no updates.

Without a China Strategy and without a team for implementation, whether Biden is obsessed with China or not, US and China interactions are on autopilot now. It would be forced out of Biden’s hands after the US mid-term election, which is 14 days away.

A real keg of powder is the ongoing Ukraine war, which has entered nine months. Biden is a major driver of this war, but now his Ukraine policy is being squeezed by Republicans and Democrats at home. Biden needs an exit strategy to keep the public support for this war. There is a China factor too.

Biden administration’s contention that the US can fight, and win, two global wars at the same time means self-destruction. The worst scenario is that China and Russia could fight against the US as a team. It means that China+Russia is fighting with the US, there is only one big global war against the US. Good luck!

Biden’s Obsession With China

BY MELVIN GOODMAN OCTOBER 25, 2022, Counter Punch

The Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 mandated that the White House produce for the Congress an annual report on its national security vision.  The National Security Strategy (NSS) is supposed to discuss all facets of U.S. power that can achieve the nation’s security goals.  The NSS must discuss U.S. commitments and objectives, along with defense capabilities to deter threats and implement plans.  For the most part, the report is a boilerplate document.  The Trump administration ignored the requirement for four years, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine led to delays in producing President Biden’s first NSS.

The report that was released two weeks ago is a predictably superficial rendering of U.S. plans for global cooperation, but contains no original ideas for the U.S. role in doing so.  There is nothing in the report that suggests the Biden administration has any ideas for reversing the downturn in relations with China—our most important bilateral relationship—which points to increased bilateral tensions and greater defense spending. There is no indication that we have learned important lessons from the isolationist step of withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership or the militaristic policies in the Middle East and Southwest Asia that depend on use of force.

Military spending accounts for more than half of discretionary federal spending, and the NSS doesn’t suggest that the Biden administration will change the U.S. approach to the global environment in order to reduce spending.  Ever since the 9/11 attacks, the United States has relied on increased military power to advance its international interests, spending more than $6 trillion in fighting counterterrorism wars.  We have more people working in military grocery stores or marching in military bands than we have diplomats.  Biden’s NSS presents no alternatives for curbing our military deployment in more than 100 countries or for returning arms control and disarmament to the national security dialogue.

The report relentlessly focuses on the confrontations with both China and Russia.  The most worrisome aspect of Biden’s NSS is the view that we have the resources to challenge both Russia and China, even in their respective zones of influence.  With the release of the NSS, President Biden proclaimed that we would be “outcompeting China and restraining Russia,” even though the real challenge to the United States is the current perilous state of our democracy.

In a typical exaggeration of the threat, Biden said that China was the “only country with both the intent to reshape the international order and increasingly, the economy, diplomatic, military and technological power to advance that objective.”  Last week, the Washington Post  referred to China’s security presence as “increasingly visible around the world,” and that Xi will “probably test the country’s willingness to compromise with the existing global security order.”  Biden and the Post are talking about a country [China] that has not used military force outside its borders for more than 40 years, and has only one military facility [Djibouti] outside its zone of influence.

It should be Geopolitics 101 that the United States cannot simultaneously confront two nuclear superpowers, particularly at a time when Moscow and Beijing have their closest political and military relationship within memory.  There is an assumption that we can build strong alliance partners in the European and Asian arenas to join this confrontation, but there are numerous countries that don’t want to be part of a U.S.-sponsored revival of the Cold War.  The NSS doesn’t acknowledge that the United States has choices regarding Russia and China, particularly in view of the rapidly declining power and influence of Putin’s Russia and the Asian resistance to China’s “wolf warrior” diplomacy.  Meanwhile, Sino-American cooperation on the climate crisis and the Russian-American dialogue on arms control have come to a halt.

Typically, the National Security Strategy is followed by the National Defense Strategy and a nuclear posture review.  We will soon learn what Biden means by his emphasis on a “speedier modernization” of the military.  Bipartisan support in the Congress for increased spending can be expected.

The NSS provides no indication that the Biden administration recognizes the limits to American power, particularly in the current age of uncertainty.  Various administrations have tried the same policies vis-a-vis Venezuela, Syria, and North Korea, but Nicolas Maduro, Basher al-Assad, and Kim Jong-un have not bowed to U.S. demands.  U.S. pressure against Cuba and Iran over several decades has not altered their policies to accommodate the United States.  President Biden even raised the possible use of force against Iran during his trip to the Middle East in August.  The NSS provides grand objectives, but fails to take account of operational realities.

We need a national security strategy that relies much less on military spending and deployment, and far more on diplomacy and economic development.  We need a Congress that is more supportive of arms control and less supportive of modernizing nuclear weapons.  And we need a president and a public that endorses restraint in force deployment and rebuilding the role and influence of the Department of State and the Foreign Service.

Melvin A. Goodman is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and a professor of government at Johns Hopkins University.  

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