Let’s figure this out.
My raw material is Time magazine’s June 24, 2024, cover story (here).
It’s mostly about foreign policy; I can only quote short excerpts, for space and fair use reasons, and encourage you to read the entire article linked above.
It begins, “During his 40 months in office, events have tested Biden’s vision of American world leadership” — the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, Putin’s efforts to “assemble an axis of autocrats,” and in Beijing a rising military power “intent on tearing down the American global order.”
In short, abroad, Biden is as challenged as any president of the modern era. He’s trying to maintain America’s position as the preeminent global power — a truly “America First” approach.
To do this, he’s “added two powerful European militaries to NATO, and will soon announce the doubling of the number of countries in the Atlantic alliance that are paying more than the target 2% of their GDP toward defense.” In Asia, he brought together South Korea and Japan, long distrustful of each other, and “coaxed” the Philippines away from “Beijing’s orbit,” gaining new U.S. access to four military bases in the process.
Time says “even longtime critics are impressed with Biden’s efforts in Ukraine.” Robert Gates, who was CIA director under the first Bush, and defense secretary under the second Bush and Obama, says Biden “gained a lot of credibility with the speed with which he assembled” a coalition to oppose Putin’s invasion.
While his policy response to the Hamas terror attack and Israel’s military response has angered both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian voters, his administration “has worked to prevent the war in Gaza from igniting a broader regional conflict,” an important goal and laudable effort which so far is succeeding.
Biden is old-school in believing the U.S. should play a leading role in the world, with deterrence its foundation, a belief shared by every U.S. president since World War 2. Time calls him “the most experienced foreign policy President in a generation,” but acknowledges he hasn’t been good at convincing the American public that what he’s doing is important and he’s doing it well. He hasn’t gotten out in front on foreign policy like some other presidents have.
When questioned about Saudi Arabia, Biden told Time the U.S. has two kinds of alliances, “values-based” and “practical-based.” New to office, he opposed their war in Yemen, and cut off some arms supplies; but then “quietly pivoted” to draw the Saudis away from China and encourage a peace deal with Israel. Time says Biden’s Saudi visit in July 2022 stabilized U.S.-Saudi relations and restarted Saudi talks with Israel, which he believes is “overwhelmingly in our interest.”
Critics on the right complain Biden’s foreign policy style “is too much friend making and not enough deterrence.” They want more “raw military power.” (On this point, I tend to agree.) But like Biden, I disagree with some of those critics who argue the U.S. should withdraw military forces from Europe and redeploy them to Asia, which Biden says would “backfire” by undermining other countries’ trust in our alliances. I think the U.S. needs to spend more on defense to counter China’s buildup and escalating belligerency.
At stake in the November 2024 election is “the direction of the world for the coming century.” Trump pushes isolationism and threatens to pull out of alliances. Biden is continuing the internationalism of all presidents since World War 2, which a historian says “has been quite good for America and the world.” Abandoning that foreign policy, Time suggests, would lead to a “more vicious and chaotic” world where Americans are “less safe, prosperous, and free, but only after everyone else suffered first.”
One can debate internationalism vs. isolationism, and expanding alliances or abandoning them, although I personally don’t think there’s much to debate there. But go ahead and debate it; that’s fine. What’s not debatable is that the global scene is mind-boggling complicated. Biden, with his vast experience, is walking multiple tightropes and so far hasn’t fallen off. Is he senile? That’s a bey0nd-stupid GOP talking point, and is laughable.