The images of Afghans chasing an American C-130 plane at the Kabul airport and some plummeting to their deaths will sear the memory of a generation.
President Joe Biden chose defeat. He and Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan signaled that the White House could turn its back on major non-NATO allies almost overnight. But they did more than that. When enemies moved to attack our allies, these officials preferred to blame the victims rather than reconsider the wisdom of their own policy choices. All U.S. allies should be aware: America does not have their back.
Former President Donald Trump and now Biden have normalized betrayal. With the stigma gone, it will only get easier to throw allies under the bus. History, to the American political class, lasts four years. They do not understand that no administration begins with a tabula rasa. Reputation and trust matter.
America’s enemies certainly have taken note. During Trump’s final months, Russia moved into the south Caucasus. Biden’s team might say this predated them, but Blinken rewarded the action after the fact when he waived sanctions on Azerbaijani aggressors and then lifted sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. The next time Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to distract attention from Russia’s failing economy, it will be open season on Ukraine, if not NATO members in the Baltics.
China is as big a threat. While it is fashionable to talk about China’s rise, the nation’s decline is more dangerous. Decades of the one-child policy pushed China toward demographic collapse. Accompanying economic stagnation if not retraction will lead Xi to lash out to distract from his own failing.
Taiwan is squarely in his sights. Chinese officials openly signal their intention to move on Taiwan. In reality, Taiwan has a culture distinct from mainland China and has only been under its control for a couple of decades over the last 400 years. Still, ever since President Richard Nixon’s national security adviser Henry Kissinger threw Taiwan under the bus in his quest to establish relations with Communist China, a generation of Americans have internalized Beijing’s historical narrative. This will only ease America’s betrayal of the island and its 24 million people. Weakness encourages bullies, and there has never been a president as weak as Biden.
If Americans are not willing to fight and die to protect our allies, it is essential that Washington or Taipei make alternate arrangements to enable the island not only to defend itself, but also to deter Chinese aggression. Taiwan once had a nuclear weapons program. It was nearly successful, but a defecting spy blew the whistle and the Reagan administration pressured Taiwan to end it.
In hindsight, that was a mistake. Nonproliferation specialists too often prioritize the appearance of nonproliferation agreements over their effectiveness. When first the Soviet Union and then North Korea cheated on their commitments, many at the Arms Control Association and elsewhere lied to protect the fiction that the Non-Proliferation Treaty or other arms control agreements worked better than they did.
Many politicos may say that enabling Taiwan to become a nuclear weapons power would provoke China or destabilize the region. They are right on the first count but not on the second. Diplomatic hand-wringing has not deterred China. Beijing’s salami-slicing strategy has succeeded as Washington loses its strategic balance. Americans may worry about the implication of a nuclear Taiwan for the NPT, but the alternative is now Chinese conquest of one of the region’s largest democracies.
The question then becomes how to enable Taiwan’s nuclearization without precipitating a preemptive Chinese strike. At this point, Taiwan would need off-the-shelf weapons, which are easy enough to provide with regular air links. The U.S. Navy would also have to enhance its presence in the region to be a deterrent as Taiwan prepares to announce its capability.
Biden may believe he has ended “forever wars,” but the reality is his team has just upended decades of security calculations, not only in Afghanistan but also elsewhere.
Make no mistake: Taiwan’s freedom is at stake.
Michael Rubin (@Mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential. He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
