For over three years, all signs of President Biden’s cognitive decline have been ignored or obscured by his allies and the mainstream media. Even Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report just months ago highlighting Biden’s “poor memory” was dismissed as partisan hackery. Now America faces a leadership crisis at home when it is at a crossroads in a rapidly changing and increasingly volatile world.

Just when its principal adversaries, China and Russia, are more firmly aligned than at any time since the 1950s, and the dangers of an accidental NATO-Russia nuclear war cannot be discounted, the U.S. is looking overextended, with its military resources stretched thin due to its involvement in the wars in Europe and the Middle East.

The crisis in American leadership, and the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine has largely tied down the U.S. in Europe, might make Chinese President Xi Jinping believe that China has a window of opportunity to achieve the “historic mission” of forcibly incorporating Taiwan into the mainland Chinese state. Xi recently made his Taiwan goal clearer by declaring that the “essence” of his national rejuvenation drive is “the unification of the motherland.”

Putin, for his part, seems determined to get back at the West for its recent actions against Russia, including seizing Russian money to arm Ukraine.

Despite Putin’s warning of “serious consequences,” Biden has let Ukraine use American-provided weapons........

© The Hill