the times | Friday March 18 2022 29
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Buy prints or signed copies of Times cartoons from our Print Gallery at timescartoons.co.uk or call 020 7711 7826Biden’s natural caution borders on timidity
The US president has ceded leadership of the battle to Europeans and the only red lines he’s drawing are on his own side
1991 to reverse Saddam Hussein’s
invasion of Kuwait. He supported the
second Gulf war (perhaps confirming
the rather cruel line of a critical
colleague years later that he has been
wrong on every important foreign
policy issue of the last 40 years). But
he quickly backtracked as soon as
the US suffered significant reverses.
As vice-president under Barack
Obama, Biden’s was almost always a
voice for American restraint. He
sought unsuccessfully to persuade
the president to pull US forces out of
Afghanistan and he memorably
opposed the mission to capture or
kill Osama bin Laden in 2011, for fear
of failure and the consequences for
blowback from the Islamic world. As
president he was finally able to make
good on his ambition to bring US
troops home quickly from
Afghanistan, with the chaotic and
humiliating consequences we
watched last summer.
History may yet judge Biden kindly.
Perhaps the pressure on him from
Democrats and Republicans to do
more to confront Russia risks a
reckless descent into World War
Three, as the president repeatedly
warns. Being a king after all is what
ultimately cost George III the colonies.
But as Biden’s repeated foreign
policy failings throughout his career
demonstrate, restraint can
sometimes be an even bigger gamble
than belligerence.which the US will not go rather than
laying out for the aggressor
behaviours America and its allies will
deem a trigger for direct intervention.
Of course there is virtually no
support in the US for sending
American and Nato forces to engage
in a direct fight with Russia. But
ruling out the use of the US military
except in the event of an attack on a
Nato country seems to leave open
for the Russian leader a whole menu
of options for his campaign withinUkraine itself, from the targeting of
civilians he is already doing, to the
use of chemical or even tactical
nuclear weapons. The message from
Biden remains: as long as only Ukraine
is the target, we won’t hit back.
The president’s caution is nothing
new. It has been the defining feature
of Biden’s approach to international
affairs throughout his 50 years in
national politics. As a senator in the
1980s he was a vocal opponent of
Ronald Reagan’s posture towards the
Soviet Union, especially the
significant increases in military
spending and including the strategic
defence initiative. He spoke out and
voted against the first Gulf War inZelensky’s emotional plea this week,
members of Congress of both
parties stepped quickly to the
microphones to pledge support. A
few hours later Biden announced a
package of another $800 million in
materiel to Kyiv, including more
Stinger anti-aircraft weapons and
anti-tank missiles.
Even those shipments are well
short of what Ukraine needs and
what many in Congress favour
supplying. Biden has denied
Ukraine’s request for the transfer of
Soviet-made S-300 surface-to-air
missiles available in Nato countries.
The latest package only belatedly
approved the supply of a small
number of highly effective
Switchblade drones that can destroy
tanks and armoured vehicles.
The mood in Congress is to give
the Ukrainians pretty well whatever
they can handle. As Ben Sasse, a
Republican senator, put it: “If they
can shoot it, we can ship it.” But
Biden continues to resist support that
Russia could consider a provocation.
At every stage of the crisis,
beginning late last year when he
explicitly ruled out the deployment
of US forces to Ukraine, Biden has
seemed more focused on signalling
to Putin what the US will not do
rather than what it will. In a curious
inversion for a leader in a time of
international crisis, Biden seems
intent on establishing red lines beyond‘Y
ou are the leader of the
nation, your great
nation. I wish you to be
leader of the world.” It
was a 21st century,
Ukrainian-accented version of “Be a
king, George”, but Volodymyr
Zelensky’s exhortation to Joe Biden
may not have the same galvanising
effect on a seemingly diffident leader.
The Ukrainian president isn’t the
only one one wishing Biden would
take up more responsibility for global
leadership in the fight to roll back
Vladimir Putin’s aggression. The
startling peroration of Zelensky’s
video-relayed speech to the two
houses of Congress on Wednesday
was a plea aimed directly at the US
president from the leader of a
besieged nation. But it reflected the
sentiments of much of the
immediate audience — Republican
and Democrat senators and
congressmen — as well as the
American public. As they watch the
carnage unfold on television,
Americans have an unsettling sense
that their president is, at best,
leading from behind; at worst,
proving far too timid in this, a
defining battle for the values of
freedom and self-determination their
country was founded to uphold.
While he gets proper credit for the
assiduous diplomatic work of his
administration in helping assemble a
wide coalition of support for
Ukraine, it’s increasingly clear that
Biden has ceded leadership of the
battle to others. Overseas, he has
seemed content to let European
governments take the lead. At home,
he has had to be repeatedly prodded
into taking tougher practical
measures to help Ukraine than his
cautious instincts seem to dictate.
It was pressure from members of
Congress, mostly his own Democrats,that propelled him to announce an
oil embargo against Russia two weeks
ago after his officials initially
expressed strong scepticism.
Last week, after the president
himself firmly rejected a Polish offer
to send Mig-29 fighter jets to Ukraine
via a US base in Germany, a bipartisan
effort set about trying to create
legislative ways to make it happen.
It was striking that, followingA whole menu of
options are left open
for Russia’s leader
Restraint is sometimes
an even bigger gamble
than belligerence
Gerard
Baker@gerardtbaker