In terms of foreign policy, US President Joe Biden has so far had one debacle to show for himself: Afghanistan. In the conflict with Russia, the rule was therefore: not again as a loser from the field against.
Applause – that’s what Joe Biden asks for. “Please stand up if you can and show: Yes, we, the United States of America, stand with the Ukrainian people,” said the US President in the US Capitol.
The audience stand up and clap. It’s applause for Ukraine – but for Biden it should feel like the clap is for him too. It is Biden’s first proper State of the Union address – and it is overshadowed by the war in Ukraine.
“He’s going to stand on that stage and speak not just as an American president, but truly as the leader of the free world at a time of crisis,” former adviser to President Barack Obama, David Axelrod, said ahead of Biden’s speech. The expectations of Biden that evening are high and the 79-year-old does not shy away from verbal attacks on Russian President Vladimir Putin. This is “more isolated from the world than ever before” and will have to pay a “high price” in the long term. On the one hand there is Putin as a “Russian dictator”, on the other hand Biden as the face of democracy – that is the picture that Biden paints. Leader of the free world – that’s the role Biden wants to play here.
And he can’t – or rather doesn’t want to – do much more than that at this moment. Biden announces that after the European Union and Canada, the United States will also close airspace to Russian planes. But this is also the only news that the President has in his luggage. Because it was and is clear: Biden will under no circumstances send US troops to Ukraine – that would result in a direct war with Russia. With this argument, the US government also excludes the establishment of a no-fly zone over Ukraine. Nevertheless, Biden’s role in the conflict has been central so far – he has been instrumental in driving the West to unite against Putin and to introduce unprecedented sanctions.
Applicable Warnings
For many weeks, Biden and his administration warned of a Russian invasion of Ukraine in increasingly dramatic tone and astounding detail. The USA also predicted an attack on the capital Kyiv surprisingly early. They disclosed secret service information in an unusual manner in order to let the public in on Moscow’s mind games and deprive Putin of a chance to take the world by surprise. Criticism poured in from various quarters that this was alarmism, hysteria, even warmongering. It was a deliberate strategy by the US government. And in the end, unlike the Iraq war, the warnings and US intelligence information turned out to be correct.
New strength
Biden speaks 62 minutes on Tuesday night in the Capitol. He doesn’t mention the catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan last summer. The debacle had tarnished the image of Biden and the United States in the world. The crisis with Russia is now an opportunity for Biden to show strength. The US government, the EU and other Western partners have imposed unprecedented sanctions on Russia, which are already weighing on the country’s economy. In the longer term, the economic turmoil in Russia is likely to be dramatic. In this way, the Americans and their allies want to force Moscow to change course.
United West
Putin’s presumed calculation of forcing Ukraine to capitulate in the shortest possible time with comparatively little military effort has not worked out. His goal of splitting the West and NATO also came to nothing. On the contrary: the alliance partners are demonstrating particularly great unity in the Ukraine crisis. The greater Putin’s brutality, the closer the NATO countries move together. Even Biden emphasizes this not without pride. «Putin was wrong. We are ready, we are united, »he said in his speech. The White House credits this primarily to Biden: spokeswoman Jen Psaki argues that Biden took a leadership role and forged the coalition against Putin’s aggression.
German U-turn
The rigorous shift in German security policy as a result of the Ukraine crisis is ultimately a success for Biden. The fact that the federal government stopped the German-Russian gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 after years of vehement resistance and now commits to annual defense spending of more than two percent of gross domestic product fulfills essential demands that the USA have been making for years.
Stressed calm
In addition to invading Ukraine, the Kremlin chief is also shocking the world with nuclear threats. Biden has so far reacted to them in a particularly calm manner – he does not address them in his speech to the nation. The US President does not seem willing to enter into a spiral of rhetorical escalations of this kind with Putin – unlike his predecessor Donald Trump, who did not shy away from sending out nuclear threats against North Korea via Twitter, for example. Rather, Biden and his government are trying to de-escalate and rely on the superiority of democracies. In the competition between democracies and autocracies, the world is “clearly opting for peace and security,” he says.
domestic danger
Domestically, however, the Ukraine crisis could pose a threat to Biden – if energy and gasoline prices rise and inflation continues to soar. Congressional elections are due in the USA in November and Biden’s Democrats are threatened with losing majorities in both chambers of Parliament. Biden is already doing poorly in polls. He doesn’t need people’s displeasure about rising prices and promises in a fatherly manner: “I want you to know that everything will be fine.” Putin’s war in Ukraine will make Russia weaker and the rest of the world stronger. Biden assures that he wants to do everything so that Americans don’t have to pay more – and at the same time he appeals to their understanding, because after all, more is at stake. Putin will never erase the “love of freedom,” he says. “And he will never, ever weaken the resolve of the free world.”
Source: Stern
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