President Joe Biden pauses as he speaks about the bombings at the Kabul airport that killed at least 12 U.S. service members, from the East Room of the White House, Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) Evan Vucci/AP

Biden damages trans-Atlantic security, showing subservience to Germany

Tom Rogan

December 02, 12:27 PM December 02, 02:15 PM

Embarrassed by its kowtowing to Vladimir Putin on Ukraine, ransomware, energy blackmail, America’s nuclear posture, and even in low Earth orbit, the Biden administration is resorting to increasingly hysterical defenses of its Russia strategy.

Take the comments by a senior administration official, on Wednesday, who told Politico, “We’re seeing some members of Congress press for sanctions that don’t actually deter Russia but do threaten transatlantic unity in order to score political points at home — all while holding up critical national security funding on a range of unrelated issues. It makes no sense.”

Oh, it makes sense all right. The administration’s gripe here is over Republican-led efforts to reimpose sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 energy pipeline. The Biden administration doesn’t want those sanctions because they will upset Germany, and so, the White House has joined a ludicrous German diplomatic effort to kill off the sanctions.

It is a terrible strategic misjudgment, but it merely reflects Biden’s broader delusions about deterring Russia and securing U.S. alliances in Europe. The senior administration official’s comments to Politico prove as much. The official says that the Republican sanctions “don’t actually deter Russia” and “do threaten transatlantic security.” Both claims are false. Indeed, those assertions represent a direct inversion of the truth.

The GOP sanctions legislation would force Nord Stream 2 to be suspended either before or shortly after it begins operation. That would mean energy flows would continue to move through existing pipelines that transit eastern and central Europe, giving NATO eastern flank member states the leverage to ensure their energy security. In contrast, Nord Stream 2 transits directly from Russia under the Baltic Sea and into Germany. Its operation will mean the reduction of energy transits and associated fees through Ukraine.

Putin has no interest in assisting President Volodymyr Zelensky’s pro-Western government. Nord Stream 2 would also allow Putin to cut off energy supplies to Central and Eastern Europe while continuing to pump gas to Germany. The Biden administration says this won’t happen because it has an agreement with Germany to pressure Russia to maintain Ukrainian energy flows. Unfortunately, that agreement is utterly unenforceable and meaningless.

How about the official’s claim that the GOP sanctions “threaten transatlantic unity?” This is only true if one defines “transatlantic unity” as “German opinion.” When it comes to Europe, only Germany truly supports Nord Stream 2. And Berlin is hardly the linchpin of the trans-Atlantic alliance that the Biden administration pretends. Germany’s new government (taking office next week) is abandoning both the 2% NATO minimum target for defense spending and, vindicating Russian intimidation campaigns, NATO’s nuclear deterrence posture.

Incoming foreign minister Annalena Baerbock is a rare voice against Russian and Chinese aggression, but she’s likely to be drowned out by Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Like Angela Merkel, his impulse is appeasement toward Russia and mercantilism toward China.

The sad truth is that, in 2021, Germany is far less valuable a U.S.-NATO ally than Russia-proximate nations such as Norway, Poland, the Baltics, and other Western European powers such as France. Yes, Germany hosts important U.S. military bases. But why not relocate those bases next door to Poland? Top line: Where other trans-Atlantic allies deserve more U.S. support, Germany deserves disdain.

Biden talks a great deal about the importance of alliances and democracy. But assessed in Europe, his actions only evince damaging subservience to Putin’s favorite puppet.

© 2021 Washington Examiner

President-elect Joe Biden and President Trump have both supported nuclear power. Patrick Semansky/AP

Is Biden embracing Trump’s border policies?

Conn Carroll

December 02, 02:49 PM December 02, 02:49 PM

On Wednesday, I noted reports that the Biden administration had significantly increased deportation flights of recent illegal immigrants to their home countries. This was a break from President Joe Biden’s early commitment to policies supporting open borders and a step toward a law enforcement approach.

Today, it is being reported that the Biden administration will also soon announce a deal with Mexico to revive President Donald Trump’s Migrant Protection Protocols, a program that returned illegal immigrants claiming asylum to Mexico while their asylum claims were heard in the U.S. court system.

Has Biden suddenly become a pro-immigration hawk?

Probably not.

Biden’s reimplementation of Trump’s MPP program came only after a federal court found the Biden administration failed to follow the proper procedures required to end the protocols. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has since reiterated his intention to end the program and has restarted the administrative process to end it properly.

