The best way to fight a war — or to avoid fighting one — is to leave your enemy guessing what you’ll do. Certainly don’t tell them what you are or aren’t willing to do. Donald Trump understood this, as one of his hallmark traits was saying things that were all over the map just to keep people guessing. Joe Biden has determined that his north star is doing the opposite of whatever Trump did, so he’s continuing his bullheaded tradition of what former Defense Secretary Robert Gates summed up as being “wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”

Biden’s latest blunder is telling Vladimir Putin what he is and isn’t willing to do about Ukraine.

Speaking about his rejection of a deal his own secretary of state had worked out to facilitate sending Polish MiG29s to Ukraine, Biden explained, “The idea that we’re going to send in offensive equipment and have planes and tanks and trains going in with American pilots and American crews — just understand, don’t kid yourself, no matter what y'all say, that’s called World War III.” He added, “We will not fight the Third World War in Ukraine.”

Biden has pledged, “I will not send American servicemen to fight in Ukraine.”

But Biden has also sworn to defend “every inch” of NATO territory, and Putin seems to be testing his resolve. Either way, as we’ve written at length, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was made possible by Biden’s weakness, and him telling Putin just what he will and won’t do isn’t going to remedy that.

Neither is sending Cackling Kamala Harris to Europe for a diplomatic mission. We warned in advance of her trip that it was not going to go well. She didn’t disappoint those low expectations.

Her trip was generally not helpful, but one moment encapsulated it. In a joint press conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda, they were asked about handling more than two million Ukrainian refugees. They looked at each other to see who would answer first, and Harris made herself laugh hysterically by saying, “A friend in need is a friend indeed.” She has a habit of maniacally laughing at totally inappropriate moments — like when asked about Biden’s disastrous retreat from Afghanistan. It happens whenever she doesn’t have an answer for a question, which is often.

She reminds us of Hillary Clinton. Both women actually appear to be androids whose “behave like a human” programming sometimes misfires.

So, if Biden and Harris are both totally bungling the situation, what can America do? Send in the TikTok influencers.

We’re not kidding. “On Thursday afternoon, 30 top TikTok stars gathered on a Zoom call to receive key information about the war unfolding in Ukraine,” reports The Washington Post. “National Security Council staffers and White House press secretary Jen Psaki briefed the influencers about the United States’ strategic goals in the region and answered questions on distributing aid to Ukrainians, working with NATO and how the United States would react to a Russian use of nuclear weapons.”

Those influencers — many of them barely out of high school — were then supposed to go and tell their audiences exactly what Team Biden wanted them to. TikTok has become a clearinghouse for Russian and Ukrainian propaganda, so why wouldn’t America join that fun?

In other news, the U.S. consulate in Erbil, Iraq, was the target of a dozen missiles fired by Iran — the same Iran that Biden is working with on a new nuclear deal and that has been emboldened by his weakness in Afghanistan and Ukraine. It’s all related.

To tie all of this together, the point here isn’t that America needs to run headlong into fighting World War III, or even for Biden to thump on his chest threatening it. Bravado is unnecessary. The point is to exude strength and seriousness that convince adversaries of America to avoid messing with us.

Again, the change from the last administration is drastic, as even leftist Hollywood entertainers seem to grasp. “No one was ever ignoring Donald Trump’s calls,” said Comedy Central’s Trevor Noah. “Because if you ignored Donald Trump’s calls, you didn’t know how he would respond. Maybe he’d send an angry tweet, or maybe he’d just, like, ban your country from everything.” HBO comedian Bill Maher understands too: “If Putin thought Trump was really that supportive of him, why didn’t he invade when Trump was in office?”