Do you think it is the fault of current leaders, that they are pusillanimous? You are wanting conviction politicians, but The West has lost its integrity, its values, its way. It's more likely the system and democracy and the freedom of the individual.
First, just try to compare where we were, say after the last war, when the international community had an agreed set of rules, a community of member nation states, the organisations to run those rules, and the confidence, resources and power to do so;
compare that with today.
Look at the path The West has taken. Which includes a five-fold increase in the cost of oil, politicians opening the doors to admit peoples very different from our own, believing the new arrivals would help them win votes and then look at what they did with their power.
The internet which has played to the weakness in our value of freedom of the individual, split us into millions of waring micro-groups and led to a tyranny of the Woke minority.
Look at how the West has given away, or had stolen from it, its patents and technologies, taken into opposing nations and trading blocks who abuse this knowledge and us, but who could never have done it on their own.
Nation building was a brilliant idea. I was involved, myself, in a tiny way, in Algeria. Failed so miserably, as culture trumps politics and economics, opposing value systems, The West putting the individual first before the group has only ever happened once, and that for just a short few hundred years, since Adam Smith maybe (tell me it was the Greeks), killed by our adversaries and killed by covid.
Just random thoughts.
For a pretty light foorprint, we had some security against terrorism and China.
It is a world of nation states, with little info on the intentions of the others, except that they plan to devour you.
Best to first assure your security, then plan your empire.
That might sound like pure evil, but it is the nature of man.
Think global, act local. Reflect on that simple advice. It is where planning meets opportunity.
Biden and his people, the woke, the left, this sort of creative thinking, is not affordable at this time.
It has been a long time coming, but we should prepare for the fight of our lives.
Just warning the soft hearted, the deluded - also warning those that know this and are here to mislead and betray you....to troll you.
Take care everybody, the Taliban in or out of power are not a big deal, but overall we need to be serious about the level of danger and future conflict.