| Translate This News In |
|---|
President Joe Biden is confronted with a succession of discrete but interconnected global crises and hotspots, with US adversaries lined up to test the will of an under-pressure leader as well as their own perception of the US as a receding global force.
On Monday, Biden took a fatal choice reminiscent of the tense 1970s, putting up to 8,500 troops on alert to hurry to Eastern Europe to oppose the Kremlin’s effort to drive the US away from its Western flank. But his showdown with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is holding Ukraine hostage in an attempt to halt the West’s post-Cold War growth, is far from his only global issue.
On the other side of the world, a strategic dance of military might is taking place, with the United States and China maneuvering armadas and airplanes amid tensions over Taiwan and other disputed areas in a long-term struggle for control in the Asia-Pacific region. While the danger of a Russian invasion of Ukraine has the world’s attention right now, a future Chinese assault against the self-governing democratic island is the more likely cause of a catastrophic superpower clash.
Then there’s the Middle East, from which America has been striving for years to escape. Early Monday, US Marines at an Abu Dhabi base used Patriot missiles to shoot down four missiles fired towards the Gulf emirate by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. The event served as a reminder that, despite revived nuclear discussions with Iran, the Islamic Republic’s regional power maneuvers pose a serious threat to US soldiers. And, by association, the murderous war in Yemen, waged by Washington ally Saudi Arabia with devastating human effects, endangers the US.
And, if Washington is tempted to dismiss the terrifying threat of a nuclear North Korea, its leader, Kim Jong Un, has other plans. One of Pyongyang’s latest missile tests prompted unusual ground blocks at several US West Coast airports, highlighting the nightmarish prospect for any US President that the extreme hermit state may have the US mainland in its sights.
