President Biden has a rare window of opportunity. He is no longer running for re-election, so his calculus now should be solely focused on winning the global war that Russian President Vladimir Putin has unleashed against the West.
Russia’s war against Ukraine is devolving into a wider World War III. An Axis of Evil allied against Washington and Brussels is rapidly coalescing in its wake. Democracy is under attack, and the White House needs to stop playing for a tie.
Taiwan is under growing threat from China. Russian Wagner Group paramilitary forces are actively toppling democracies in the Sahel in Africa and are propping up dictatorships in countries such as Venezuela. Israel is encircled by 19 Iranian-backed militias, and a nuclear-ambitious Tehran is attempting to add a new terrorist front against Jerusalem in Jordan.
Old ‘War on Terror’ enemies are also reconstituting. ISIS and al-Qaeda are destabilizing Syria and Iraq. And last week’s terrorist threat at a Taylor Swift concert venue in Vienna, ISIS is hellbent on creating a lethal online caliphate to radicalize and weaponize European and American youth.
Nowhere is this growing global conflagration hotter than in Ukraine. Kyiv has crossed into the Russian oblasts of Kursk and Belgorod. Every red line Putin established since beginning his “special military operation” in February 2022 has now been crossed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Defending democracy for as long as it takes is no longer an option. We are in win-now-or-go-home territory. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his generals are willing to fight this existential fight for Washington and Brussels. Israel is poised if necessary to preemptively deal with Iran and its proxies.
Defeating Russia first in Ukraine would help solve many of the national security challenges confronting NATO and Washington’s Indo-Pacific allies. Moscow would be contained. Iran would be isolated again.
Venezuela and Cuba are effectively checkmated. And a clear message would be sent to Chinese President Xi Jinping that democracies are still capable of winning wars.
However, to get there Biden has to transcend November party politics and the electoral policy calculus that all too often dangerously inhibits U.S. national security. Let Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump duke it out as to who controls the White House come January 2025.
Biden’s legacy will not be determined by who wins in November. Future historians will judge him on whether he was willing to set the conditions to win World War III, or he instead faltered and allowed Putin and Xi to destroy American power as it has existed as a force for good since the end of World War II.
Optics during wartime matter, especially when that war is global in scope and is at increasing risk of spiraling out of control. Biden sitting on a beach last weekend in Delaware sent the wrong message to Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang. It was suggestive of a president that is checked out, and a White House where no one is actively in charge.
Last weekend, especially, was the worst time to be telegraphing that to democracy’s foes. Ukraine was beginning to seize the initiative on the ground inside of Russia. Israel was (and remains) under imminent threat of direct attack by Iran, Hezbollah and other Iran-backed proxies.
Eastern Europe and the Middle East are powder kegs waiting to go off. The charge fuses are already dangerously sparking, and Biden needed to be at the White House – and arguably delivering a candid Oval Office address warning the country of a rapidly expanding global war that is engulfing us.
Putin has placed his country on a total war footing. Thirty percent of Russia’s federal expenditures are now spent on its military, as opposed to 2.7 percent in the U.S. Yet Biden’s America is still on summer vacation.
Xi, likewise, has consolidated power in China. He is also intentionally gearing the Chinese economy to facilitate the rapid expansion of the People’s Liberation Army on the ground, at sea, in the air and, ominously, in outer space.
For Biden to win World War III and defend global democracy, he must confront two obvious starting points: Ukraine and Israel.
Kyiv has brilliantly proven in Kursk what it can do when its military is permitted to maneuver under the doctrine of combined arms warfare, outfighting and outpacing a static and one-dimensional Russian Army. Washington needs to surge even more offensive weapons capabilities and munitions to Ukraine and remove any remaining restrictions on their use.
Crimea remains the decisive terrain of Russia’s war against Ukraine. The White House must go all to enable the AFU to make the Crimean Peninsula untenable for Russian forces.
In Israel, Biden must stop hedging by playing November politics. Hamas is the enemy – and the president needs to be calling for their unconditional surrender. Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ new political chief after the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, needs to be in Washington’s crosshairs and not viewed as a ceasefire partner.
Sinwar has killed dozens of Americans and is still holding eight American hostages after 312 days of captivity in Gaza. He is not a partner for peace but a terrorist, and his latest rejection of a ceasefire should serve as a reminder. Simply put, he has murdered U.S. citizens and Biden must stop throwing him lifelines.
It is also time Biden addressed the Iranian threat with his eyes wide open. Disturbingly, the IAEA reported for the first time that Iran is weaponizing its nuclear program. Biden’s own Office of the Director of National Intelligence has warned Congress about this, according to reporting by Andrea Stricker at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Blindly ratcheting down tensions between Jerusalem and Tehran may produce an unintended result: a nuclear Iran. Previous presidents have kicked this Iranian nuclear can down the road long enough. Now Biden, fairly or unfairly, is a president faced with the end of the road. If he punts, it might well result in a Middle East Armageddon.
Global war waits for no country. It finds democratic nations when it is least desired. For now, it has found Ukraine and Israel. And if Biden fails to let these allies win it, World War III will find the U.S. as well.
Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as a military intelligence officer and led the U.S. European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012 to 2014.