Why foreign policy is no longer in Biden’s ‘win’ column

Joe Biden entered the White House declaring, “America is back” – signaling that reestablishing U.S. leadership on the world stage would be a pillar of his presidency. For much of his term, Mr. Biden advanced on his commitment as he put his decades of experience to good use, but as he approaches a grueling reelection campaign, foreign policy is not looking so much like his friend.

“Both Ukraine and the war in Gaza are contributing to a patina of failure around the administration as we enter an election year,” says Michael Desch at University of Notre Dame’s International Security Center.

Why We Wrote This

Defending democracy and opposing authoritarianism. Projecting leadership and coming to the aid of allies. President Joe Biden’s values-laden foreign policy has been a political asset … until this challenging election year.

If foreign policy is a drag on Mr. Biden’s electoral prospects, it can be tied to two overarching factors, analysts say: an inability to translate his foreign policy urgency into public support, and the sense that a leader who entered politics during the Cold War is pursuing policies of a bygone era.

“Personally, I think Biden’s policies have been great; he’s been measured, but at the same time he’s had a vision,” says Lawrence Korb at the Center for American Progress. “But the reality out there is that people don’t see it. The American people are increasingly asking, ‘Why does Ukraine matter to me?’ – or they’re saying, ‘Another war in the Middle East?’”

Joe Biden entered the White House declaring “America is back” – signaling that foreign policy and reestablishing U.S. leadership on the world stage would be key pillars of his presidency.

And for much of his term, Mr. Biden advanced on his commitment as he put his decades of foreign policy experience to good use.

The Biden administration united a divided and cautious Western Europe around the cause of a sovereign and Westward-leaning Ukraine. Mr. Biden rallied a reinvigorated NATO to face the authoritarian threat posed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Why We Wrote This

As recently as October, Mr. Biden demonstrated confident leadership when he became the first U.S. president to visit Mideast ally Israel in time of war. As one Israeli pundit noted at the time, he could easily have been elected to any Israeli office he desired that day.

But now suddenly as the president approaches a grueling reelection campaign, foreign policy is not looking so much like his friend.

The war in Ukraine appears stuck in an inconclusive state that is sapping both U.S. public support and congressional support for additional billions of dollars in military and economic assistance.

Even more rapidly, Israel’s war against Hamas has shifted to the negative column for Mr. Biden. Initial strong support for the president’s unbridled pro-Israel stance has given way to dismay over the high and mounting toll the war is taking on Gaza’s civilians – even as concerns grow that Israel could drag the United States into a regional war.

The result is that Mr. Biden’s foreign policy boon is increasingly a bust, some national security experts say.

“Neither of the two big foreign policy events Biden has so closely linked himself to is looking like it’s going to be a great success,” says Michael Desch, founding director of Notre Dame University’s International Security Center in Indiana. “It’s taken the sheen off Biden’s foreign policy image,” he adds, “and instead both Ukraine and the war in Gaza are contributing to a patina of failure around the administration as we enter an election year.”

A firefighter works at the site of a Russian missile strike, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Jan. 2, 2024.

If foreign policy is now a drag on Mr. Biden’s image and electoral prospects, it can be tied to two overarching factors, some analysts say: an inability to translate his foreign policy urgency into public support, and the sense that a leader who entered politics during the Cold War is pursuing policies of a bygone era.

“Personally, I think Biden’s policies have been great; he’s been measured but at the same time he’s had a vision. He’s saved Ukraine from an authoritarian Russia and put Europe back together, and he’s accomplished that without putting American troops on the ground,” says Lawrence Korb, a former Pentagon official who specializes in national security and foreign policy at the Center for American Progress in Washington.

“But the reality out there is that people don’t see it. The American people are increasingly asking, ‘Why does Ukraine matter to me?’” he adds. “Or they’re saying, ‘Another war in the Middle East?’”

What Americans do see, Mr. Korb says, is the effects of a crisis on their southern border, where thousands of migrants – from Latin America, but as far away as Africa and China – continue to enter the country illegally.

“Seeing all these migrants from all over being bused into their cities, people can relate to that,” he says.

Indeed, while Mr. Biden has so far been unsuccessful at convincing Americans of the critical importance of his foreign policy priorities, Republicans have struck a chord by using the “border issue” to create a link – one detrimental to the president – between foreign and domestic policy, Dr. Desch says.

“[Republicans] have played the illegal immigration issue to their advantage by linking it to Israel and Ukraine aid,” he says. “It resonates with a lot of people when they question sending billions of dollars to secure other countries when we can’t seem to secure our own border.”

Mr. Biden, who entered Congress in 1973, hails from an era when no one from either party would have suggested putting the Cold War on a back burner to advance some popular domestic policy, Mr. Korb notes.

“You see how the Republicans are holding up $100 billion in foreign aid over domestic political issues, and it’s like if during the Cold War one party had said we’re not going to approve a weapons system to keep up with the Soviets until we cut taxes,” he says. “It’s unimaginable.”

Republican members of Congress look on as migrants cross the Rio Grande at the Texas-Mexico border, in Eagle Pass, Texas, Jan. 3, 2024.

But that may underscore the other challenge President Biden faces in turning his foreign policy outlook to his political favor: His world vision simply may not resonate with many Americans today.

“Biden’s formative experience was in a period that bears almost no resemblance to the one we are in today,” Dr. Desch says. “The asteroid has hit the planet, but he’s still in the dinosaur age.”

When Mr. Biden speaks of a defining battle between democracy and authoritarian rule, he invokes an America that defeated the Soviet Union and turned World War II’s defeated powers, Germany and Japan, into democratic allies. But some question the attraction of that message.

“Unfortunately, a lot of people hear that, and what they think of is getting out of Afghanistan, the mess that was, and how Americans died in the process,” Mr. Korb says. “You can argue [Biden] should get credit for Ukraine and Israel,” he adds, “but that’s not where a lot of people are.”

Some argue that instead where many Americans are is in a mounting isolationism that clashes with Mr. Biden’s global battle for democracy and international law.

But Dr. Desch counters that Americans are not so much interested in “pulling up the drawbridges” as they are in upending the internationalist status quo and getting America a better deal.

“What we see in the insistence that we can’t play Uncle Sugar in Ukraine anymore is a broader sense that business as usual can’t continue,” Dr. Desch says. “Biden’s problem is that in foreign policy as in other areas, he is the quintessential representative of the status quo – and that is sending people looking elsewhere.”

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