“Loose lips sink ships,” was a WWII idiom. It meant watch your mouth; enemies listen and react. President Biden’s mouth is dangerous, not because of what he is doing, but because of the impression left – that he does not know what he is doing. Words matter. Misuse of them matters. In some cases, misuse of words is profoundly dangerous, and can be provocative. He is at the line.
Within the past week, Biden has said things susceptible to misinterpretation by stressed, trigger-happy adversaries. In the present environment, watching your tongue matters. Wrong words could trigger an unexpected reaction, widening the conflict in Europe.
Biden is literally a loose cannon – someone needs to control his mouth. Get the index card right, keep him on it, stop letting him wander into a zone that invites misinterpretation and retaliation. This is not funny, not political, and not something to get on later. His handlers need to get on it now.
Last Friday, March 25, Biden was in Poland. Poland is a NATO member, one of our tightest, best, God-love-them allies. While there, Biden made various statements.
In one, speaking to the 82nd Airborne, referring to Ukraine – Biden said: “You’re going to see when you’re there – some of you have been there – you’re going to see women, young people, standing in the middle, in front of a damn tank, saying ‘I’m not leaving.” See, e.g., Biden tells US troops they’ll be in Ukraine in war gaffe;
This is reckless, seven ways from Sunday. Ukraine is not a NATO member, so if we – or any NATO country – interceded with offensive weapons or troop deployments, that tells Russia, we are stepping over the line, are in the game, in the fight, come at us.
If your goal is de-escalation, bad strategy. Implying you are thinking about it, expecting it, might do it – especially talking to the 82nd Airborne – is a bad plan. Putin saw that, guaranteed. He either thinks Biden is thinking about that, or Biden is not entirely with it, sloppy thinker.
Let’s hope the latter, not without risks, but better than thinking Biden is blabbing a classified plan he forgot not to talk about.
The statement is reckless also because, while he was likely thinking of training regimes deployed in past years, it sounds like we may have been recently in the country. That, too, is a bad message, provocative.
Then, like a school kid trying to impress the yard with mastery of cursing, Biden says the 82nd will – when there, which they are not supposed to be – see a Ukrainian “standing in front of a damn tank, saying ‘I’m not leaving.’”
If anything signals Biden’s tendency to mix messages, pull from the distant past, cross the dotted line, that statement is it. Ukrainians are confronting infantry and tanks, but the reference is really to “tank man,” a Chinese dissident who stood down a Chinese tank on June 5, 1989, in Tiananmen Square.
In any event, the statement was over-the-top, unnecessarily provocative, and, let us hope, just sloppy. The White House scrambled, trying to imagine away, reinterpret, correct, and bury the folly.
Next, on Saturday, Biden boldly declared – like FDR talking to Hitler in December 1941 or GWB talking about Saddam Hussain in 2003 – “Putin cannot remain in power.” See, e.g., Why Biden’s off-script remarks about Putin are so dangerous; France’s Macron warns against escalation after Biden says Putin ‘cannot remain in power’; Biden calls for Putin’s removal: ‘For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power’.
Wow, okay, that comes with some Biden-splaining. Is that because, unbeknownst to the world, we have a secret plan to oust him? Not likely. See, e.g., Ukrainian official says Russia is trying to split country in 2; Blinken walks back Biden regime remark: Live Ukraine updates.
Is that because Russians are throwing him out? No, don’t see that yet, not in the near term. Is that because Biden is king of the world and can make that happen? No, wrong again.
So, why say such a foolish thing, especially in a tone and with the conviction that you can make some alternate future happen? Was that necessary? Constructive? Likely to be received with a yawn? Not likely.
So, with a dozen other examples in the past month, here is the point. “Loose lips sink ships,” and in the world of bobbled, hobbling mid-war diplomacy, Biden’s loose, strange, unconsidered words can and may create a series of “circus mirror” reactions, intentional or accidental misinterpretations of what is said.
What we do not need is sloppy thinking, slopping words, or a sloppy – verbally unanchored – voice at the head of NATO, or in the role of Commander in Chief. Biden may not like it, may not want to be anything other than a hail-fellow-well-met, but he is the US President during a crisis, on the cusp of an expanded major war.
In short, Biden needs to get his act together, or those around him need to get the act together, stop these potentially significant verbal lapses. Our adversaries may think he is slipping, already slipped; that is bad enough. But if they resolve he means these things, it gets worse fast.
With the highest possible respect for the office, this president needs to tighten his grip on the English language, improve his verbal performance. Right now, his words – loose lips – are dangerous.