In a move hailed by Democrats as selfless but criticised by Republicans as pre-planned, US President Joe Biden announced on Sunday (21 July) that he will not run in November’s election, instead endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris.
Biden’s decision follows months of declining support. Amid a disastrous debate performance against former President Trump and mis-introducing Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy as “President Putin” at the Nato summit in Washington, calls for the 81-year-old to step down grew unignorably louder – as did the number of major Democrat backers withholding donations.
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By GlobalDataThe final, emblematic straw came when Biden retreated to his holiday home in Delaware to recover from Covid-19, contracted while campaigning in Las Vegas last week. Trump, on the other hand, was pictured raising a defiant fist following a failed assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania.
While Republicans have called for Biden to step down immediately, he is still expected to see through his final months in the Oval Office.
It is a humbling end to a half-century career in US politics – but missteps and cognitive decline are far from the defining features of Biden’s geopolitical legacy, which history will remember more kindly than the current political moment.
Was Biden’s approach to Ukraine “cautious”?
Analysts are torn over Biden’s decisions in the geopolitical theatre, as is typical with any US President given Washington’s outsized say in global affairs.
Even so, Biden’s four-year term has been filled with more conflict than any other President’s since the Cold War.
Be it by choice, self-interest or a genuine responsibility as ‘the world’s policeman’, the US has fought on more geopolitical fronts so far this year than at any other time in its history.
Overarchingly, Biden has leant towards interventionism. Vast reserves of US troops are deployed overseas across the Middle East, Europe and Indo-Pacific, a sharp contrast from the isolationism touted by the Trump-Vance Republican ticket.
The same school of Republicans have slammed Biden’s five Ukraine bills, which have earmarked $175bn in military aid to combat Russia’s full-scale offensive.
“On Biden’s defence legacy, his cautious approach to the Ukraine conflict will draw some criticism, but compared to Trump’s anticipated policies on potentially withdrawing from Nato, Biden remains a positive,” Tristan Sauer, defence analyst at GlobalData, tells Army Technology. “It was Republican members of Congress who held up foreign aid to Ukraine which arguably allowed Russia to consolidate its material gains in eastern Ukraine.”
In February, the Trump sparked outrage by threatening to encourage Russia to do “what it damn well likes” to any European country which spends less than the Nato-stipulated 2% of GDP on defence, should he return to the White House.
It is also telling that most European and Nato premiers have praised Biden’s tenure and decision to withdraw as presidential candidate, including Zelenskyy.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Biden “has achieved a lot” and he “deserves respect”, while Polish premier Donald Tusk added that Biden had made “democracy stronger”.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, himself under fire for Spain’s geopolitical role within Nato, said Biden has been “exemplary” in his “support for Ukraine in the face of Putin’s Russian aggression”.
Russia’s reaction was expectedly derisive and blunt. Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Head of Russia’s Security Council, said on Telegram: “That’s it for Biden. The goals of the special military operation will be achieved,” using the Kremlin’s term for invasion of Ukraine.
Gaza and Afghanistan’s “clouds” hang over Biden’s geopolitical legacy
If Biden’s supporters emphasise his staunch military support for Ukraine, his critics point out the President’s unwillingness to stand up to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the conflict in Gaza, where the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have killed more than 39,000 Palestinians since Hamas deadly attacks last October.
The US and other global powers have failed in efforts to facilitate a ceasefire, with the fighting spilling over borders into Iran, Syria, Lebanon and, most recently, Yemen, where Israel on Saturday (20 July) hit the Port of Hodeidah after Yemen’s Houthi militias claimed responsibility for an airstrike on Tel-Aviv.
“The Gaza conflict and the US deference to criticism from the Netanyahu government will likely hang a bigger cloud [than Ukraine] over Biden’s foreign policy legacy,” says Sauer.
The Biden administration’s stance on Gaza will retake headlines as Netanyahu travels to Washington, where he will address US Congress for a record fourth time, surpassing Winston Churchill on the list of foreign leaders.
Biden has refused to validate the International Criminal Court's pending arrest warrants for both Netanyahu and Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, describing it as “outrageous”.
Attention will remain fixed on Harris.
The all-but-confirmed Democrat replacement candidate has been far more outspoken on the Gaza conflict, urging Israel to increase the flow of aid into Palestine on numerous occasions. Harris was also among the first to call for a ceasefire.
Sauer also points to the US’ withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 as a sore subject for Biden’s legacy.
The US government has come under criticism for recognising the Taliban regime, which retook control in Afghanistan after US troops left – more than 170,000 casualties and $2.3trn in expenditure later.
The chaos of Biden’s decision to withdraw came to a head in the suicide bombing of Kabul airport, which killed 13 US service members and sixty Afghans.
At the Republican National Convention last week, relatives of some of the US military personnel who died appeared on stage to criticise Biden’s calls in Afghanistan, an emotional moment highlighting one of the lowest moments in his presidency.
Time will tell whether Biden’s caution on Ukraine, inaction on Gaza and catastrophe in Afghanistan will permeate a geopolitical legacy which, if nothing else, was more conscientious than that of his predecessor.
