America’s Weakness Is a Provocation

But no matter what they thought of Trump, America’s allies and our enemies did not view the 45th president as weak. He was erratic, but his course reversals created a sense of unpredictability that can be helpful, even unintentionally, in deterring our adversaries.

Unlike Trump, the Biden administration has gone to great lengths to be predictable. But our enemies have perceived this White House as reliably weak.

The perception of weakness comes, in part, from Biden’s bias toward “containment,” “de-escalation” and the wrongheaded assumption that war and violence is based on “miscalculation” rather than aggression.