WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ SU A
United States and our Allies will
defend every inch of territory of
NATO countries with the full
force of our collective power,” he
said.
Democracy versus authoritar-
ianism has been a theme of
Biden’s presidency since he was
inaugurated. But until now, the
discussion has often had a do-
mestic tinge rather than a global
one — a counter to the assault
by former president Donald
Trump and his loyalists on the
pillars of democratic govern-
ment in the United States.
Now, what Biden has talked
about is on vivid display in an
international context, as an iso-
lated dictator seeks to recreate a
Russian empire and impose his
will on a neighboring state, one
with a free and functioning de-
mocracy. Talk of an existential
struggle between democracy
and authoritarianism no longer
seems theoretical with Russians
bombarding Kyiv and Kharkiv
in the face of serious resistance
from Ukraine’s army and its gal-
vanized citizenry.
“In the battle between democ-
racy and autocracy, democracies
are rising to the moment, and
the world is clearly choosing the
side of peace and security,”
Biden said. “This is a real test.”
But, he added, “It’s going to take
time. So let us continue to draw
inspiration from the iron will of
the Ukrainian people.”
When Biden came to office,
his focus in this struggle be-
tween democracy and autocracy
was more on the threats from a
rising China and its president,
Xi Jinping. Now he is preoccu-
pied with Putin and Russia, and
there are questions about
whether the administration can
manage both those challenges
while dealing with everything
else. Yet there seems no choice
but to do so.
Ahead of Biden’s speech, U.S.
foreign policy analysts were say-
ing that the world as it has been
known for the past three dec-
ades, since the breakup of the
Soviet Union, is now gone and
perhaps irrevocably so, requir-
ing economic, diplomatic and
military responses.
To many in Europe, all this is
quite clear already — that Putin
has broken the mold and there
is no going back, and that re-
building a relationship with the
Russian leader is out of the
question.
“This is epochal,” said Fran-
cois Heisbourg, senior fellow at
the International Institute for
Strategic Studies in Paris. “We
don’t know where it’s going to
go, but we have left port. We are
somewhere very different.”
Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, di-
rector of the Berlin office of the
German Marshall Fund of the
United States, said in an email,
“Never in my life have I seen an
about-face quite like that in Ger-
man politics.”
He was referring not just to
the closing of the unopened
Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline —
built to bring natural gas from
Russia to Germany — but more
to the announcement by Ger-
man Chancellor Olaf Scholz that
his country would increase its
defense budget by more than
$100 billion and break long-
standing policy by shipping an-
ti-tank and anti-aircraft weap-
ons to Ukraine.
“This represents the moment
Germany has become comfort-
able with being a military power
in Europe and Europe has be-
come comfortable with Ger-
many as a military power,”
Kleine-Brockhoff said.
Both credited Biden and his
administration for months of di-
plomacy and intelligence shar-
ing that helped to produce the
unified and rapid response to
punish Russia economically and
isolate Putin and his country in
every way possible. But this will
not be a battle of short duration.
As long as Putin remains in
power, the unity and resilience
of the West will matter — and
Biden, as the president of the
most powerful country in the al-
liance, will remain at a focal
point in keeping the pressure on
indefinitely.
“When the history of this era
is written, Putin’s war on
Ukraine will have left Russia
weaker and the rest of the world
stronger,” Biden said Tuesday
night. “While it shouldn’t have
taken something so terrible for
people around the world to see
what’s at stake, now everyone
sees it clearly.”
This is a message he will have
to repeat over many weeks and
months.Biden wasted no time in ad-
dressing the war in Ukraine,
opening his speech with ringing
praise for the courage and resil-
ience of the Ukrainian people,
condemnation for Putin and an
expression of resolve by the
United States to make the Rus-
sian leader pay for his trans-
gressions. “We are inflicting
pain on Russia and supporting
the people of Ukraine,” he said.
“Putin is now isolated from the
world more than ever.”
His words drew an outpour-
ing of cheers and applause from
Democrats and Republicans in
the House chamber in a sign of
just how much Putin has united
a divided America, just as he
has united most of the rest of
the world.
“He [Putin] thought he could
roll into Ukraine and the world
would roll over,” Biden said. “In-
stead he met a wall of strength
he never imagined. He met the
Ukrainian people.”
But while the speech included
stirring rhetoric, Biden said
much less about the longer-term
consequences of what is unfold-
ing in Europe. He was very
much in the moment at a time
when the war rages on inconclu-
sively.
The president did not, howev-
er, step back to set the events in
the historical context of the first
major land war in Europe since
World War II and how America’s
security and diplomatic priori-
ties might be reshaped by what
could be a lengthy struggle to
keep Putin isolated and con-
tained.
Nor did Biden make a con-
certed effort to say why he be-
lieves Americans should be in-
vested in this new struggle. Af-
ter his opening remarks about
Ukraine, he quickly shifted to
the domestic portion of the
speech, which consumed most
of his time. Only at the end did
he return to the international
challenge. “Now is the hour,” he
said. “Our moment of responsi-
bility. Our test of resolve and
conscience, of history itself. It is
in this moment that our charac-
ter is formed. Our purpose is
found. Our future is forged....
We will save democracy.”
Only rarely does a president’s
State of the Union address co-
incide with this kind of interna-
tional crisis, and it caused some
significant revisions of Biden’s
text. While the fighting in
Ukraine might seem to some
Americans as distant from the
problems of high inflation and
the lingering disruptions from
the coronavirus pandemic, what
has happened over the past
week overseas could well define
his presidency as much as the
domestic issues that have been
his focus for most of his first
year in office.
Abroad, elite opinion has giv-
en the president and his admin-
istration high marks for their
handling of the run-up to last
week’s invasion. Through almost
nonstop diplomacy over many
months, and because Putin did
what many thought he would
not do, NATO is more united
and robust than it has been in
many years, the European
Union has found its voice, and
individual European countries
— most notably Germany —
have undertaken wholesale
changes in their security pos-
tures.
But the future of the conflict
in Ukraine is far from certain
and Russia could yet achieve its
goal of taking over the former
Soviet country. The road ahead
could be long and difficult, even
if the fighting eventually sub-
sides. For Biden, who has spent
decades dealing with foreign
policy issues and whose orienta-
tion long has been toward
America’s transatlantic alli-
ances, Tuesday’s speech offered
a unique platform from which
to describe for Americans the
risks, opportunities and likely
costs to their pocketbooks that
the battle between Putin and
the West will bring.
Biden touched briefly on the
possible short-term costs, say-
ing, “I’m taking robust action to
make sure the pain of our sanc-
tions is targeted at Russia’s
economy. And I will use every
tool at our disposal to protect
American businesses and con-
sumers.”
He also, again, sought to reas-
sure Americans that he will not
send U.S. forces to fight in
Ukraine. At the same time, how-
ever, he reiterated America’s
commitment to NATO. “The
TAKE FROM A
‘We will save democracy’:
Biden’s fight takes on
global proportions
STATE OF THE UNIONJABIN BOTSFORD/THE WASHINGTON POST
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