Joe Biden’s disastrous debate is a political crisis for his campaign and his party.
It’s also a threat to national security.
There are two problems. One is that Biden, at age 81, isn’t up to the job anymore, if he ever was.
The other is that everybody now knows it.
Our allies know it. Our enemies know it. And both of them know that American voters know it.
Newspapers around the globe covered the mounting calls for Biden to drop out of the race.
Presidents have a lot of jobs that they can fob off on other people. Once the president sets the general priorities, allies in Congress can do the heavy lifting on passing laws and a budget.
Speechwriters prepare remarks and press releases. Executive orders and agency rules can emerge from the bureaucracy.
A number of these things can be done at a leisurely pace.
Not so with foreign policy.
Decisions and crises can come fast and require swift action.
Remember that Hillary Clinton ad asking whether Barack Obama was ready for the “3 a.m. phone call?”
When Obama sent the SEALs into Pakistan to get Osama bin Laden, he only had a limited window of time to make up his mind. (And even then, he had to ignore Biden telling him not to go).
New circumstances arise that demand that the president decide when to stay the course and when to change tactics.
Biden’s planned timetable for the Afghanistan withdrawal fell apart and descended into chaos. His pier to deliver aid to Gaza has collapsed.
If his foreign policy keeps looking aimless, one reason is that the president can’t provide the sustained focus to adjust to shifting sands.
The American president is unique. We don’t call him the Leader of the Free World for nothing.
Our military and economic might still provide the gravitational force to get other countries on board with confronting the bad guys instead of appeasing them.
Face-to-face impressions matter. When Nikita Khrushchev met John F. Kennedy, he thought Kennedy was a shallow young pretty boy, and the Bay of Pigs disaster confirmed his first impression.
Khrushchev misread his man, but it took until the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear war to dispel that.
So does the personal touch. Ronald Reagan, even into his mid-70s, spent round-the-clock sessions negotiating with Mikhail Gorbachev. It paid off in enough mutual trust to sign real agreements and help unwind the Cold War.
Biden, however, frequently cancels events with foreign heads of state during overseas visits because he’s worn out.
Weakness is provocative, and public weakness is even more provocative.
Our European allies began talking openly about Biden’s weakness after Afghanistan: how he kept them in the dark and got pushed around by the barbaric Taliban.
After that, Xi Jinping didn’t fear to send spy balloons over American airspace.
Vladimir Putin didn’t fear to invade Ukraine.
Hamas didn’t fear to invade Israel.
And they all know that Joe has only faded further with each passing year.
Politically weak presidents are also provocative. Putin invaded Georgia in August 2008, when George W. Bush’s approval ratings were in the 20s at the end of his term.
When Bush was riding high a few years earlier; he had the clout to get Congress and the American people behind assertive steps abroad — even when some lawmakers doubted him.
By 2008, that was gone, and Putin knew it.
It’s a dangerous world. Ukraine is still in deep trouble, and Israel isn’t out of the woods yet. Xi still covets Taiwan. Iran and North Korea are still menaces.
That makes the spectacle of Uncle Sam being paralyzed by an old leader who has lost his grip a lot bigger deal than just a campaign story.
Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review.
Twitter: @BaseballCrank