Center for American and Arab Studies

There were once two truisms of an American president travelling overseas on a diplomatic mission.  The first was that politics stops at the border to show a united front to the outside world.  The second was that the President would get a boost at the polls as he showed himself to be presidential.

Neither are true today.  American presidents are regularly criticized by political opponents while overseas.

The second truism, which is true for Biden, is that physical problems and diminished mental capability are highlighted, which gives the president a reduced impact both at home and overseas.

Even members of his own party admit that Biden is suffering from senility.  Obama and Trump’s White House doctor, Ronny Jackson, said on Twitter, “Everyone knows he’s [Biden] unfit for the job.  His mind is too far gone.”

When Jackson first questioned Biden’s cognitive ability, Obama sent an email that chastised him for bringing Biden’s mental Ability to the public.

Biden’s condition has progressed so far that the White House staff is unable to hide the gaffs anymore.  When the staff decided that using fist bumps instead of handshakes (supposedly because of the risk of spreading Covid) would prevent Biden from being photographed shaking hands with Prince Mohammed Salman, Biden forgot and proceeded to do handshakes with other people in Israel and Saudi Arabia.

There were other instances of Biden looking confused and physically uncoordinated during the trip.

These gaffes only confirmed for foreign leaders that Biden is suffering serious cognitive problems and is only a front man for others who are making decisions, and is unlikely to finish his term.

A president who can’t make decisions and is unlikely to finish his term has little chance of convincing other national leaders to accept American foreign policy.  The fact that former White House Doctor Jackson has called for Biden’s resignation only emphasizes the problem.

The second problem with Biden foreign policy is that he is following a political agenda rather than a pro-American agenda.

There is no better example than the Khashoggi assassination.  Although frowned on in diplomatic circles, assassination is used.  In fact, Israel practices assassination when it comes to Iranian scientists – very likely with American help and approval.  There is no fuss when Israel helps assassinate an Iranian.

However, years after Khashoggi was killed by the Saudis, it is still an issue for Biden.  He called Saudi Arabia a “ pariah” state during the presidential election and he refused to shake the Prince’s hand.

Why?  Although he wasn’t a member of the Washington Post staff, Khashoggi occasionally wrote articles for them.  And, as the Washington Post has considerable power in the White House, they apparently can dictate foreign policy.  In fact, after the fist bump, the Washington Post attacked Biden by calling the action “Shameful.”  The Washington Post said in a statement that it, “projected a level of intimacy and comfort that delivers to MBS the unwarranted redemption he has been desperately seeking.”

Biden later said that the Crown Prince said he wasn’t responsible for the murder.

While Americans are unconcerned about an assassination by the Saudis, and more concerned about skyrocketing oil prices and getting Saudi Arabia to pump more oil, the Washington Post is dictating American foreign policy that is contrary to the wishes of American voters.

The whole of American-Saudi relations seems to rotate around US domestic policy rather than US interests.  The Biden Administration has focused on regulating the American oil industry to force Americans to buy electric cars.  It has also been hostile to foreign oil producers.

However, now that domesticated oil prices have skyrocketed – pushing inflation through the roof, Biden is now forced to come to a country that he called a “pariah” and ask for more oil production from a prince that he was unwilling to shake hands with.

It didn’t help that the US House of Representatives passed two amendments to the Defense bill that limits arms sales to Saudi Arabia even as Biden was flying to Riyadh.

Even a student in international relations would see the problems with that policy.

A bipartisan foreign policy also has advantages.  When the US and Soviet Union signed the SALT treaties, the presidents sought bipartisan help to get these controversial treaties approved.

That is no longer the case.

Obama signed the Paris environmental agreement, knowing full well that it had no chance for ratification in the US Senate.  He did the same with the UN Small Arms Treaty.

Since neither treaty was ratified, Obama merely tried to change US law through administrative regulation.  These regulations were eliminated when Trump was elected.

Biden has continued the same practice and is now observing the Paris Accords even though they have never been submitted to the US Senate for ratification.

Foreign leaders who meet Biden and receive a promise, must realize that without bipartisan agreement in the US Senate any promise made to a foreign leader will last only if Biden is president.  Even a Kamala Harris presidency would be unable to keep a promise as her ascendency to the presidency would automatically mean she is no longer President of the Senate and empowered to cast the deciding vote in a tie.  This would give the Republicans de facto control of the Senate until the Democrats regain the majority.

Given the current polls, it appears that the Democrats will then have to wait until 2024 – or longer.

Biden’s political and foreign policy agenda is seriously crippled.  And it’s not just with allies like Saudi Arabia.  Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi are aware of Biden’s weaknesses.  Although Biden has come out in support of Ukraine and Taiwan, his declining cognitive ability means he is more likely to hesitate in a crisis or even be overruled by one of his advisors.

