The administration is having a tough time deploying the electric vehicle chargers President Biden promised. Americans seeking to upgrade their reliable, gas-powered pickup trucks and SUVs are just not buying the new-fangled electric alternatives because, among other things, there’s nowhere to plug them in. A brand-new McKinsey consumer survey confirmed the inconvenience is driving 46% of current EV owners to want to go back to internal combustion. Mr. Biden saw this coming and allocated $7.5 billion for the construction of 500,000 charging stations way back in 2021. So far, seven stations have been completed. According to the Energy Information Administration, 79% of America’s electricity is generated by fossil fuels or nuclear power. There’s less than a 15% chance any given EV charger’s juice comes from windmills and solar panels ― the only power sources approved by Greta Thunberg. Lawmakers should also consider pausing EV tax credits and related grant programs until the industry can demonstrate the entire chain from the EV factory to the charging station is truly green ― that is, powered by locally sourced windmills and solar panels. Otherwise, EVs aren’t serving their true purpose of saving the planet. This proposal wouldn’t impact the sale of cutting-edge EV technology. A study released recently by the Energy Institute at the University of California, Berkeley confirms the average EV buyer is so wealthy that handouts aren’t necessary. Economists found the most privileged Americans have been the ones cashing $7,500 checks from Uncle Sam after adding a Tesla, Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt to their four-car garage.

Mr. Putin has taken that extortion tactic to a new level, but the Kremlin’s current “boulders” amount not to well-calculated gambits but to risky acts of desperation. Mr. Putin knows that the stakes for the U.S. and our allies on the Korean Peninsula could not be higher. Buoyed by significantly increased trade with Russia, which has helped alleviate the pressure from painful international economic sanctions, Mr. Kim scrapped a long-standing policy of seeking peaceful reunification with South Korea while ramping up his nuclear ballistic missile program. The relationship has already paid dividends: In March, Moscow vetoed a U.N. resolution to renew monitoring of North Korea’s violations of Security Council sanctions. Russia’s newly signed mutual assistance treaty with North Korea will only encourage Mr. Kim to engage in even more provocative military action against South Korea and the U.S., increasing the risk of a perilous miscalculation on the divided, heavily armed peninsula. A Russian intelligence officer once told me that for Mr. Putin, all that mattered was to survive today, even if that meant creating a bigger problem for tomorrow. Given all that, the U.S. should respond by implementing a more comprehensive policy to deter and defend against Mr. Putin’s aggressive foreign policy. That means strengthening our relationships with Japan and South Korea as a counter to North Korea; carrying on to the fullest extent possible support to Ukraine in its existential war against Russia; and seeking to drive a wedge between Mr. Putin nd his allies, particularly China, which likely does not appreciate Mr. Putin’s destabilizing provocations on the Korean Peninsula.

There’s a popular expression in Finland that best characterizes Russian President Vladimir Putin’s national security strategy: “In desperate times, law does not matter.” Mr. Putin, of course, has never had any real respect for the rule of law, which he has brazenly violated to remain in power for over two decades. But the onetime KGB agent now faces arguably the most desperate time of his presidency because of his unprovoked war on Ukraine. Mr. Putin’s transformed Russia into a rogue pariah state, the capstone of which was his visit last month to Pyongyang. Against the backdrop of a propaganda campaign designed to show that Russia is not diplomatically isolated, Mr. Putin sought to ensure fellow rogue pariah state North Korea would continue to supply the artillery he needs to rain down on Ukrainian civilians and strike a deal for North Korean engineering troops to help rebuild Russian-occupied cities in eastern Ukraine. Mr. Putin traveled hat in hand to North Korea because he finds himself dependent these days on the goodwill of regime leader Kim Jong Un, just as he relies on Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for buying discounted Russian oil and natural gas, and on Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for supplying drones to his army. But most important, Mr. Putin hopes to pressure South Korea not to send arms to Ukraine by using North Korea as a proxy to dial up the cost of interfering in Russia’s military plans for Kyiv. Legendary U.S. diplomat Max Kampelman, a renowned arms control negotiator, called out his Soviet counterparts for placing “ boulders in the road” in arms talks and then charging the U.S. and its allies to pay for their removal.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s June 19 visit to Pyongyang to meet with Kim Jong Un and memorialize a “comprehensive strategic partnership with North Korea” contributed to concerns in East Asia that an emboldened North Korea could incite conflict on the Korean Peninsula, with likely spillover instability into Northeast Asia and beyond. This new allied Russian relationship with North Korea is understandably of concern to South Korea and Japan, with more willingness to work more closely with NATO, while ensuring that the U.S. and its extended nuclear deterrence commitments are enhanced, with an active nuclear consultative process. Russia’s new and upgraded relationship with North Korea must be of some concern to the leadership in Beijing. An emboldened North Korea may incite conflict with South Korea as it did in 2010 with the sinking of a South Korean frigate, killing 47 seamen. Any provocation will be met with a strong response from South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and his administration, committed to a strong defense policy. Indeed, a nuclear North Korea and the potential for conflict on the Korean Peninsula, with likely instability in Northeast Asia, is not in China’s interest. Chaos in Eurasia may be Mr. Putin’s eventual intent, but China needs to focus on its economy and a stated policy of “innovation through greater disruptive technology and scaling up high-end manufacturing.” Russia’s new alliance with North Korea could interfere with China’s emphasis on economic growth, innovation, jobs for young people and fixing the housing market. Indeed, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s focus is on top-down and centralized economic governance.

