Instead of preparing for the inevitable negotiations, the outgoing president is adding fuel to the fire.
In the twilight of his failed presidency, Joe Biden is making it clear that his primary identity is as a foreign policy hawk. While Biden has made impressive domestic achievements under the Build Back Better banner, he has followed the tragic path of Democratic predecessor Lyndon Baines Johnson, who was willing to sacrifice popular domestic programs for endless wars. Biden didn’t just support Ukraine and Israel with huge funds and arms supplies; his administration has repeatedly resisted calls for negotiations and a ceasefire.
There is an instructive contrast between Biden and the man who made Biden his running mate in 2008. When Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump in 2016, Barack Obama held significant energy to reinforce progressive successes through executive action. Among other actions, Obama has limited Arctic drilling, pushed for more Obamacare enrollment, closed the Bush-era registry of Muslim and Arab men, and introduced strict reviews of pardons or commutations for many victims of wrongdoing, including whistleblower Chelsea Manning.
Biden, on the other hand, was focused mainly on foreign affairs except for pushing through a few more judges. Biden remains adamant about sending military aid to Israel, even enlisting political allies like Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer lobby against Senator Bernie Sanders’ efforts to stop arms sales to Israel. Neither is the Biden administration vetoed the UN resolution calling for a ceasefire is again a marked contrast to Obama, who in December 2016 waived the veto UN resolution criticizing Israeli settlements. Biden has shown that he will not lift even the smallest finger to speak out against the oppression and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.
In Ukraine, Biden also continues to be an ultra-hawk. Wednesday, Ken Klippenstein reported on his back:
The Biden administration announced today its decision to allow Ukraine to use American anti-personnel mines. This move contradicts not only Biden past opposition on the use of such weapons, but also his promise to ensure a “peaceful and orderly transition” for President-elect Donald Trump.
In addition to the administration’s decision to allow Ukraine to launch U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles at Russia and its announcement that it is sending as much U.S. aid and arms to Kiev as possible, the Biden administration is breaking a long-standing custom between administrations: not to escalate the situation between elections and inauguration.
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Biden’s escalation in Ukraine comes at an odd time. The war is going badly for Ukraine, public opinion polls and increasing resistance to conscription. Tuesday Gallup published a new surveysummarizing: “After more than two years of violent conflict, Ukrainians are increasingly tired of the war with Russia. In the latest Gallup Ukraine surveys, conducted in August and October 2024, an average of 52% of Ukrainians would like their country to negotiate an end to the war as soon as possible.”
In addition, many American foreign policy analysts, who previously advocated decisive arming of Ukrainian resistance to Russian aggression, now admit that the time for negotiations has come.
Writing in Foreign policyMatthew Duce (Executive Vice President of the Center for International Policy) and Robert Farley (Professor of International Relations at the University of Kentucky), a note that “the military situation looks quite desperate and is becoming increasingly serious for Ukraine.” Given this reality, “Ukraine will have to make extremely difficult decisions about what exactly it values. The fact that Ukraine will have to exchange territory for peace is not seriously disputed. The important question is what will still have to be conceded to Ukraine.”
Duce and Farley argue that the right course would be to push the incoming Trump administration to negotiate a settlement that truly secures Ukraine’s sovereignty, even if that means abandoning some of the “maximalist” goals previously pursued by pro-Ukraine supporters.
A similar note of sober realism appeared in recent New York Times audio essay Megan Stack, former foreign correspondent and opinion columnist. According to the stack“Ukraine is losing the war,” meaning now is the time to “save lives and perhaps hasten what is an inevitable end.”
Reflecting on the great tragedy of Ukraine, Stack makes the devastating point that the United States has given the Central European nation enough weapons to fight, but not enough to win, which is the worst of both worlds. This led Ukraine to mass casualties without a clear purpose.
Stack says that “we supported Ukraine enough to keep the war going, but we didn’t support Ukraine enough to win the war.”
She adds,
I think this war, in many ways, is an extension of this dynamic that I’ve seen over the years in coverage of Ukraine, coverage of Russia, which is that the U.S. is getting involved in a way that places like Ukraine are doing , vulnerable to Russian attack. We tell Ukraine that we will support it no matter what, only to eventually back down. And we don’t want to provide that kind of protection to the extent that it will be needed when a real crisis comes.
Since the end of the Cold War, American foreign policy toward Ukraine has been helpless. The United States makes a false promise of membership in NATO, which antagonized Russia, but did not provide Ukraine with real security. Biden is not alone in his irresponsibility, which has been shared by his predecessors, starting with Bill Clinton. But Biden took this irresponsible foreign policy to a particularly deadly result.
Negotiations now would indeed be welcome, but it should be noted that the best time for negotiations for Ukraine was the spring of 2022, when the Russian army was on the ropes and the best possible deal could be secured. According to some data, the United States and its NATO allies flooded that negotiations.
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Why is Biden escalating now that it’s too late? Perhaps he hopes to drive the incoming Trump administration into a quagmire. It’s also possible that, like Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger during the Vietnam War, Biden is using aggression to fight back from ending the war and create a “a decent interval” between the time he leaves office and the ultimate collapse of the American effort. Both of these scenarios are deeply shameful.
Foreign policy has been Joe Biden’s big weakness as president, even if it’s something he’s mistakenly proud of. As Biden leaves office, Democrats must come to terms with his failure — and develop a new foreign policy that avoids great power hubris and practices the art of diplomacy.
We cannot retreat
We now face a second Trump presidency.
There is nothing to lose. We must use our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger to oppose the dangerous policies that Donald Trump is unleashing on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as principled and honest journalists and authors.
Today we are also preparing for the future struggle. It will require a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis and humane resistance. We are faced with the adoption of Project 2025, a far-right Supreme Court, political authoritarianism, rising inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis and conflicts abroad. Nation will expose and propose, develop investigative reporting and act together as a community to preserve hope and opportunity. NationThe work will continue — as it has in good times and bad — to develop alternative ideas and visions, deepen our mission of truth-telling and in-depth reporting, and expand solidarity in a divided nation.
Armed with 160 years of courageous independent journalism, our mandate remains the same today as it was when the Abolitionists were founded Nation— to defend the principles of democracy and freedom, to serve as a beacon in the darkest days of resistance, and to see and fight for a bright future.
The day is dark, the forces are building tenaciously, but it’s too late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is just the time when artists go to work. No time for despair, no room for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we make language. This is how civilizations heal.”
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Katrina Vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, Nation
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