A sign of this concern is that consulting firms are being regularly asked about the war risks between China and Taiwan.  The FBI director said of the Ukraine war, “There were a lot of Western companies that had their fingers still in the door when it slammed shut.”  “If China does invade Taiwan, we could see the same thing happen, at a much larger scale.”

Biden’s mental condition is also a factor for Israel’s new leadership.  Biden has promised to go to war with Iran to prevent the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon.  Can they really rely on such a promise?  What would the American voters and US Congress think?

Although the American media will try to highlight the positives of the trip, the foreign leaders Biden will meet will get a different impression.

As a result, an American president with cognitive problems and falling popularity back home is trying to regain his power as president and world leader.

The situation was best described by the former Saudi intelligence chief.  Speaking on CNBC, Prince Turki Al-Faisal called Biden a “much diminished president.”

The prince continued, “As an example, on energy issues, he came with a policy to stop completely fossil fuel usage not only in the United States, but worldwide, and now he is finding himself having to rely on fossil fuels as a means of meeting the energy shortage that has come about not only because of the Ukraine war, but also because of US policy that itself shut down pipelines and stopped issuing…discovery of oil on US soil.”

This isn’t the quality of foreign policy usually expected of the US.

Gun violence in Buffalo, New York, and the killing of 19 children and two teachers this week in Uvalde, Texas has raised the issue of gun control once again, and more Americans advocating universal gun background checks.

But the political chemistry has changed.  Senate Majority leader Senator Schumer promised a vote on gun registration on Wednesday, only to step back as it became evident that too many of his Democratic senators were from pro-gun states and could very well lose in November.

This is a far cry from 31 years ago.  Retired Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Warren Burger called the idea that the Second Amendment of the US Constitution granted a personal right to bear arms “one of the greatest pieces of fraud.”  A couple of years later, the US Congress passed a law that restricted so-called Assault Rifles.

The issue has changed dramatically.  The Assault gun ban is no longer in effect and the Supreme Court has ruled that the Right to Bear Arms is a personal right granted by the US Constitution in the 2008 ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller.  The case McDonald v. Chicago expanded that right in terms of what the states could or couldn’t do.

Meanwhile, half the states have passed laws that say any adult who can own a firearm can carry a weapon when he is out in public.  This is called Constitutional Carry and it doesn’t require any permit from the government.

Some other states require a permit to carry a firearm, but mandate that the police issue a permit to any law-abiding citizen that requests one.

Now there is another case that will be ruled upon in the next few weeks – New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen that court observers think will push the right to own and carry a weapon even further, by easing licensing requirements.

So, what do the American people think?  Polling is suspect as many pro and anti-gun organizations craft polls that will show that Americans support their ideas.  However, a Rasmussen Poll released this week, before the Texas shooting, but after the Buffalo shooting showed that 50% of Americans don’t think stricter gun control would help stop mass shootings.

There is a better judge of Americans’ ideas about firearms.  That is the FBI instant background check that shows the number and demographics of buyers of firearms from licensed firearms dealers.  What it shows is that Americans are becoming more firearms “friendly” and less prone to believe in gun control.

No wonder the United States has more firearms than people.  Organizations estimate America has about 400 million firearms in private hands.

However, these changes have taken decades.  In the 1980s and 1990s, there was an increasing look by scholars at the Second Amendment and how it was viewed by the writers of the Constitution.  The evidence that they viewed the right as a personal one has grown so much that even gun control supporters admit the pro-gun views of the Founding Fathers.  Now they argue that the Second Amendment doesn’t fit in the modern age and its urban setting.

The view that the writers of the Constitution saw firearms ownership as a personal right was at the center of the Heller ruling in 2008.

But it is more than the Supreme Court that now holds this opinion.  The American people have taken gun ownership to heart in the last generation.

2008 opened many American’s eyes that the economic systems that are taken for granted were fragile and could disappear.  If emergency services and systems break down, then the only person who can defend one’s family is oneself.  Self-protection always outweighs issues like gun control.

Next was the Covid virus and pandemic.  Government mandates, passports, lockdowns, etc., reinforced the need to protect one’s family, especially since there was a breakdown in essential services.  There was also the concern of government tyranny in the heavy-handed way the epidemic was handled.

Many saw the potential need to escape from Covid infested urban areas and recognized that a firearm was not only a protector, but a potential food provider when the supply chain broke down.  Others, who had fled gun control states like New York ended up in gun friendly states like Florida and discovered that guns were much easier to buy and, consequently, became pro-gun. The BLM protests and the violence occurred in some places convinced many big city residents that a firearm was the only thing that stood between one’s home and rioters.

As a result, the profile of the typical American gun owner is changing.  This is seen in the data from the FBI’s firearms background checks.

In 2020, the FBI reported that about 40 million guns were purchased by American citizens.

