https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/01/12/opinion/biden-foreign-policy/
Biden’s disappointing foreign policy legacy
The world is not more stable or peaceful than it was four years ago.
By Stephen Kinzer – Boston Globe - January 12, 2025
As President Biden prepares to leave office, he has sought to take credit for the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. That may or may not be justified, but Biden is grasping for anything in the world for which he can claim credit. He leaves behind a remarkably weak foreign policy record.
Yes, there was one big achievement: Biden ended the war in Afghanistan. His success was clouded by the chaotic US withdrawal, but without his action, that 20-year war might have gone on for another 20 years. He also reaffirmed America’s commitment to NATO and brought the United States back into the Paris Agreement on climate change.
During Biden’s presidency, though, the United States achieved no other geopolitical breakthroughs. The world today is in more violent upheaval than it was when he took office four years ago.
Assad had barely touched down in Moscow early last month when the White House spokesman, John Kirby, said his boss deserved credit for the Syrian revolution. “Developments in Syria very much prove the case of President Biden’s assertive foreign policy,” Kirby said. Syria’s future is highly uncertain, so it may be premature to claim it as a success.
One way Biden helped undermine Assad was by weakening his main outside supporter, Russia. Biden’s full-throated defense of Ukraine after Russia’s invasion was one of his main engagements with the world. He rejected compromise with Russia, sent tens of billions of dollars in weaponry to Ukraine, and vowed to continue the war for “as long as it takes.”
Biden was forged in the heat of the Cold War and has always seen Moscow as the heart of enemy territory. As vice president, he pushed President Obama to send heavy weapons to Ukraine. “Barack never took Putin seriously,” he told the journalist Bob Woodward after taking office in 2021. “We did nothing. We gave Putin a license to continue. Well, I’m revoking his [expletive] license.”
Biden sees Ukraine as a bulwark of freedom under attack from an invading power that is also America’s historic enemy. He has rejected the idea of a compromise that would give Russia some of what it wants — or, as he might call it, delusional appeasement.
Biden has been Ukraine’s main sponsor as it fights a war that during his presidency has taken tens of thousands of lives and ravaged huge swaths of land. If his goal was to weaken Russia, he may claim some success. If it was to protect Ukraine, not so much.
Biden may be remembered as the President of Two Wars. Without deploying American troops, he made the United States a co-belligerent not just in Ukraine but also in Gaza.
The Gaza war might have been prevented or limited if Biden had acted differently. He repeatedly sent Secretary of State Antony Blinken to urge Israeli leaders to consider a cease-fire or at least change tactics in Gaza. He also, however, made clear that the US arms supply to Israel would continue regardless of Israeli behavior. That makes Gaza, like Ukraine, a glaring failure of diplomacy.
From the Ukraine/Gaza perspective, Biden might be better remembered as the President of Two Non-Negotiations.
If you live in Cuba or Iran, Biden would be the President of Two Disappointments. Biden was vice president when Obama signed landmark accords with both those countries. President Trump, predictably, tore them up. Many expected Biden to return to Obama’s policy of engaging with Cuba and Iran. He never did.
Relations between the United States and China have also worsened during Biden’s presidency. His administration has pursued a worldwide whack-a-mole sanctions campaign to block China’s access to markets, raw materials, and cutting-edge technologies. After four years helping to direct this campaign, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo recently conceded that it failed. “Trying to hold China back is a fool’s errand,” she said in an exit interview with the Wall Street Journal. “The only way to beat China is to stay ahead of them. We have to run faster, out-innovate them.”
Biden’s farewell gesture to China was a typical poke in the eye: approving $571 million in weaponry for Taiwan. Beijing, which considers Taiwan an integral part of China, warned that the United States is “playing with fire.” Such is the state of US-China relations as Biden leaves office.
In his defense, Biden could argue that he has done no more or less than support allies in their hour of need. After all, it was Putin who ordered the invasion of Ukraine and Hamas that stormed into Israeli territory. As for Cuba and Iran, there’s nothing to gain politically from promoting better relations. And everyone in Washington cheers when a president blasts China.
Biden also, however, failed to provide diplomatic off-ramps for combatant powers in the Ukraine and Gaza wars. He never defined American goals or exit strategies for either conflict.
Presidents should aim to leave the world more stable and peaceful than it was when they took office. Biden did not, and that will be his foreign policy legacy.
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Stephen Kinzer is a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University.