Do our adversaries fear Biden? They did Trump
By Rich Lowry
Published Oct. 18, 2023, 5:55 p.m. ET
Luck is the residue of design, they say. Might it also be the residue of frightening and confusing foreign adversaries?
Donald Trump’s relatively crisis-free presidency in foreign affairs has created a sense, perhaps an accurate one, that he cowed enemies into not challenging the United States.
As Sen. Tom Cotton has pointed out, Kabul didn’t collapse on Trump’s watch, Russia didn’t invade Ukraine, and Hamas didn’t launch a historic terror attack on Israel.
Now this may have just been good fortune. Four years isn’t a large sample size.
But the argument that adversaries feared him and therefore acted with a measure of restraint is quite intuitive.
No one is going to mistake Trump for Cardinal Richelieu or Henry Kissinger.
His view of the world was highly personal and reflected a few obsessions, especially the notion that we were getting ripped off by foreigners.
His trade war with China was a waste of time, and his commitment to NATO was genuinely in doubt.
Yet despite the feeling of chaos created by his constant shoot-from-the-hip bombast, things basically stayed on the rails.
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https://nypost.com/2023/10/18/do-our-adversaries-fear-biden-they-did-trump/?dicbo=v2-mATsOhN
