Traditionally, presidential nominees have chosen their vice presidents based on a standard criteria, geography and ideology. Simply put, if the presidential nominee was from the north, his or her prospective running mate would be from the south. And if the candidate was for example, a Democrat, and they were from the liberal wing of the party, he or she would then choose someone from the moderate wing of the party to be his or her vice president. The election of 1988 would be a suitable example of this when Democrat Michael Dukakis, a liberal from Massachusetts, chose Lloyd Bentsen, a moderate from Texas, to be his vice presidential candidate. But like many traditions, this standard in recent times has been fraying and falling by the wayside. In 1992, Bill Clinton chose Al Gore for the number 2 position because Gore was an environmental activist and Clinton believed this would be a better way of attracting voters than the traditional formula. The standard would be broken again in 2008 with Barack Obama selecting Joe Biden to be his vice president based on ole Joe’s expertise in foreign relations. Oh yes! This may seem surprising to many but this is a fact, a dose of reality. The master plan was that Mr. Biden, longtime Senate veteran, would advise the young Chief Executive in the ways of foreign affairs and Mr. Obama would rely on the former Delaware Senior Senator’s breadth of knowledge, expertise and experience. Of course Mr. Biden’s foreign policy resume had certainly been questionable, almost from the beginning. As a Senator, he refused to ship arms in 1975 to a collapsing South Vietnamese government, while the USSR and China were doing precisely that with their communist ally, North Vietnam. Of course Vietnam is ancient history but the resulting bloodbath following the communist takeover is more than mere rhetoric. In more recent times, during Persian Gulf War II, Mr. Biden opposed George W. Bush’s successful SurgeOffensive in Iraq which crushed remnants of the former Saddam Hussein regime, Al-Qaeda insurgents and ostensibly ended that long and hapless war in 2008. Not to be outdone in his own futility, Biden also supported Barack Obama’s ill fated withdrawal of US troops from Iraq in 2011 which allowed a fledgling ISIS to fill a political vacuum left by the US and allow this terrorist movement to create havoc throughout the Middle East for years to come. Yes. All of these policy positions were supported by one Joe Biden and all of these decisions would certainly lead one to question the credentials of Joe Biden who after all was touted as a foreign policy expert. But that is not the end of the story because Biden brought his foreign policy making prowess to the White House when he was elected President in 2020. When the Biden Administration came to power in 2021, Biden made the decision to stop work on the Keystone Pipeline and increase the number of rules and regulations fossil fuel companies needed to follow to produce that source of energy. The result was a decrease in the supply of oil but as the global economy was coming out of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, there was an increase in demand for this commodity, meaning an uptick in price. This certainly received the attention of oil producing giant Russia and Vladimir Putin who reckoned the value of this precious resource had just increased in worth. In addition, this drastic change in US energy policy substantially increased the political leverage of the Eurasian giant. Furthermore, President Biden gave his blessing to the completion of the Nordstream 2 pipeline which had been orchestrated by Russia to provide energy to Western Europe. Such a policy furthered Western dependency on Russian energy and further increased the power of Putin. Ironically, before the Biden Administration’s policy went into place, there was bipartisan opposition in the US Congress to Russia’s proposed pipeline due to Congressional belief the Europeans would be too dependent on Russia for its energy needs, creating the possibility of Russian blackmail of Western interests. But after the implementation of the Biden policy, Democratic opposition to the pipeline evaporated and support for Biden’s initiative became absolute in Democratic circles. But that is not all because in the summer of 2021 Biden withdrew US troops from Afghanistan which allowed Taliban forces to quickly overrun that hapless nation after 20 years of warfare. Biden and his advisers did not foresee the rapid Taliban takeover of the country, nor were they capable of dealing with this phenomenon which left hundreds of Americans behind and tens of billions of dollars of military equipment in Taliban hands. Vladimir Putin was watching all of the above play out and must have come to the realization that the US would not counter a Russian incursion into Ukraine. The reduction of US energy output had made Russian energy production that much more valuable and attempts to sanction Russian production could cripple the global economy. In addition, if the US would not be willing to defend Afghanistan after 20 years of conflict, why would the US intervene in another conflict in Ukraine? Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Biden Administration was predicting such an action would take place but the Americans did nothing to bolster the Ukrainian government by sending heavy weapons or other military aid which might have deterred a Russian attack or gave Putin cause to reevaluate his position. Instead, the US was sending Russia signals that America would not intervene in any form in Ukraine, except for talks. But what is the point of negotiations if the US would be unwilling to use any form of power, whether diplomatic or political? Let us be clear, no one is advocating for the dispatching of American troops to Ukraine. That would be irresponsible and reckless! But what actions would you expect Russia to take if the US would be unwilling to use any form of power except for meaningless rhetoric? And so the world is now engaged in a great conflict in Ukraine but no need to worry because America has a foreign policy expert in charge.
Friend of Cicero
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