President Joe Biden’s fecklessness as an international leader has destabilized the world and provided a pathway for Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. His weak style and the resulting turmoil are classic traits of Democratic presidents who refuse to embody and promote America’s strength in the world.
In 2014, during the tenure of President Barack Obama, we were in strikingly similar trouble as we are today. Russian President Vladimir Putin was a strong leader trying to strike a balance between his oligarchical leaders and his own power. He used an invasion into Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula to distract from his own domestic troubles and asserted historical claims over Crimea that would appeal to the Russian people.
Obama, a relative novice on foreign matters, believed in the principles of liberal institutionalism, which emphasize reliance on multilateral institutions and discussion with foreign leaders in order to solve international crises. By 2014, he’d spent six years projecting American weakness on the international stage and defunding our military. Our weakness emboldened Putin.
A president who is effectively bullying our putative ally, Ukraine, is marching us into a potentially long-term conflict without authority. And that is the most striking similarity to the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea.