In his October memo moving to end the program, Mayorkas wrote, “MPP not only undercuts the Administration’s ability to implement critically needed and foundational changes to the immigration system, but it also fails to provide the fair process and humanitarian protections that all persons deserve.”

Clearly, the man in charge of DHS wants open borders.

But as the detention flights mentioned above show, there is a pro-enforcement faction in the White House that recognizes Biden’s earlier open borders policies are a political liability and something must be done to bring down the record-high numbers of migrants crossing the southern border every month.

Those numbers are beginning to come down. And they will come down further if the pro-enforcement wing keeps sending illegal immigrants back to Mexico and their home countries.

The question is, once strict enforcement has returned order to the southern border and immigration fades as a political liability, will Mayorkas and his open borders allies then reverse Biden’s pro-enforcement policies?

© 2021 Washington Examiner

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov take their seats on the occasion of their meeting on the sidelines of an Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) meeting, in Stockholm, Sweden, Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021. (Jonathan Nackstrand/Pool Photo via AP) Jonathan Nackstrand/AP

On NATO expansion, Russia goes for the jugular

Tom Rogan

December 02, 03:04 PM December 02, 03:04 PM

Russia is demanding that the U.S. agree to “legal guarantees” not to expand NATO and not to deploy intermediate range ballistic missiles in Europe. Absent that, Vladimir Putin implies that war may follow.

Putin is now demanding “agreements that exclude any further NATO moves to the east and the deployment of weapons threatening Russia in close proximity to its territory.” Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov echoed this call in a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Sweden on Thursday. He explained that if such an agreement is not reached, Russia will take “retaliatory measures to correct the military-strategic balance.”

But let’s be clear, Russia’s demands are at once highly aggressive and utterly ridiculous. They reflect Putin’s assessment that Biden is weak and malleable. In that vein, these demands are designed to seize the initiative in anticipation of an upcoming video summit between the two leaders. Kommersant reports that the meeting may take place next Tuesday.

Still, the absurdity of what Russia is demanding bears close attention.

When Putin speaks of the “deployment of weapons threatening Russia,” he is referring to the possible deployment of U.S. intermediate range ballistic missiles in Europe. What Putin leaves out is that such a U.S. deployment is only on the table because of Russia’s own actions. It is Russia, not NATO, which first breached the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces treaty with the deployment of its 9M729 cruise missile system. Had Russia not done this, the U.S. would not be considering its own deployment.

The other Russian argument: a demand that NATO not expand, is even sillier. Even by Lavrov’s soaring standards, this gall is impressive. He says that “[Russia’s] NATO partners declare that no one has the right to dictate to any country wishing to join NATO whether it can do so or not. We respond by quoting the provisions of international law stating that each state has the right to choose ways to ensure its legitimate security interests.”

Translation: Russia gets a veto over the democratic sovereignty of its neighbors. Example: if Ukraine doesn’t do what we want, we’ll destroy it.

Fact: there are no “provisions of international law” which allow Russia to determine its “legitimate security interests” at the expense of other nations’ sovereignty.

The U.S. should reject Russia’s arguments without qualification. There is no prospect of nations like Georgia or Ukraine joining NATO in the near future. But if, one day, the circumstances for those accessions are reached, it should be up to NATO and to those nations not to Russia, to decide whether to proceed with accession.

Moreover, the Russian argument is not simply that Ukraine and Georgia not ever be allowed to join NATO. As evinced by his military threats to Sweden and Finland, his energy extortion targeting Moldova, and his failed 2016 coup attempt in Montenegro (designed to sabotage that nation’s accession to NATO the next year), Putin believes no democracy proximate to Russia has the right to join NATO. At the same time, Putin believes he has sole ownership over the Arctic.

The hypocrisy is laughable. But this issue cuts to the heart a key principle of the post-Second World War international order. Namely, the right of democracies to create their own destiny and make their own alliances free of external coercion. That’s supposedly a key purpose behind Biden’s upcoming democracy summit. In turn, if Biden was courageous, he would simply tell Putin that escalation will never go in his favor. Instead, Biden prefers Germany’s appeasement strategy.

It’s clear that Putin is loving it. We shouldn’t be optimistic about what might follow the upcoming summit.

© 2021 Washington Examiner

Some officials remain convinced Russia is involved, but so far there is no evidence pointing to a particular adversary and no one has detected microwaves or other possible weapons.

Despite week-long lockdown, Russia reports record daily COVID cases  Euronews