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We still don’t understand how it was possible for a 20-year-old with a high-powered rifle to come within 150 yards of a presidential rally, climb onto a rooftop in full view of a Secret Service sniper, pull his gun and fire multiple shots, nearly assassinating a former President of the United States — and how the attacker, ostensibly acting completely alone, was able to be stopped by dozens of police officers and security guards, none of whom were able to stop him.
You know who else is closely watching this near-catastrophic event, and everything else happening in our country? China and Russia. Both see America as their number one adversary, one that they must defeat, if not on the battlefield, then at home.
Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and their respective intelligence agencies are assessing recent events in the US, including the Trump-Biden debate, the NATO summit in Washington and President Biden’s fitness for another term.
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Vladimir Putin, President Biden, Xi Jinping (Getty Images | Reuters)
They conclude that, despite the rhetoric and boasting from Washington, America’s national security is at risk. It is surprising that two dictators have not taken advantage of the situation. Here’s why.
First, between now and January 20th, the United States will continue to be led by a president who appears increasingly unable to fully fulfill his duties as commander in chief. This is a significant weakness, especially in times of crisis or war. During the Trump-Biden presidential debate and “big boy” press conference, Biden referred to Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin” and Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump,” confirming what Putin and Xi Jinping already knew: Biden is severely cognitively and physically impaired.
Many Americans may not have been aware of this fact due to the concerted efforts of Biden’s entourage and some media outlets to conceal it, but Russian and Chinese intelligence agencies regularly profile US presidents, so this was not a surprise. The new lesson for Putin and Xi Jinping is that with the flood of calls for Biden to withdraw from the race, the Biden administration is now fighting for survival and clearly not focused on US security. It will not take much to further throw an already distracted US president and his team off balance.
Second, becoming more deeply involved in Ukraine’s security would draw the United States further into a war with Russia that would have disastrous consequences. The Pentagon has no viable military strategy to win such a war, just as it has none to date in Ukraine. U.S. intelligence assessments suggest that such a war would likely culminate in nuclear war.
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On July 12, 2023, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg met with President Biden at the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, File)
At the summit in Washington, NATO’s 32 member states formally declared that Ukraine, which has been part of Russia’s strategic security border since the 9th century, is on the path to “irreversible” membership. Russia and the United States have formally declared each other the biggest threat to their respective security.
Putin, who has long maintained that Ukraine’s NATO membership is a “red line” that must not be crossed, would likely risk war with the United States over Ukraine, as evidenced by multiple military exercises conducted by U.S. intelligence agencies. At his direction, a warfare strategy has been developed that includes nuclear, space and cyber warfare, a strategy the Kremlin believes will allow it to win on Russia’s terms.
Third, neither the United States nor NATO has the industrial capacity to wage a war against Russia, much less wage a two-front war against Russia and China simultaneously.
Putin has been preparing for a long war in Ukraine, putting the Russian military and economy on a war footing seven years before the invasion. Putin has also built a Russian economy that is immune to sanctions, which, contrary to Washington’s expectations, is growing, driven by its arms manufacturing sector. With a comfortable fiscal cushion of $580 billion in foreign currency and gold reserves, Russia increased its defense budget by 70% in 2015. Compare 2024 to 2023.
Russia’s arms production capacities have increased in one year as follows: tanks 7 times, ammunition 6 times, armored platforms 4 times, artillery and rocket systems 2 times. Drone production will increase by 80% by 2023.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks to media upon his arrival to attend the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, July 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kurbis)
In contrast, the United States and its European allies, which are not officially at war, lack the manufacturing and contracting capacity to match Putin’s military might. Last week, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg acknowledged at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event that Western manufacturing capacity is insufficient and that Ukraine’s demands for military equipment to remain in the fight against Russia are not being fully met.
Unlike Russia, where President Putin can personally order factories to shift from civilian to military production, the U.S. and European defense industries are bound by bureaucratic requirements such as funding approvals and contracting capacity: These companies cannot start building weapons until contracts are negotiated, approved and funded.
Moreover, many of America’s high-tech weapons have proven ineffective on the Ukrainian battlefield. Russia, which has spent the past two decades studying the use of U.S. technology in military operations, has developed countermeasures against what the Pentagon calls “network-centric warfare.” Russia’s superior electronic warfare capabilities have disrupted or degraded many of the U.S. combat systems that rely on GPS.
Citing Ukrainian military commanders, The Wall Street Journal reported that some U.S. weapons are no longer in use on the battlefield, such as the M982 Excalibur, developed by RTX and BAE Systems, and the ground-launched small caliber bomb made by Boeing and Sweden’s Saab.
President Biden and former President Trump held a debate at CNN studios in Atlanta on June 27, 2024. (Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The top leader of President Trump’s newly established U.S. Space Force noted in April that Russia is using “unprecedented levels of electronic warfare (EW)” to jam U.S. GPS, which the U.S. military relies on for basic functions such as precise targeting and command and control. Colonel Nicole Petrucci, commander of the U.S. Air Force’s Combat Readiness Force as head of Space Delta 3, expressed concern at the AFA Combatant Action event that the U.S. military would have a hard time operating in such an environment. She noted that training U.S. military personnel to fight in a war against America’s biggest adversaries, such as Russia and China, requires “the right simulators” and “good enough” instructors who understand the “advanced threat environment.”
Other U.S. officials acknowledge that the sophistication of electronic warfare in Ukraine could far exceed anything the United States might face in a conflict with China, which plans to physically disable U.S. satellites in the event of war.
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Biden asserted at his big-boy press conference that “NATO is stronger than it’s ever been.” He reiterated that America’s obligation under Article 5, which requires the U.S. to defend NATO allies if they are attacked, is “sacrosanct.” He also added that “we’re not going to abandon” Ukraine, which is not yet a NATO member state.
But what Putin and Xi have concluded is that despite spending billions of dollars annually on intelligence, high-tech weaponry and foreign wars, Washington has failed to fix glaring gaps in America’s national security. The world’s most brutal dictators are happy to know that the reason their former, and likely future, president is still alive is because of a natural disaster, not because he is well protected.
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