It’s Biden’s Time

Playbook: “Biden is an Atlanticist who likes to brag about how he stayed in touch with European leaders while out of office from 2017 to 2021. He is a creature of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Munich Security Conference. He came up in politics immersed in the debates of the Cold War, which are now newly relevant. When he said recently that ‘the United States will defend every inch of NATO territory with the full force of American power,’ he could have been lifting the line from one of his 1988 presidential campaign speeches.”

“Biden, in this view, is uniquely suited for the new role that has been thrust upon him.”

“It was Biden and his team’s patience and close consultation with European allies that has led to the extraordinary unity now on display. Biden’s patience waiting to impose sanctions until after the invasion, even in the face of intense criticism, has been vindicated because Putin would have pointed to preemptive sanctions as a provocation and a reason to invade. Biden said that Germany would abandon the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline if Putin attacked and he was right, because he had been engaged in quiet diplomacy on the issue all along.”