The Biden Doctrine: Great Powers Conflict, Endless War, and Regime Change

With Biden's open call for regime change in Russia, he has played his hand. Though framed as 'controversial' by the media, Biden was simply expressing what has been US policy for almost twenty years.

Bush's rejection of Putin as an ally in the War on Terror and his withdrawal from the ABM treaty in 2002 represented the first clear signals. I'm sure at that point Putin realized (along with many others) that the War on Terror was not about fighting Salafists. This was a cover for larger imperial aims. Putin was marked and though the policy didn't become more explicit until about 2014 – it has been an open secret and the media campaign has been relentless.

The 'walk back' by the White House staff was orchestrated and pre-planned. I don't believe it was a gaffe at all. It's a common tactic to float an idea and then pull back. Get the discussion going. Stir the pot. That was the goal.

But it's also important to note that with these statements Biden effectively launched a new chapter of 'forever war' under the aegis of Great Powers Conflict – the paradigm unofficially announced by the Pentagon during the Obama years and formally proclaimed with the advent of Trump.

Once again the withdrawal from Afghanistan has been further illuminated. Biden did not intend to end the forever wars as he claimed but rather to shift their focus and I continue to contend that the US relationship with Afghanistan under the Taliban will change. In the new paradigm they are not adversaries but allies and the US will use that critically situated country in its larger geopolitical strategy. The withdrawal went badly because the corrupt proxy government collapsed almost immediately and created those terrible optics reminiscent of Saigon in 1975. Biden is still engaged in damage control with regard to those events and yet they were in keeping with the overall plan which persists.

It is also noteworthy that Biden's policies represent the same overall vision of the Neo-Conservatives who came to dominate the Republican Party and administration of George Bush, and were the architects of his wars. That ideology which was discredited during Bush's second term is now more or less a mainstream view. It has gone through some permutations and there is a spectrum (as indeed there always was) but it now dominates both political parties in the United States.

The long-simmering debate regarding whether Russia is a natural ally in the Samuel Huntington-inspired 'Clash of Civilizations' is now over. The party that advocated the ally with Russia against China position is now silenced and their views rendered irrelevant.

Biden's statements did generate some apprehension on the part of America's European allies. Macron who is pursuing his own goals regarding Europe and NATO was uncomfortable with Biden's statements as they effectively dash any real hopes at a diplomatic solution and the quest for a modus vivendi with Moscow.

This of course was one of Biden's goals as is the continuing news coverage which is tasked with casting doubt on any hope of peace. The latest tactic is to suggest Putin is getting false information and thus with a flawed view of the ground situation, his diplomatic efforts are necessarily insincere and misleading. It's ridiculous but the point is to make sure the public has no hope of the war ending soon. And as such, the efforts of leaders like Macron (who are sincerely trying to broker a peace) are frustrated.

One is reminded of FDR's call for unconditional surrender at the 1943 Casablanca Conference – much to the shock of UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The British PM did not agree with this approach and its implications for the end of the war but was effectively forced to pursue that path. It resulted in mushroom clouds over Japan but in Germany it quashed any impetus on the part of German leaders who might have tried to overthrow Hitler. There was no point. With unconditional surrender Germany would be lost and subjugated. Nevertheless some tried and failed in July 1944, but it was too little too late.

For NATO leaders, the Biden statement puts them in a similar quandary. For Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz this is undoubtedly an unhappy revelation. And while Scholz has complied with US pressure regarding Nordstream 2 and the purchase of US liquefied natural gas (LNG), Germany's response to Ukraine has been tepid in some respects – and telling. While Berlin's military budget has been tripled and all manner of militarisation is underway, Germany's actual commitment to Kyiv has been limited and relatively little in the way of weapons and aid has been sent. Paris and Berlin realize they're being trapped by Washington and Biden just upped the ante as it were.

As is always the case it's worth noting that for the defense contractors and manufacturers of the war machine – happy days are here again. A new bonanza is underway and more or less anyone in the United States with a mutual fund, 401k, or some variety of index funds is going to 'cash in' on all this. Defense contractors are always a safe bet and almost every investment strategist looks to them. This includes not only myriad individual Christians, but denominations, ministries, and institutions that have investments and pension funds. They too are part of the war machine and like it or not bear some of the burden of guilt. They have not been faithful to their Lord.

Once again it's clear Biden and the forces behind US policy have no plans to end the Ukraine War but to prolong it. After Ukraine it will be somewhere else. Putin finally has reacted to the trap and has revised his strategy and war aims. How he will do so without losing face is difficult to say. In a state of damage control, he sees the inevitable failure and maybe retreating from his larger project in Ukraine now allows him to put a gloss on the narrative and retain power before his regime faces total collapse from internal opposition and a Western-backed uprising.

In the midst of these events the US Right has launched cynical attacks against Biden for his 'flip-flopping' and they assert that it makes the US look weak when the White House staff is forced to scramble and constantly 'fix' Biden's words and engage in damage control.

This would be comical but apparently many of these commentators (and evidently their audience) suffer from serious memory loss coupled with a deep moral blindness that produces hypocrisy and destroys conscience. Every other day Trump would blurt out something that sent the White House staff into damage control. The press secretaries became serial liars and spin doctors on an even greater scale than what is normally seen. The Right-wing media defended Trump and helped gloss over his embarrassing statements and flaunted ignorance. Eventually it got so bad that they abandoned not only press conferences but even the daily briefings.

There's plenty to criticize when it comes to Biden and his administration, but the Right (despite their flag waving) has no interest in the larger country, actual issues, or anything approaching the truth. They simply want to seize power and destroy their domestic political opponents. The rise of such morally and ideologically bankrupt factions is a warning to both American society and its political order. Decadence has taken over and the system is in crisis and nearing collapse.