The Economist March 12th 2022 United States 27JoeBiden’s indispensability
W
hen joe bidentold the Munich Security Conference last
year that “America is back”, it seemed unlikely that any of its
highpowered European delegates fully believed him. Donald
Trump had just won the secondhighest votecount in the history
of presidential elections. Mr Biden, contrary to his stickinthe
mud reputation, appeared as keen to shift diplomatic focus from
Europe to Asia as his immediate predecessors. And indeed his ear
ly efforts to do so, including the disastrous retreat from Afghani
stan and bungled rollout of a new AngloSaxon security pact,
created further doubts about America’s transatlantic leadership.
Mr Biden is now on firmer ground. His administration’s re
sponse to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has been promp
ter, bolder and more effective than even the most faithful Atlanti
cist could have predicted. natois united behind American leader
ship and pushing the boundaries of collective defence. The penal
ties imposed on Russia’s economy are unprecedented and
mounting—and America, as its ban on Russian energy imports
this week signals, is driving them too.
Even in discordant Washington, dc, there is strong support for
Mr Biden’s diplomatic approach (though few Republicans dare
praise the president for it). You have to look back to the immediate
aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001, or to
James Baker’s stellar effort to rally a global coalition against Sad
dam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, for times when so
much of the world, at home and abroad, seemed as solidly behind
America. “The 40 years of experience that we kept talking about
with Joe Biden have finally paid off,” wryly observes Leon Panetta,
a former secretary of defence for Barack Obama.
Mr Biden has also had some advantages. Above all, the hei
nousness of the Russian threat to Europe has underlined the in
dispensability and relative benignity of the American counter
weight. Emmanuel Macron’s shuttle diplomacy, however gallant,
is no answer to a Russian dictator issuing nuclear threats. Mr Pu
tin’s aggression has also shocked somnambulant Europeans into
action. Olaf Scholz’s vow to sharply raise defence spending shows
that Germany, which believed Russia could be tamed through en
gagement, now accepts its aggression needs to be confronted.
The lessons of past failures against Mr Putin—especially the
slowandineffectualWesternresponsetohisseizure of Crimea in
2014—have further reinforced America’s efforts. Memories of Mr
Trump have meanwhile made the Europeans appreciative of Mr
Biden as well as wary. Merely by refraining from bombing Russia
with American planes disguised as Chinese ones, as Mr Trump ad
vocated last week (“And then we say, China did it, we didn’t do it”),
the Democratic president has looked like a significant upgrade.
Still, the administration’s diplomacy has in three ways looked
impressive by any measure. Mr Biden has a tendency to prevari
cate. Yet his Ukraine effort has been decisive. Having predicted Mr
Putin’s invasion months ago (in what looks like a big success for
American and British intelligence), the administration began cor
ralling nato’s response long before either its members or Volody
myr Zelensky, Ukraine’s brave leader, considered the war likely.
And it has done so with quiet relentlessness—drawing on the top
notch diplomatic expertise that Mr Biden has assembled in Tony
Blinken, the secretary of state, Jake Sullivan, the national security
adviser, and William Burns, the director of the cia.
During the Afghanistan debacle, the professionalism of such
figures looked perversely like a liability. Former staffers and dip
lomats, they appeared to lack the necessary political heft to force
Mr Biden onto a better track. But on Ukraine their expertise has
told. Mr Blinken has won especially good reports, reestablishing
the primacy of civil diplomacy over the sabrerattling Mr Trump
loved. But the Biden team appears to be working in unison, as is il
lustrated by a third and more surprising attribute, its creativity.
The administration’s bold use of intelligence to counter Rus
sian misinformation was an early illustration of this. Its success
ful effort to curb Russia’s access to its foreign reserves and energy
markets is another. “It’s fair to say we’ve stiffened some spines,”
says a senior administration figure.
This remains a desperately fraught undertaking. It is unclear,
for example, how far America should go to arm the Ukrainians or
normalise relations with oilrich Venezuela, or even Iran. Yet the
administration is rightly exploring its options. Implicit in a fine
recent biography of Mr Baker, by the journalists Peter Baker and
Susan Glasser, is a gloomy sense that America could no longer rise
to the global occasion as George H.W. Bush’s master statesmanfix
er did in 199091. “We’re not leading,” he complained to his biogra
phers. That seems much less true today.
America’s effort on Ukraine cannot yet be considered success
ful, of course. It did not deter Mr Putin. And it could easily come
unstuck. As the war drags on, and the economic damage to Europe
accumulates, the antiRussia coalition may founder; some poten
tial cracks, on the oil embargo for example, are already visible. Or
else, with the midterms approaching and his ratings underwater,
Mr Biden may succumb to domestic pressures. The Republicans
do not play fair; they blamed the administration for rising petrol
prices even as they clamoured for the sanctions on Russian ener
gy, which will increase the inflationary pressure.Dealing with the devil
It should also be clear that America does not control this crisis. Mr
Putin does, and he seems determined to escalate his war rather
than make any concessions. Unless that changes, which seems
unlikely for now, the penalties that America and its allies have
placed on him will not be sufficient. In which case alternative
means to influence the Russian dictator must be found.That
might require more creativity and political courage than anyone
has yet displayed on Ukraine. May Mr Biden be up to the task.nLexington
The administration has played a weak diplomatic hand on Ukraine skilfully. But the crisis is only beginning