Afghanistan hurting Biden with NATO

When Joe Biden's Pentagon totally botched the withdrawal in Afghanistan, Biden left NATO allies hanging. That incompetence is returning to bite Biden's backside with Russia's invasion of Ukraine. After getting hung out to dry by Biden, NATO hasn't worried about following Biden's feckless dictates.

Biden has lost his moral authority on the international stage. Without that, he isn't effective because NATO doesn't trust him. That's hurting Biden as he's just landing in Brussels for a high-stakes NATO discussion on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In times past, U.S. presidents were treated with respect. That's because they led NATO through difficult times and sticky situations. This trip, the NATO leaders will say all the right things in public. What's still undetermined is whether they'll dismiss him in their private discussions.

Arriving in Belgium on Wednesday, President Joe Biden will meet with trans-Atlantic leaders for several high-stakes summits on the war in Ukraine, testing the president’s ability to marshal European resolve against Russia’s aggression while holding firm on limits to America’s involvement in the conflict.

Biden, who took office promising to revitalize the United States’s alliances, will gather in Brussels, Belgium, and Warsaw, Poland, with leaders eager for American assurances as they discuss the security and humanitarian emergency on the continent’s eastern front.

Initially, NATO leaders started with a positive image of Biden, mostly because they didn't like President Trump. These days, NATO leaders don't like Biden because he's erratic and he isn't a leader. Biden has shafted most of the major leaders of NATO. He excluded France with a submarine deal with Australia. He left the British holding the bag when he surrendered in Afghanistan. The only major NATO nation he hasn't screwed over (yet?) is Germany.

At least, Americans are praying more now that Biden is president. Biden has already landed in Brussels:

If he was your president, wouldn't you be praying?

Seriously, it's time to hope NATO changes its way of thinking. Since the start, NATO, including the U.S., has taken the mindset that Russia would inevitably prevail. I've never taken that position. The thing that Reagan taught people who paid attention is that Russia (then the U.S.S.R.) wasn't as mighty as Pravda said it was.

I'll finish with this: a few days into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Jennifer Griffin reported that she'd just attended a briefing where the general said the Pentagon was surprised that the Russians' night-fighting ability wasn't as good as expected. During the original Gulf War, the Iraqis set a bunch of Kuwaiti oil wells on fire when it became obvious that they were about to lose the war. The air was filled with dark black smoke from those wells. The Iraqi tank drivers had a difficult time in their Soviet T-72 tanks. Their night-fighting ability was virtually nonexistent. The U.S. tank drivers were driving M1A1 Abrams. They didn't have any difficulty cutting through the smoke.

The point is that the Russian-Soviet night-fighting capability hasn't improved in 31 years. I can't take seriously a supposed superpower whose equipment hasn't improved in 30+ years. It's time to stop thinking of Russia as a superpower. They're a nuclear power but they aren't a superpower. The Ukrainian military has proven that.

It's time to give Ukraine the hardware to defeat Russia. If there's a stalemate and Russia gets to keep what it gained in this invasion, Putin will just regroup, then wait for another weak Democrat leader as president. Driving Putin out means Putin doesn't gain additional Ukrainian territory. Putin just gets the international humiliation. That's what needs to happen.