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To see a list of previous articles, enter “Ukraine” in the Search Box on the upper right, on The Trenchant Observer web site, and you will see a list in chronological order.
Dispatches
1) James Rowles, “Biden is lost in a fog on Ukraine; Only strong fresh winds from younger leaders can clear the air,” Trenchant Observations, June 21, 2022;
2) “Ukraine War, April 21, 2022 (II) Biden’s new “incursion,” The Trenchant Observer, April 21, 2022;
3) “Ukraine War, March 30, 2022: Biden is the problem. What can be done?,” The Trenchant Observer, March 30, 2022;
4) The Editorial Board, “The President We Have; Biden needs new advisers and help from Congress to deter Russia and other escalating threats,” Wall Street Journal, March 27, 2022 (6:31 pm ET);
5) Nile Gardiner, “Will Europe finally wake up to the truth about Joe Biden now? ,”In 20 years in Washington, I have not seen a White House more disorganised, incompetent or mismanaged,” The Telegraph, March 28, 2022 )12:43 p.m.);
6) “Ukraine War, March 10, 2022 (I): The darkest hour of the American soul; Mariupol and appeasement; U.S. is stuck with a timorous, defeatist Commander-in-Chief; Congress must secure new foreign policy team, insist on bipartisan war cabinet; NATO countries must insist on active role in war-related decision making, send war council to Washington,” The Trenchant Observer, March 10, 2022;
7) “Ukraine War, March 28, 2022: Strengthening ‘the president we have,'” The Trenchant Observer, March 28, 2022;
Analysis
We have warned repeatedly about President Joe Biden’s catastrophic foreign policy judgment and the incompetence of his foreign policy team.
Both have led to catastrophic faulures of U.S. foreign policy. These include:
1) The decision to withdraw all American (and by implication NATO) forces and contractors from Afghanistan.
The withdrawal of all contractors guaranteed the fall of the Afghan government of Ashraf Ghani, because without them the Afghan air force could not fly.
2) The decision to take tbe use of force off the table in terms of a NATO response to a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Biden repeatedly broadcast this decision to Putin after November 2021. The decision itself was a continuation of Barack Obama’s policy, first announced in 2014.
3) The decision to not pressure Nancy Pelosi to postpone her recent trip to Taiwan.
The main reason this was catastrophic was that the trip was likely to roil U.S.-Chinese relations precisely at the moment when the U.S. is trying to dissuade China from supplying Russia with military assistance, as Russia continues its war of aggression against Ukraine.
A second reason was that Pelosi’s visit came on the eve of the Chinese Communist Party Congress, where not only is Xi Jinping likely to be elected to a third five-year term, but also key officials at all levels of the party are to be named.
Biden and Pelosi’s failures may make it less likely that any officials who could potentially moderate the Party’s policies in the future will be named.
In the short term, the risk is that Pelosi’s visit could lead China to provide military aid to Russia.
As long as Biden is left free to decide U.S. foreign policy with his current foreign policy team, future calamitous decisions can be expected.
Congressional Democrats should forcefully intervene, now, to get Biden to strengthen his foreign policy team.
CURRENT ACTION ITEM:
The U.S. should immediately call an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council to take up the subject of China’s ongoing threat of the use of force against Taiwan, present a draft resolution based on the legal analysis set forth above, and work diplomatically to gain for support for the resolution in the Security Council and the General Assembly.
The world must not be left with the impression that it is acceptable for China to threaten to invade Taiwan, as the U.S. and other democracies stand idly by or, more accurately, don’t take a stand on the basic principle of the U.N. Charter and international law that is involved.
The Trenchant Observer
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