In a recent survey, 17% of French Muslims said they hate Jews. Almost 40% have a “bad” or “very bad” opinion of Judaism. Not surprisingly, 45% say they want Israel destroyed and condone the murder, rape and torture of Israelis on Oct. 7 as “an act of resistance.” According to the Council for Jewish Institutions in France, the number of antisemitic incidents increased 400% last year. Almost all violent acts of antisemitism are committed by Muslims. Among the general population, there are approximately 120 knife attacks and 200 rapes a day, most committed by Muslim men. France has the largest number of no-go zones in Europe (751) ? off-limits to police, controlled by street gangs and radical imams. Lately, Mr. Macron has had little to say on the subject of Islam’s growing influence on French society. His new radical partners see any move against the troubling trend as intolerant and favor mass immigration. Demography is destiny. The fertility rate is 1.8 for all French women, well below the replacement level of 2.1. For Muslim women, it’s 2.9. The former head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, Hans-Georg Maassen, declares, “Europeans will succumb to Islam.” If Ms. Le Pen’s party were serious about preserving La Republique, it would support a crash program to encourage large families, as Viktor Orban’s government has in Hungary. But for that to succeed, France would need to return to its Christian roots. Whether France is to remain the nation of St. Joan and Victor Hugo will depend on whether this generation of Frenchmen produces the next generation of Frenchmen.

France’s recent election shows a nation in turmoil. Many French citizens are afraid that “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” will give way to “Allahu akbar.” The U.S. media report the election as a surprise victory for the left and a defeat for Marine Le Pen’s “far-right” National Rally party. It’s a bit more complicated than that. A coalition of socialists, communists and Islamists will have the most seats in the next Parliament, though not a majority. No party will be able to govern alone. National Rally will go from 88 seats in the current National Assembly to 142 seats due to the election ― not a bad consolation prize. The party’s rise reflects the concerns of a nation on the brink. In a 2023 poll, 87% said they feared a civil war as a result of open immigration and Islamic extremism. France has the largest Muslim population in Europe ― currently 10% and expected to rise to 17% by 2050. It’s hard to imagine a group less likely to assimilate into French society. Every two weeks, another church closes and another mosque opens. There are now more than 2,500 mosques in the land of Charles Martel, including one in Toulouse that can accommodate 4,000 worshippers. Like most Europeans, the French are nominally Christian ― 64% identify with Catholicism. But only 4.5% say they’re practicing Catholics. Of French Muslims, 75% describe themselves as “believers.” Among those 18 to 25 years old, 57% support the imposition of Shariah (Islamic law), which is incompatible with democratic values.

In much of the Arab Middle East today, Mr. Murray points out, “black people are referred to as Abid’ (plural Abeed’), which literally translates as ‘slave.’” He adds: “There are estimated to be over forty million people living in slavery around the world today” ? which is more than in the 19th century. Anti-Westerners don’t give a fig. Another contention of the anti-Western crowd, Mr. Murray observes, is that “nobody in the world can do anything wrong unless the West has made them do it.” I learned that as a newspaper correspondent in Africa years ago when several of my editors discouraged me from focusing on such issues as corruption, ethnic/tribal conflicts and the failure of the “socialist path to development.” Their preferred macro-narrative was that the new nations of Africa were doing just fine, and whatever problems remained were “the legacy of colonialism.” Western “self-hatred and self-distrust,” Mr. Murray observes, are being used by the West’s enemies “for their own ends.” It is “enormously helpful to China today, as it was to the Soviets in the past, to encourage the perception of America as uniquely racist and China as uniquely virtuous,” he writes. “It allows Beijing to get away with grotesque rights abuses of its own. It distracts Western attention.” “And it suggests that the West has always been worse than any other civilization, meaning that the West is uniquely unqualified to pass moral judgment today.” In other words, denigrators of the West are strategic partners of those seeking to diminish, defeat and perhaps destroy the West.

Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Xi Jinping’s China. Ali Khamenei’s Iran. Al-Qaida. The Islamic State. These and other actors are waging a war on the West, a war against Western power and values. Some Westerners are mounting a vigorous defense. Others are arguing ― vehemently and incessantly ― that the West is morally inferior to the rest of the world and therefore indefensible. Douglas Murray’s new book, “The War on the West,” looks at the Westerners who denigrate the West. No greater threat exists, he writes, “than that which comes from people inside the West intent on pulling apart the fabric of our societies piece by piece.” Anti-Westernism has been taken up energetically on American and European campuses and in much of the elite media. Mr. Murray points out that it has become common for bien-pensant academics to dismiss such Enlightenment philosophers as John Locke and David Hume as racists based on scant evidence. At the same time, Karl Marx, whose racism was both virulent and consistent, gets a pass because he was a Marxist. Anti-Westerners determinedly ignore progress. What’s more, they are either ignorant of or uninterested in racism elsewhere in the world. Clarissa Tan attempted to call attention to the prevalence of racial bias in Asia. She noted, for example, that people like her, ethnically Chinese but with Western values, are derided as “bananas,” that is to say, “yellow on the outside but white on the inside.” In Asia, too, “Racism against black people remains ingrained and commonplace,” Mr. Murray writes. This has become especially egregious in the growing number of African countries now dominated by “new Chinese masters” ostensibly engaged in economic development but, in reality, draining the continent’s natural resources.

China’s primary geopolitical goal is to displace the United States as a global power, and it is taking advantage of the Israel-Hamas war to expand its influence in the Middle East. The Chinese Communist Party sees its rivalry with the U.S. as a zero-sum game, and so it welcomes any weakening of Israel, a close U.S. ally. It also views the disruption of the Abraham Accords as a win for Iran and the larger Beijing-Moscow-Tehran axis. The reality, however, is that China is not ready to play with the “big boys” in the Middle East. China cannot project its military power, intimidate economically, or manipulate diplomatically enough to challenge U.S. influence directly. The attacks on Israel are the latest manifestation of aggression invited by the provocative weakness of the Biden administration. This perception of vulnerability inspired Vladimir Putin, who had been deterred during the Trump administration, to invade Ukraine in February 2022. In addition, the reckless investment of diplomatic capital, foreign aid, and irreplaceable material and munitions in the war has emboldened China’s threats against Taiwan. China has taken advantage of the situation by staging unprecedented live-fire exercises and unrelenting sea and air incursions into Taiwan’s territorial waters over the past two years. In the current conflict, China has presented itself as neutral but has effectively taken Hamas’ side. Xi Jinping has been promoting his Global Security Initiative, explicitly pushing an alternative vision to the U.S.-led international order, including a more ambitious strategy of diplomatic and economic engagement across the Middle East.

Decades ago, China initiated a “one child per household” policy, which it has been unable to reverse despite a now-falling population. A rising tide of the elderly and a fall in productive workers is not sustainable. In the 1960s and 1970s, influential scientists and media outlets warned of an impending ice age because of observed temperature declines in the preceding decades. This hypothesis, however, was soon overtaken by a new consensus on global warming. But the beat goes on. “We don’t have 12 years to save the climate. We have 14 months,” the now-defunct news website ThinkProgress predicted 55 months ago. In 1989, a U.N. report predicted that “entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.” Thirty-five years after the report, no nation (or inhabited island) has disappeared because of rising sea levels. There are almost countless environmental disaster forecasts whose expiration date has come and gone ? yet new forecasts (with only a change in the doomsday date) keep appearing, often by the same “experts” who have been wrong. Western analysts in the 1980s believed that the Soviet Union was a permanent geopolitical fixture that would endure. Indeed, the rapid collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 caught most experts by surprise. Much of this miscalculation was because of an overestimation of the Soviet economy, an underestimation of political corruption, and growing public discontent within the Soviet bloc. Expert opinions and predictions that have failed underscore the need for humility and caution when making and relying on experts.