An eight-year vacuum in the United States ability to project strength overseas is what has led to the current state of perpetual conflict, says former NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
Speaking with Politico, Rasmussen, who commanded the military alliance from 2009 to 2014, said the Obama administration started the trend of a United States retreat from the Middle East and the Trump and Biden administrations continued that backward trajectory.
"Recent global events in the Taiwan Strait, in the Middle East, in Ukraine," he said, "are all results of American hesitance to actually lead."
In 2014, when Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea, the United States and Europe acted too weakly, encouraging Russian President Vladimir Putin to set his sights on a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to Rasmussen. The former Prime Minister of Denmark added the U.S. needs to add some clarity as to how it will respond to a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
"Time and again we see that …. if the U.S. is not exercising global leadership, then the bad guys would take advantage of the situation," Rasmussen said. "When America leads, then the bad guys retreat."
The topic of Ukraine continues to be a major topic of conflict with President Joe Biden and the current GOP front-runner, Trump, on opposite sides of the NATO issue. Trump has long criticized NATO's lack of relevance in the modern world, with several European sources saying Trump stated "NATO is dead."
European leaders seem to agree that regardless of who is president, Europe needs U.S. to lead by strength. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis emphasized the critical nature of a U.S. global presence.
"The U.S. is a guarantor of European security. That's a fact," he said. "I'm not even starting to think about the scenarios that would change the posture of the United States."
Rasmussen offered a solution to all the unfolding chaos: "For good and bad, we need a global policeman, and the U.S. is the only power on earth that can exercise that job."
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