In 2020, nearly 40% of gun purchases were from new firearms owners.  That was 8.4 million Americans.  Nearly 30% of the firearms sold in 2021 were to new gun owners.  That is 5.4 million Americans.

In 2020, there was a 58% increase in Blacks buying firearms over the previous year.

Of the new firearms owners in 2021, one third were women.  Of the new female firearms owners in 2020, 23% came back in 2021 to buy another firearm.

42.2% of all gun owners are women.  This is a dramatic increase as previous information showed that only 10% to 20% of women were gun owners.

The idea that only whites own guns is going away.  37% of Black and 26% of Hispanic households own firearms.  The biggest firearms sales in terms of percentages were from black men and women (58.2% increase in 2020).

Gun ownership is becoming popular across races and genders.

As gun ownership has increased in the US, old ideas of gun control are now challenged.

Advocates of gun ownership are claiming that universal gun registration is impractical.  Not only is the idea of successfully managing 400 million firearms in a bureaucracy unthinkable, the idea of registering something that is considered a personal constitutional right is probably unconstitutional.

Red flag laws are also unlikely to pass constitutional muster although they are being considered due to the recent shootings.  In America, a person is innocent until proven guilty.  This means that to take someone’s right to bear arms away, there needs to be some legal proceeding where the gun owner can defend himself.  Letting police, relations or other professionals arbitrarily decide who can own a gun strikes at American legal principles.

Others suggest that any sale of a firearm should require a background check.  At this time, that is impossible given the laws surrounding the FBI instant check.  The current system is frequently overloaded and forcing the same system to handle 400 million firearms would be unmanageable.

Others say anyone on the airline terrorist threat list should be unable to buy a firearm.  However, putting someone on that list is easy and doesn’t require any proof of guilt.  There have been cases of well-known politicians like Senator Ted Kennedy being put on the list accidentally.

Pro-Gun advocates argue that allowing teachers to carry firearms in school would stop many school shootings.

There is very little area for agreement.  That is why Biden is using regulations and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and firearms (BATF) to restrict firearms.  However, since many of these regulations violate federal law, it is likely that these regulations will inevitably be declared unconstitutional.

How much Congress will do is questionable?  Senate Minority Leader Senator McConnell has asked Texas Senator Cornyn to meet to find a bipartisan bill that could pass the Senate.  However, the legislation will be narrowly focused.  Senator McConnell stated that he wanted, “legislation that directly addresses the circumstances of the school shooting in Texas and does not advance the Democratic agenda.”

That will limit the scope of any legislation since the Democrats are talking about drastic gun control legislation.

Despite the outcries of politicians and world leaders calling for gun control in the US, Americans will continue to cling to their guns.  Not only that, given the changing demographics of gun owners and the movement by states to loosen restrictions on carrying a firearm, gun ownership will probably blossom soon.

In fact, the call for gun restrictions this week will likely boost gun sales this month.  As has been seen in the past, the best way to boost gun sales is for the government to threaten to take American’s guns.

Will anything change with the latest killings?  As far as dramatic gun control goes, no.  Americans are a different breed and firearms ownership is the ultimate sign of sovereignty.

Americans will not give that up.

On Thursday, Russian President Putin declared that the Ukrainian city of Mariupol had been “liberated,” even though about 1,000 Ukrainian troops continued to resist the Russians and still held the Azovstal steelworks.  The Russians intend to hold a Victory Day parade in Mariupol to celebrate the victory over Nazi Germany in 1945 and the liberation of Mariupol.

In addition to declaring the battle of Mariupol over, Putin also ordered troops to seal off the Azovstal steel works so tightly that even “a fly cannot pass through.”

So much for moving the troops from Mariupol to the front.  Historically sieges are hard to maintain, and they require more soldiers than the defense.  Since the steel plant is bordered by the Kalmius river and the Sea of Azov, it shouldn’t be hard for soldiers and civilians to escape from the plant if they wish to.

Of course, from Putin’s point of view, his forces control the roads in the Mariupol area, so he does have the coveted land bridge from Russia to Crimea.

There are reports coming out about a partisan resistance between the Crimea and Mariupol.  Information is scant about this force, but it reportedly operates in an area larger than Mariupol and is closer to Ukrainian lines so supplies can reach them.

Russian commanders may have another front to worry about after refitting their Mariupol units.

Meanwhile, the battle for control of the Donbas continues.  The US Army has told reporters in press briefings that the Russians have made probing attacks but have not made any major breakthroughs.

The Russian strategy appears to be to cut off the eastern part of Ukraine by driving north from Donetsk, which is north of Mariupol, and south from Izyum.  If successful they will capture an important coal mining region.  If the Ukraine army continues to fight along the current battlefront, they will be surrounded.

Of course, if the Ukrainians retreat from Donetsk, they will be surrendering a large part of the country.

