Biden’s Chance at Redemption
Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine confronts President Joe Biden with complex challenges at a time when he is already beleaguered—but it also presents him with an opportunity for a reset on the core foreign-policy promise he made to voters during his 2020 campaign.
As a candidate, Biden offered voters not so much a change in specific international policies as an alternative approach to interacting with other nations. In managing America’s foreign policy, Biden pledged to be steady and stable, competent and collaborative. He promised Americans that working with allies would produce better outcomes on global challenges, and prove that democracies were capable of holding their own against ascendant autocracies. And he presented all of that as a stark contrast to the unilateralism, impulsiveness, and frequent chaos of Donald Trump’s relations with the world.
But through his first year in office, Biden’s record on delivering that change was, at best, mixed; his moves to revitalize international organizations and alliances were overshadowed by tension and disillusionment at home and abroad over his chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. Discontent over Afghanistan sent Biden’s approval for handling foreign affairs tumbling, and served as an early trigger in the broader decline of his approval rating, from which he still hasn’t recovered.
