Deterrence and the Biden-Harris Administration: The Challenges of Moving Ahead

In the waning months of the Biden-Harris administration, America is failing to deter its adversaries both from waging conventional war and from building up their nuclear arsenals.

Two major wars are raging in Ukraine and in the Middle East. Deterrence is at risk in an existentially perilous area: nuclear weapons. China is conducting the largest nuclear force buildup in history, North Korea has a nuclear force that threatens North America, Russia continues to modernize and Iran is poised to start building nuclear weapons whenever it chooses.

Washington confronts two adversarial blocks. The first is Iran and its “axis of resistance,” consisting of its proxy forces in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The second is a global axis of autocracies made up China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. Autocracy thrives in today’s global multipolar landscape.

The Biden-Harris administration has treated those developments as disconnected problems to be triaged rather than as crucial challenges to be dealt with via a consistent, long-term strategy.

If strategy is lacking, then so is budgetary support for deterrence. President Biden has overseen cuts in real terms to the Department of Defense budget each year of his presidency. In 2024, the government’s interest in the national debt is equal to the defense budget, which represents an alarmingly low 2.9% of gross domestic product, one of the lowest levels since 1945.

How does that enhance deterrence?

Mr. Biden’s retreat from Afghanistan was a strategic failure that will reverberate for many years to come. After pulling the rug out from our NATO allies in Afghanistan, Mr. Biden had an opportunity to reassert his foreign policy chops when deterrence failed to prevent Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Mr. Biden, of course, was vice president when Washington offered no resistance when Russia invaded Crimea in 2014. Russian leader Vladimir Putin remembers. Russia has deterred NATO with its threats of tactical nuclear war. Mr. Putin knows that our nuclear deterrent is weak and that the U.S. won’t use strategic nuclear forces to defend Ukraine. Fearing Russian escalation, the Biden-Harris administration ihas led the West into a Vietnam-style dead end in Ukraine.

Deterrence failed on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel and touched off a war that quickly spread to Yemen, Lebanon and the West Bank. Iran is the sponsor of this regional war, and it was emboldened by the Biden-Harris administration’s policy of appeasement. Despite concessions made by Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Iran started this war and is at most months away from having a

The Biden administration seems not to understand that this is an existential conflict for Israel, not a war of choice like the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. Israel does not have the luxury of packing up and going home when it tires of war as the Biden-Harris administration did in its disastrous retreat from Afghanistan.

In the Pacific, Chinese President Xi Jinping has instructed his defense ministry to be prepared to take Taiwan by force by 2027, but the Biden administration has not prioritized speeding up arms deliveries to Taipei.

After 30 years of neglect, the United States must simultaneously recapitalize the three legs of its nuclear triad — submarines, bombers and intercontinental missiles. This is costly and cannot be accomplished when budgets are cut every year.

Soon, the United States will be faced with an unprecedented nuclear equation involving three major nuclear powers. This is unchartered territory for nuclear policymakers and the military. Yet this ominous nuclear world is not on the national agenda.

Will America’s extended nuclear deterrent remain credible? Since the dawn of the nuclear age, the United States has assured allies of the reliability of its nuclear umbrella. Will those allies remain on the nuclear sidelines once their citizens understand the danger of a nuclear-armed axis of autocracy? Or will we see a dangerous age of nuclear proliferation?

The bipartisan Commission on the National Defense Strategy said in its report this past July: “The threats the United States faces are the most serious and most challenging the nation has encountered since 1945 and include the potential for a near-term major war. … The nation … is not prepared today.”

Deterrence is as important today as at any time since the end of World War II. The Biden-Harris administration undermined our allies’ confidence and emboldened our adversaries when it withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021. Conventional deterrence failed in Ukraine in 2022 and in Israel in 2023. On a strategic level, the credibility of America’s extended nuclear deterrent is eroding. How will our allies react to those developments, and what actions will they take for their own security?

Deterrence failures are not an issue in the presidential election. Both candidates have committed to sustaining U.S. military superiority, but are their statements simply election-year rhetoric? With our national debt rising and annual budget deficits of $2 trillion common, where will the resources and the will be found to strengthen deterrence?

This was first published in The Washington Times and is reprinted by permission of the author.

Featured Photo: President Biden greets 171st Air Refueling Wing Mission Maj. Chris Bowser, Installation Deployment Officer, left, at the 171st Air Refueling Wing, April 17, 2024. The President was on his way to speak at United Steelworkers Headquarters in Pittsburgh. (U.S. Air National Guard Photo by Senior Master Sgt. Shawn Monk)