Aside from the honest worry for the health of the current occupant of the Oval Office, we have to be concerned about what Biden’s repeated physical failings do to the standing of the United States around the world and at home.

In just the 24 hours before the “trips heard around the world,” Russian president Vladimir Putin mockingly called out Biden, and challenged the American president to a live virtual debate. He wasted no time in clearly attacking Biden’s health troubles after Biden said he believes that the authoritarian Russian ruler is a killer. “I wish you good health,” Putin replied.

On the same day, at a U.S.-China summit in Alaska, the leaders of the Chinese delegation forcefully admonished and embarrassed Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. The Chinese side stated, and demonstrated, that the Chinese Communist Party does not believe that the current American administration is dealing from a position of strength.

So, in a single day, two of our biggest adversaries loudly threw down the gauntlet to Joe Biden and his team.

The response? A vision of our country’s chief executive stumbling and bumbling up a flight of stairs.

To add insult to injury, China is now loudly flouting American-imposed sanctions by buying massive amounts of oil from Iran and Venezuela. The term “international embarrassment” does not even begin to cover it.

There is precedent for what happens when a major power is rudderless—precedent that I have lived through before.

I was born in Moscow. My family and I are Jewish refugees from Russia and no to the deranged Left, that doesn’t make me a spy.

I was just a little kid during the end of the Brezhnev era and the short-lived tenures of the following Soviet premiers, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, but I experienced the disastrous results. All three were way over the hill and lacked any semblance of vigor or actual control over the vast country they were supposed to steward.

The Soviet Union went from being a hegemon that defeated Nazi Germany on the Eastern Front of World War II in 1945 to a laughing stock by 1985—and ceased to exist by 1991. The fact that its chiefs were decrepit and way past their prime unquestionably played a role in the swift demise of this world power.

The USSR did not only lose international respect because its adversaries were constantly poking fun at the total lack of functional leadership. Its leaders’ frailty also had tangible effects on diplomacy and domestic politics. President Reagan once commented that he couldn’t deal with the Soviet Union because its heads of state kept dying.

Further, the people lost morale and confidence in their own government. That included the military, the working class and the younger political class, all of whom became disillusioned to the point that the country as a whole mimicked its premiers and effectively ceased to function.

I am not saying that the United States is in danger of total collapse because Joe Biden is not operating on all cylinders.

The danger of Biden’s current state is that America will decline and lose its position as a behemoth on the world stage that it regained under President Donald J. Trump.

Moreover, and even more importantly, there is a grave danger that Biden’s weaknesses will cause America’s will and confidence to deteriorate to a point from which a rebound will prove difficult, if not impossible.

So much for Biden’s declaration that “America is back.” On the 2020 campaign trail, proxies and handlers promised that a Biden administration would allow “for America to restore dignified leadership at home and respected leadership on the world stage.”

The realities of the Biden presidency have so far looked very different.

Boris Epshteyn is a Newsweek columnist and a former Special Assistant to President Trump.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.