Biden, Ignoring Reagan’s ‘Peace Through Strength,’ Weakly Allows Russia, China To Thrive

One of the key lessons we learned from the great Ronald Reagan was a simple but powerful phrase, “peace through strength.” Right now, we have neither peace nor strength. To be sure, President Biden has not launched any new shooting wars since his catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan. Yet he is bringing the U.S. deeper and deeper into the Russia-Ukraine war, having spent roughly $113 billion in the past year — with undoubtedly much more on the way. At home, we have a weak economy because of Mr. Biden’s big-government socialism, his massive inflationary spending, tax hikes, overregulation, war on fossil fuels specifically, and war on business in general. The economy expanded only 1 percent last year with a 6.5 percent inflation rate, and the majority of economists and business leaders fear a recession later this year or next. During the Reagan tax-cutting recovery, the economy was growing nearly 5 percent annually for seven years. Today, the Bidens, who favor redistribution and punishing success, are satisfied with an economy growing barely more than 1 percent. The Reagan boom doomed Soviet communism. The Biden slump encourages our enemies — Russia and China. That is why I say that today we have neither peace, nor strength. Mr. Biden may be chest-thumping his defiance over Ukraine, but the reality is his failed diplomacy a year ago was a key cause of the Russian invasion. Instead of harsh economic sanctions ahead of the invasion, the president imposed weak sanctions after it was too late and the Russian troops were already there. Even today, with respect to all the aid and weapons we have sent Ukraine, many military experts still believe Mr. Biden is a day late and a dollar short. I spoke briefly to President Trump over the weekend, and he was emphatic that, were he still in the White House, he would’ve already negotiated a peace deal. A number of Republicans in the House and Senate yearn for such an effort. Yet Mr. Biden never talks about it. Indeed, as a former defense secretary, Mark Esper, writes: “What is lacking is a clear sense of how Washington wants this conflict to end and then resourcing that outcome.”Now comes China, almost chomping at the bit to take advantage of America’s weakness. It has been several weeks since the Chinese balloon fiasco and the Bidens still have done nothing about it. One could only imagine Mr. Trump slamming into them with another big round of tariffs or export controls, further decoupling the American and Chinese economies. Yet the Bidens have done nothing. It’s a national embarrassment. The Chinese wouldn’t even take the calls of American diplomats and defense officials. When their foreign minister met at Munich with Secretary Blinken, he mocked America and did nothing to discourage rumors that the Chinese will not only be meeting with Russia this spring, but may be planning to provide lethal military weapons to Vladimir Putin. Mr. Biden’s UN ambassador called that “a red line.” Yet Mr. Biden’s former boss, President Obama, gave “red lines” a bad name years ago when he did nothing after Russia and its ally Syria continued to use chemical weapons in that Middle Eastern conflict. To go back to Reagan, strength at home leads to strength abroad, but weakness at home leads to weakness abroad. Right now, the Biden story is just weak and weaker. From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business News.

Biden, Ignoring Reagan’s ‘Peace Through Strength,’ Weakly Allows Russia, China To Thrive

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