According to US analysts one major problem for the Russians is that the jumping off point for the northern part of the Russian pincher is Izyum.  Russian supplies run on a road that goes from Belgorod, Russia, skirts the Ukrainian held city of Kharkov, and ends up at Izyum.

This road has become a target for Ukrainian attention, including destroying Russian rail bridges and attacks on Russian villages near the border.

As we have noted in the past, modern conventional warfare requires a continuous supply of parts, fuel, food, and other things necessary for modern warfare.  It doesn’t help that the modern Russian Battalion Tactical Group (BTG) is very reliant on logistics, even though it is considered superior to the American Brigade Combat Team.

Ironically, the Russian BTG was created by the Russian Army to move away from the Cold War military structures of divisions and armies.

After the Cold War, NATO’s interventions in the Balkan nations, Iraq, and Afghanistan caused their armies to evolve into smaller, more mobile units for fighting insurgencies.  In the case of the US, they developed the Brigade Combat Team, which became the basic unit of maneuver for the US Army.  There are three types of teams: infantry, Stryker, and armored.  They are light enough to be deployed anywhere in the world by air transport and operate on their own.  They were ideal for insurgencies like those in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria.

In 2008, Russia moved away from its conventional organization of divisions and transitioned into the BTG.  These units were lighter, easier to deploy around the world, and self-contained – including everything from tanks to mobile air defense.  They were considered superior to the American Brigade Combat Tea, (BCT).  They proved their worth in Syria.

Ironically, their problem was manpower.  Relatively untrained conscripts were 25% – 50% of the Russian BTG manpower.  They were usually kept in non-combat roles like maintenance and logistics.

However, thanks to the large number of heavy weapons attached to the BTG, much of the professional soldier strength was dedicated to operating and protecting the weapons systems.

After subtracting the conscripts and the professional soldiers attached to their heavy weapons that left about 400 to 500 infantries.  After further subtraction of patrol and security, about only 250 soldiers were available for infantry assault tasks.  Given the 3 to 1 ratio of an attacker to defender, that means that a company of about 80 soldiers could possibly hold off a BCT infantry attack.

Another weakness of the Russian infantry is their reliance on fighting inside an armored infantry vehicle.  Unlike their American counterparts, they are not trained in dismounting and carrying out aggressive infantry attacks.

In nations like Syria, the Russians were able to supplement their lack of infantry by using Syrian infantry units.  That’s one reason why the Russians are trying to sign Syrians and others from the Middle East.

The BTG also suffers from the fact that it is designed for insurgencies in remote areas.  It isn’t designed for a large conventional war in Europe, which it is required to fight today in Ukraine.  Large conventional wars require staff of officers to handle the complex problems of conventional warfare.

Although staff have been considered an unnecessary bureaucracy in the military, in warfare on a grand scale, they can solve problems of transportation, logistics, and supplies.  This leaves the generals to develop strategy and the junior and field grade officers to direct the fighting.

Without the staff, the senior officers must frequently visit the front to handle what staff officers once did.  This is one possible reason that the Russians have suffered so many losses in their flag officer ranks.

Although the Russian BGTs are capable, they have been designed to fight in places like Syria, instead of Ukraine – especially Ukraine with some of the most modern weapons available.  They also need large amounts of supplies like fuel, ammunition, repair parts, and food.  Without the constant stream of supplies, the BGTs are limited in what they can do.  Traditional Russian military doctrine of massive artillery bombardments before pushing through enemy lines seems quite difficult.

At this point, the battle of Donbas is in the balance.  Russia’s BGTs lack enough trained manpower.  Their units require a secure logistics system.  They lack the aggressive infantry manpower and tactics that are necessary to support their armored units.  And, if they do advance, there is no guarantee that their supplies will keep up with them.

Pentagon officials like to highlight what they claimed to be a weakness of the Russian Navy, which has lost a cruiser – the biggest Russian navy loss since World War Two.

NATO nations are aware that the key to victory is keeping up the supply of ammunition and man portable anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.  To keep Ukraine in the field will mean hundreds of millions of dollars per week of munitions.

It also appears that NATO is willing to step up its contributions.  The US military has admitted that modern military aircraft have been shipped to Ukraine, along with tanks and armored vehicles.  NATO nations have also ordered their civilian weapons providers to gear up to wartime status.

This leaves Russia in a tight position.  Critical parts for their weapons systems are produced in the West and are now unavailable.  And, although they have a war industry to supply consumables like ammunition, they can’t hope to keep up with NATO’s resupply of Ukraine.  They can try to stop supply convoys from reaching eastern Ukraine, but that will require using its overstretched air force and rapidly disappearing smart munitions.  They can’t use the guerilla tactics the Ukrainians used to attack the Russian convoys in the north of Ukraine.

Again, US and NATO are aiming for a long war of attrition, where Ukraine will continue to resist thanks to the logistics support of NATO.