Biden keeps showing up late to World War III

In the aftermath of President Biden’s State of the Union Speech in February, we argued in these pages that his administration was late to World War III. China was conducting military live-fire drills in and around Taiwan, Russia was beginning its second year of war against Ukraine and Washington was largely going about business as usual.

Eight months later, Washington is still failing to grasp the nature of the global conflagration we are in. Initially, it was an ideological form of worldwide warfare. On one side are Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visions of a multi-polar order that Moscow and Beijing will control. On the other are American and western notions of liberal democracy and a global order built upon the United Nations.

Oct. 7 was Israel’s 9/11 and Yom Kippur War rolled into one tragic day. It was also, in effect, another Pearl Harbor for the U.S. But that reality is still not fully dawning on many in Washington.

Biden said all the right things in the wake of the attack, and certainly his bold trip to an active war zone was a much-needed boost to a badly shaken Israel. Yet, as with Ukraine, Biden centered his words of support of Israel around the word “defend.”

Speaking from the State Dining Room at the White House on Oct. 10, while referring to Iron Dome munitions he declared “We’re going to make sure that Israel does not run out of these critical assets to defend its cities and its citizens.” 

Then, on Oct. 18, while on the ground in Israel, Biden reassured Israelis that the “U.S. would continue to ensure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself.” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin underscored the president’s words, saying “The United States will make sure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself.”

“Defend” might be the most repeated word in Washington, but the notion of “defense” is that of a passive participant, waiting and preparing for the next attack. It is not a strategy, but a technique that simply prolongs the inevitable. “Winning,” meanwhile, is a word in short supply inside the Beltway, even though it is the word needed in both Ukraine and Israel.

If we are doing so much military “defending” around the world, then we probably need to step back and address who is attacking us and our allies in the West. Putin, Xi and Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei are staring us in the face, and fellow “Arsenals of Evil” club member Kim Jong-un, the supreme leader of North Korea, is itching to make his own appearance.

For now, be it Ukraine, Israel or Taiwan looming in the distance, the White House is dangerously compartmentalizing each emerging national security hotspot, as if they were unrelated and not part of the same overall war against the West. In effect, Russia, China and Iran are all on war footing, as is North Korea, both vis-à-vis Japan and South Korea and as Putin’s latest junior partner in his faltering war in Ukraine.

The perfect political storm that has been paralyzing Washington only exacerbated the exponentially growing threat to the nation’s security. Political commentators today and historians in the future can argue who is to blame. From an immediate national security perspective, however, that is irrelevant. The nation is being enveloped by global war. Now is the time for Democrats and Republicans alike to set aside party, put country first and work together to immediately fund our national security interests in Ukraine, Israel, the Indo-Pacific and elsewhere.

Israel, in the wake of Oct. 7, formed a national unity government. Congress, in effect, must consider doing the same. Imagine if, after Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt had not been able to turn to the House. That is where we are now.

As we noted in February, it has been “game on” for some time. We are now emerging from the eye of the hurricane we had warned about, and we find ourselves exposed in the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are about to become heavily engaged in ground operations in Gaza, and the conflict may quickly kinetically spread to Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank as well as to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran. Likewise, we are already witnessing U.S. ground, air and naval forces coming under armed attack in Iraq, Syria and in the Red Sea by Iranian-backed militias, including the Houthis in Yemen.

Plus, ominously, a perfect storm is brewing in the Middle East. If Iran deploys Hezbollah in the war against Israel, and the two forward-deployed carrier strike groups — the USS Gerald R. Ford and USS Dwight D. Eisenhower — become engaged, then Russian and U.S. aircraft could find themselves competing for the same airspace. Other U.S. Navy assets navigating the same waters in the Persian Gulf by the China’s People’s Liberation Army’s 44th Chinese naval escort task force. 

Meanwhile, Iran’s nuclear weapons program marches on unchecked as Tehran draws ever nearer to nuclear weapons and launch capabilities. Time is running out for Washington to confront the reality we now find ourselves in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and perhaps soon in Taiwan as well.

Iran, in reaction to Israel’s bombing of Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syrian airports in Damascus and Aleppo, may be on the cusp of triggering something much bigger, more in keeping with how Hollywood has long envisioned that World War III would play out.

Up to now, we have argued that we are in a a war that Putin blundered into, more ideological than kinetic, more strategic than just regional. But the two may soon meld together in the Middle East. Washington must assume a war footing, as Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran already have. It need not declare war, but it must be ready if war finds us again. “Defending” is the military equivalent of playing it safe, and a sure path to defeat.

As Israel tragically found out on Oct. 7, you are only safe until you are not safe. No one will be safe if Washington keeps showing up late to World War III.

Mark Toth is an economist, entrepreneur, and former board member of the World Trade Center, St. Louis. Jonathan Sweet, a retired Army Colonel and 30-year military intelligence officer, led the U.S. European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012 to 2014.