For all their political and personal differences, former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden share errant experience, flawed judgment, and dubious policy inclinations that should disqualify them from serving again as president. Yet, perversely, they seem poised to become, respectively, the Republican and Democratic parties’ 2024 nominees. America and the Free World deserve better.
Purloining classified government documents
Both Trump and Biden, without authority, have taken highly classified government documents containing sensitive national secrets, damaging official communications with allies and partners.
Trump has been indicted for his alleged criminal wrongdoing in this matter, including obstructing the government’s efforts to recover the documents, and for other alleged crimes of a personal and political nature.
Biden’s possible criminality regarding his classified documents mishandling is still being investigated, as are questions relating to his family’s dealings with foreign entities and possible trading of government access, conceivably overlapping with the documents case. Foreign governments would be justified in withholding sensitive information from either Trump or Biden, reducing their effectiveness as head of state and commander-in-chief.
The Afghanistan withdrawal debacle
As candidates, Trump and Biden were equally emphatic in pledging to end America’s “forever war” in Afghanistan. Their tag team pursuit of that poorly prepared objective led to an incalculable human and geopolitical catastrophe.
Trump negotiated with the Taliban over the head of the Afghan government and U.S. allies and signed a “conditions-based” agreement in Doha, Qatar, in February 2020, providing for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan by May 2021 and the release of 5,000 hardened Taliban prisoners. He withdrew forces throughout 2020 despite repeated Taliban violations of the agreement and objections from the Afghan government and congressional Republicans.
When Biden came into office in January 2021, 2,500 U.S. forces remained in Afghanistan and his military advisers urged keeping that number since the Taliban was not meeting its obligations under Doha. The Afghanistan Study Group, created by Congress, recommended changing the agreement.
In March, Biden said, “[I]t is not my intention to stay there for a long time, [however] if we leave, we’re going to do so in a safe and orderly way.” In April, he extended the withdrawal date to Sept. 11, saying he would avoid a tragic Vietnam scenario. “We will not conduct a hasty rush to the exit. We’ll do it responsibly, deliberately, and safely.”
Trump criticized Biden’s extension. “We can and should get out earlier […] as close to that [May 1] schedule as possible.”
Biden ignored Trump and his own military and political advisers. He rejected Trump’s conditions-based approach but then pleaded, falsely, that his hands were tied by the Doha agreement despite Taliban’s reneging. The horrendous outcome that left hundreds of Americans and thousands of loyal Afghans stranded behind Taliban lines rests primarily on Biden’s shoulders. America’s enemies, especially Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, took note of the collective failure of U.S. will.
The war in Ukraine
Both Trump and Biden withheld essential weapons from Ukraine during its altercation with Russia.
Biden would not send ground troops to help prevent the invasion our intelligence community predicted was coming. He rejected Ukraine’s urgent requests for a no-fly zone, blocked Poland from giving Ukraine planes to establish its own, and said he could accept “a small incursion.”
Like most observers, and Putin himself, he expected the Kiev government to fall quickly. The fait accompli, like the first invasion of Ukraine in 2014 during the Obama-Biden administration, would relieve the U.S. and its allies from direct involvement.
Ukraine’s surprising resistance changed the Western dynamic and forced Biden to abandon his laissez faire approach to Russian aggression. But he still was determined not to let Ukraine’s defense bring Washington and NATO into direct confrontation with Russia. The West would provide just enough weapons and assistance to put Kiev in a favorable position — not to win, but to negotiate how much of its territory it might concede to Russia.
Ironically, the same NATO members the Biden administration prides itself on persuading to join the defensive campaign are now more forward-leaning in the effort than is Washington itself. They want to give Ukraine the aircraft, tanks and long-range missiles it needs to recover all its conquered territory.
Putin’s repeated threats to use nuclear weapons have spooked Biden to the point that, unlike other NATO members, he does not want to see Russia decisively defeated; instead, his administration wants Kiev to settle for a territorial compromise.
Trump is less subtle. Seemingly infatuated with Putin’s ruthlessness, he recently said he would end the Ukraine war “in 24 hours” if elected. It no doubt would work as well as his deal with the Taliban.
But NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg argues letting Putin keep even part of Ukraine would simply invite further aggression later. That was the experience after Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, unpunished, before targeting Eastern Ukraine and Crimea in 2014. It was after President Obama had told him he would be more “flexible” following his 2012 reelection. And, with Vice President Biden as his foreign policy guru, so he was, on Ukraine and Russia’s intervention in Syria.
As Obama Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote in 2014, “[Biden] has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” In 2019, Gates “stood by” that statement; in 2021, he faulted Biden for the botched Afghan withdrawal.
China-Taiwan
The redeeming feature of the Trump presidency was the transformative set of policies toward China and Taiwan that his national security team put in place, often overcoming Trump’s reluctance. His recent remarks indicating his true instincts against U.S. intervention are not reassuring for Taiwan.
Biden has largely followed the Trump team’s policies but now seems inclined to return to the earlier engagement era. Despite his unvetted comments that he would defend Taiwan, his Afghanistan and Ukraine performances, and the instincts of his Clinton- and Obama-era aides, suggest he would not be willing to confront China.
In these times of existential danger, America needs a national security president not named Trump or Biden.
Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2006 and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010. He served in the Pentagon when Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia and was involved in Department of Defense discussions about the U.S. response. Follow him on Twitter @BoscoJosephA