If there’s already one overarching theme in President Joe Biden’s tenure, it’s that every threat once contained will become dangerous again under his watch.
Biden has been in office just shy of eight months, and so far he has managed to stall a recovering economy, prolong the coronavirus pandemic and surrender America’s near victory in Afghanistan — and now he has North Korea back on the offensive.
Korean Central News Agency, leader Kim Jong Un’s state-run media mouthpiece, claimed that North Korea successfully tested two long-range cruise missiles capable of striking targets up to 930 miles away, The Associated Press reported.
Testing was conducted over the weekend as Americans were busy commemorating the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
“North Korea claims successful test launches of newly developed long-range cruise missile on 11 & 12 September,” Joseph Dempsey of the International Institute for Strategic Studies tweeted with photos of the launch provided by the North Korean government.
#NorthKorea claims successful test launches of newly developed long-range cruise missile on 11 & 12 September pic.twitter.com/H9LJQo96sU
— Joseph Dempsey (@JosephHDempsey) September 12, 2021
The communist government said the new missiles could carry a “strategic weapon of great significance” — an especially troubling prospect for neighbors like South Korea or Japan since the phrasing suggests possible nuclear warheads as the payload.
Moreover, an International Atomic Energy Agency report last month revealed that North Korea could be making the necessary plutonium for small nuclear weapons after restarting a particular nuclear reactor capable of making the easily weaponized material.
Prior to this recent launch, the nation had taken a hiatus from testing ballistics for a year until two months into Biden’s presidency, likely due to his predecessor’s deft handling of the situation.
Although former President Donald Trump didn’t completely neutralize the threat of a nuclear North Korea, he subdued Kim with his tough pro-America stance backed by a superpower’s military might that he made clear to the dictator he wasn’t afraid to use.
Now it appears that North Korea recognizes a shift with Biden in office and has begun to act accordingly.
Although North Korea has always insisted these weapons are for defensive purposes, it appears more than coincidental that they would be tested and touted on that significant anniversary in America and on the heels of Biden’s recent humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan.
There was no good reason to leave Afghanistan except that Biden and his ilk felt that America had been there too long. And the hasty exit was botched beyond belief.
Instead of a measured drawdown that was agreed upon during the Trump administration, Biden ordered the U.S. to abruptly pull up stakes and pull out, leaving equipment and broken promises behind while stranding bona fide Americans in a nation retaken by the Taliban.
Biden has shown friend and foe alike that America can’t be trusted and has no interest in a prolonged military engagement, so why should North Korea behave itself?
Political and diplomatic strategies have kept Kim in check, but the most effective deterrent has always been the threat of the U.S. military.
America has had a military presence in South Korea for nearly 70 years following the Korean War fought to keep the cancer of communism from spreading, with approximately 28,500 American troops stationed there today, according to Reuters.
Much like the one in Afghanistan, the South Korean base serves as both a barrier stopping further encroachment from North Korea and a strategic position for the U.S. in the region.
But when Biden pulled out of Afghanistan, he conveyed to the world that the U.S. can leave at a moment’s notice and will do very little as the enemy retakes its territory.
In other words, he has eliminated the most effective threat in the multi-faceted approach to containing Kim.
Many Americans feel that Biden has made the world a more dangerous place and weakened the U.S., but what’s most terrifying is that our enemies know it too.