Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 7 May 2025. © Richard Kemp
In his first interview since leaving the White House, Joe Biden accused President Trump of appeasing Russia over Ukraine. Well, Biden certainly knows all about appeasement. It was the hallmark of his presidency and accounts for much of the instability in Europe and the Middle East today.
Before Putin invaded, Biden sent the worst possible signal, seeming to suggest that a ‘minor incursion’ might not be too big a deal. Then when the tanks rolled in he offered to evacuate the leader of the embattled country to safety. That would have been like Roosevelt flying Churchill out of Britain in 1940.
Zelensky’s response was: ‘The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.’ He got some of the ammunition but never enough, despite Biden’s claim in this interview that he had given Ukraine ‘everything they needed to provide for their independence’.
In reality his administration gave Ukraine just enough to enable them to defend against Russia but far from sufficient to achieve much more than prolonging the bloodbath. Biden may have treated Zelensky nicely in the White House but every plea for battle-winning weapons was met by months of procrastination and delay. That included tanks, ATACMS long-range missiles and F16 combat planes, all of which, if delivered rapidly and in sufficient quantities, could have turned the tide.
Furthermore, every offensive weapon that was provided was grudgingly handed over with the caveat that it couldn’t be used against targets on Russian soil, a restriction only partially eased late last year.
With Putin launching assault after assault from his side of the border, that really did force Ukraine to fight with one hand tied behind its back. And it was all down to appeasement and fear in the White House in the face of never-ending bombast from the Kremlin.
Biden rejected Trump’s attacks on European Nato members freeloading on the US, fantastically claiming that ‘it saves us money overall’. If anything, Trump’s bullying of Nato leaders into paying their dues will strengthen the alliance. Biden’s record is the opposite, bringing Nato to a lower point than at any time since its creation after the Second World War.
It began with his catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan. Not only was that one of the worst military humiliations the US has ever known, it also resoundingly demonstrated Nato’s impotence. Despite efforts by Britain to persuade other alliance members to remain in place, there was not a single taker. And that display of weakness on both sides of the Atlantic encouraged Putin to launch his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Today Nato is staring down the barrel of yet another defeat. Despite repeated public commitments to the defence of Ukraine, it has shown its powerlessness during three years of war as Russia continues to push forward on European soil.
Nor was Biden’s appeasement confined to Europe. Right at the beginning of his presidency he cancelled Trump’s terrorist designation of the Houthis in Yemen and sought to weaken Saudi Arabia, one of their main targets. That strengthened and encouraged the terrorist group and led to repeated attacks on Red Sea shipping, again met only by a feeble military response from Biden.
His approach towards the Houthis was part of the administration’s wider efforts to appease Iran in a desperate and unsuccessful bid to return to Obama’s disastrous JCPOA nuclear deal. Biden relieved sanctions on Iran and allowed the ayatollahs access to $16 billion of frozen assets. His policies contributed to Hamas’s October 7 invasion of Israel, part of an Iranian plan, and the wider war that followed.
Biden warned that the Trump administration would cause Europe to ‘lose confidence’ in the US. Perhaps it will, but his own administration has already gravely undermined trust among American allies around the world, under the calculating eyes of its enemies, not least President Xi in China.
Image: Gage Skidmore/Flickr