My Review of Bob Woodward's "War"

Biden’s Wars

Washington Post writer Bob Woodward has chronicled every president since Bill Clinton. In this book he focuses on Biden’s three wars, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Gaza. Unfortunately, he fails to discuss the most electorally significant war that was a result of Biden’s open border policy. Although not characterized as a war, the invasion/arrival of 10 million illegal/undocumented immigrants at our southern border seemed like a war to those Americans living in the Southwest and later to those living in the cities where they were bussed to. 

Woodward glances over the debacle in Afghanistan where Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from that country permanently reduced his poll standing. I have yet to see who was fired for allowing this to happen.

Biden initially does much better with Ukraine. Here we witness the actions of Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin seamlessly performing as a team. Of course, it is my guess that those three were Woodward’s sources for what happened. Benefitting from excellent intelligence the team warns Putin and notifies Ukrainian President Zelensky that Russia was about to invade. The public release of the intelligence was unprecedented, and it helped prepare Ukraine and the American people for what was to lie ahead.

Contrary to expectations in the West, Ukraine survived the initial Russian assault and then began a counter offensive aided by U.S. weaponry. It is here where the Biden team fails. Instead of going all-in with all kinds of offensive weapons, the team dilly-dallies preventing Ukraine from pressing its advantage. As a result, the stalemate we have now ensues. The Biden rationale for going slowly was the fear that Russia might introduce nuclear weapons into the conflict. Although plausible, we don’t have any Russian sources to back this conjecture up.

After the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas, Biden goes all-in in support of Israel, and he visits the country a few weeks after. However, after the casualties start rising in Gaza the administration starts going soft. This is highlighted in the July 1924 meeting between Vice President Kamala Harris, now a presidential candidate, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. While being supportive and diplomatic with Netanyahu in private, she stuns the Israelis with a very strong public statement critical about how Israel is fighting the war and the casualties in Gaza it is causing. That along with a slowdown in certain arms deliveries to Israel, highlighted the growing breach between the Biden White House and Netanyahu.

In all three cases it seems to me that Biden’s strategy was to “end wars” not to win them. (See:  https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2024/05/joe-no-win-biden.html) This strategy ended in disaster in Afghanistan, and it is certainly not helping in Ukraine and Gaza.

There were two widely reported scoops coming out of Woodward’s book. The first being that Trump supplied Putin with Covid testing kits when they were scarce in the U.S. and second Army Chief of Staff Milley calling Trump a fascist. There was third one, not so widely reported where Biden demonstrated significant mental decline at a Silicon Valley fundraiser in June 2023, a year before his disastrous debate performance. The country would have been saved a lot of anguish if this were reported earlier.

Woodward’s book is a helpful guide to understanding the Biden years, but it is far from definitive. We learn more as his staffers write their own memoirs in the years to come.