- Wednesday, March 16, 2022

The war in Ukraine has laid bare the spectrum of dangers inherent in the Biden administration’s defense, energy and foreign policies, which have stripped our nation of energy independence within one year, compromised our international relations, and reduced the combat strength of our armed forces. The current conflict demonstrates that without secure sources of oil and natural gas, free nations face dependencies that are correlated directly with disruptions to the international order.

The cascade of actions and counteractions explicit in this war add economic complexity to immense geostrategic challenges. We need a knife to cut through it all. That instrument is American energy independence. Such reattainment is of supreme importance in meeting present threats.

Energy independence and American energy dominance disempower those who are our adversaries. If the Biden administration accepted this argument, our current energy and economic miseries would be reduced, but it will not.

I recently returned from visiting Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China. I stated that America should extend diplomatic recognition to that magnificent democracy as a free and sovereign country. Truly, peaceful people who share a destiny with the free world deserve to live as a nation not subject to subjugation by another. This actuality is also manifest in Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s justification for war is that Ukrainian nationhood does not exist. This is a lie. Ukraine was a captive nation of the Soviet Union for most of the 20th century. It suffered enormously under the oppression wrought by the Soviet Union. In the 1930s, forced collectivization murdered millions of Ukrainians through starvation. China asserts the same brand of lies concerning Taiwan, an independent country that has never been part of the People’s Republic of China.

Ukraine and Taiwan share the status as irreplaceable nations in world trade. Ukraine produces grains on which the world’s food stocks depend. It is also the primary producer of neon, essential to photolithography, which Taiwan employs as the world’s preeminent manufacturer of computer chips. Ukrainian neon production has ceased, complicating chip manufacture. Thankfully, Taiwan’s fabricators hold stockpiles, but these are limited.

Bureaucratic incompetence precipitating devastating policy errors is today rewarded, not corrected. Entrenched bureaucrats defend inadequate planning, be it in our calamitous withdrawal from Afghanistan or our preplanning concerning Ukraine. Only after hell breaks loose, the bureaucrat, who is a survivor, act to ameliorate a fraction of the crisis, which could have been avoided entirely if determined actions were taken earlier.  

American energy dominance could have prevented or wounded Putin’s ability to attack Ukraine. The tripling of the price of a barrel of oil puts more money into Mr. Putin’s pockets, not less. Russian oil and natural gas will flow despite sanctions, for Russia has entered a new strategic agreement with China that covers energy. Through abdication in energy security and in dithering in the supply of arms to Ukraine, the Biden administration created a tinderbox, which Mr. Putin set afire. 

Does the administration believe that Russia’s and China’s deceptive green-energy commitments will actually support the climate goals President Biden espouses? These dictatorships will fill holes left by the administration’s repudiation of oil, natural gas and coal use, with their own supplies and consumption.

Mr. Biden’s cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline and the cessation in the leasing of federal lands are grievous injuries to American energy independence, for these actions suppressed needed investment, to the benefit of Russia, Iran, Venezuela and, by extension, China. Restricting economic growth to support the supposed goal of limiting climate change is extraordinarily damaging. Energy is life; when consumption is restricted, human security and adaptive ability are forfeit.

The threat to Taiwan may only be alleviated by the expression of American power. China has broadcast a dramatic increase in military spending, which may well approach our own if purchasing power parity and an inventory of what China excludes from its military budget are considered. I fear that Mr. Biden will not answer this increase in China’s military budget but prattle about inclusivity as our military’s highest purpose, which is code for creating a military not based upon excellence and war-fighting capacity but political indoctrination.  

NATO is pressed to answer Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, yet the Biden administration has granted Russia a dominant place in negotiations with Iran.  Unbelievably, Russia has been positioned to occupy a role in the Vienna negotiations with Iran over a resurrected JCPOA, referred to as the Iran nuclear deal.  

To recognize the world as it is requires that we comprehend that arms control agreements can only codify the intent of participatory nations; arms control agreements cannot force actions opposed by the interests of signatories. The JCPOA is devoid of merit, which was understood by the administration in which I served.  

NATO has hardened its cohesion as a result of Russia’s war. Obtaining nuclear weapons will thus become an even greater priority for Iran. To guard its survival, this theocratic kleptocracy will endeavor to obtain nuclear weapons, clandestinely aided by Russia and China.

This treacherous farce must now be clear even to Mr. Biden, for Russia now links movement toward a new JCPOA to reductions in America’s sanctions in response to Russia’s war. This truth, however, is an anathema to the President, for to accept it is to obliterate the presuppositions that define his security policies.  

I have faith that the mighty people of Ukraine will be victorious, though the war has killed many innocent people and has destroyed the infrastructure of that land. It has ruptured economies, has broken energy supplies and threatens the availability of world food stocks.

NATO is a bulwark and constitutes the most important lifeline to Ukraine. But what of Taiwan? American military power in the Indo-Pacific region is vast but is increasingly tested. We, however, do not stand alone. Our alliances with Japan, Australia, the Republic of Korea and other nations are brilliant.  

What we do not yet have is a NATO-like structure for the Indo-Pacific. We must build on existing nonmilitary, multinational organizations to create a pact within the Indo-Pacific, to support the security requirements of the nations in this vital region. 

The outrageous pain at the pump felt today in our country thwarts the dreams of Americans. It is the dreams of 330 million Americans upon which the security of our nation rests and, with it, the hope of the world. We must lead, lest we be destined to respond to events contrary to American interests.  

A great country does not disparage its history but learns from it. America must not appease but build strength so that adversarial nations comprehend the tremendous power they face.

• Mike Pompeo is an American politician, diplomat and businessman who served under former President Donald Trump as director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2017 to 2018 and as the 70th United States secretary of state from 2018 to 2021.

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