The Editors of The Wall Street Journal have laid out their view of how Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden Can Deter China with respect to the Republic of China. They pushed forward a series of actions that Biden could take vis-à-vis arming the RoC and rebuilding our own defense establishment. I’ll elide the extended time frame such actions would take to come to fruition, even were the Progressive-Democrats in Congress to allow those actions to move apace, without holding them hostage to their extremist projects.

No, the editors are acting from a false premise—that Biden actually could deter People’s Republic of China President Xi Jinping.

On the contrary, Biden is incapable of deterring Xi, and Xi knows it. Biden already has allowed himself to be intimidated by Russian President-for-Life Vladimir Putin into not supplying Ukraine with the weapons it needs at the rate it needs them in order actually to defeat the barbarian. Biden is supplying the materiel only at a rate to keep Ukraine fighting and bleeding—and thereby letting the barbarian win through attrition.

Biden already has allowed the mullahs of Iran to intimidate him into not materially responding to Iranian/proxy repeated attacks on US forces in the Middle East beyond taking a couple of for-show potshots at a couple of unimportant buildings.

Biden already has allowed his own Executive Branch staffers to intimidate him into pressuring Israel to accede to a ceasefire, knowing full well that the sole beneficiary of such a thing would be the terrorists seeking to exterminate Israel.

When Xi invades the Republic of China, Biden will already have been intimidated into doing nothing more than taking a couple of for-show potshots at a couple of unimportant PRC buildings, and then meekly accepting the destruction of the RoC.

Best we can hope for is that Xi won’t move for a couple more years and that we get a President with more self-respect, more love of the US, more respect for our friends and allies. And more courage.