The NATO summit was long planned to celebrate the alliance’s 75th anniversary, to ensure long-term military support for Ukraine and even to prepare the West for the future against a possible second term for Donald Trump.
But no one expected the meeting in Washington this week to turn into a public test of the health and cognitive abilities of 81-year-old US President Joe Biden, with his re-election campaign facing an existential moment following his disastrous debate performance. .
Biden’s leadership of NATO and the Alliance’s support for Ukraine after Russia’s invasion make him the alliance’s most important presidential administrator since President George HW Bush. But his achievements, including bringing Sweden and Finland into the group, will be eclipsed at the summit by his battle to save his political future.
Every step Biden takes, every gesture he makes and every word he utters will be under intense scrutiny, especially in unscripted moments after the image of an aging and sometimes incoherent commander-in-chief has been burned into the minds of 50 millions of television viewers CNN, at the debate in Atlanta late last month.
A president older than the alliance itself will be under enormous pressure to show vigor and mental clarity at a one-on-one press conference on Thursday (11). Any hint of confusion or weakness could trigger a new wave of panic among Democrats and derail Biden’s aggressive effort to quell rumors that he will abandon his campaign. The president can expect a series of questions about his health, his medical records and whether he has been hiding the true details of his condition from journalists enraged by the White House’s handling of the fallout from the debate.
The news conference will also be a can’t-miss event for Democrats, who are demanding he do much more to prove he is fit to serve a second term, which would end when he is 86. Senator Patty Murray, for example, warned on Monday night (8): “We need to see a much more energetic candidate on the campaign trail in the very near future, so that he can convince voters that he is up to the job.” It was a surprisingly strong statement from the Washington state Democrat that underscored the vulnerability of Biden’s position. She added: “At this critical moment for our country, President Biden must seriously consider how best to preserve his incredible legacy and protect it for the future.”
Biden will also have an important audience abroad. The effects of the president’s advanced age are not just a question for his political future; They are now the West’s problem, given that he is the last defense against a stunning comeback by Trump, who spent his first term berating NATO allies and cozying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump suggested that he would let Moscow “do whatever it wants” and would not honor NATO’s sacred Article 5 principle of mutual defense if it deemed that a Member State had not met the alliance’s defense budget guidelines.
World leaders are eager to make their own assessment of Biden
Biden’s debacle has created a new complication for U.S. allies who were already formulating plans for a possibility many of them fear — a Trump victory in November. The world leaders who will spend hours with Biden this week will therefore certainly make their own assessments of the president and his political hopes.
Kurt Volker, former US ambassador to NATO, said Biden’s partners will arrive in Washington seeking political and strategic assurances about Biden and the United States’ future role as NATO leader. “Will it be President Biden? Is he capable of this? Will he run for re-election, will he be re-elected? If so, what is that like?” Volker told Wolf Blitzer of CNN on Monday. Allies also look to an uncertain future, Volker said. “So they worry — if he doesn’t do that and it’s the return of former President Donald Trump, what does that mean for U.S. support for NATO, U.S. support for Ukraine?”
Foreign diplomats and governments have been reluctant to speak publicly about Biden’s situation, wanting to avoid being drawn into US domestic politics. But diplomats from Europe, Asia and the Middle East expressed disbelief in their debate, the report said. CNN last week. And, looking forward to the summit, a European diplomat said the continent’s leaders would remain polite and seek to avoid any accusations of interference or taking sides in US politics. But the person added: “Under this cold surface, I believe the Biden debate is very crucial. … I don’t think there are many Europeans who can see how Biden can still be a successful candidate.” Another European diplomat said that “all the leaders who arrive in Washington in the coming days will ask questions about (Biden’s position) and there will be a lot of speculation, but the issues discussed internally in NATO do not in any way change the US internal political calculation.”
The furore over Biden’s age is just the latest shock to shake the certainty that NATO partners placed on the United States as a senior member of the alliance for more than 60 years – during and after the Cold War, until Trump’s arrival at the White House. America’s political paroxysms have left many allies, especially in Europe, wondering how to protect themselves at a time when Washington is as likely to be an agent of volatility as of stability. Some question whether the US will continue to be there to defend them. “It is a reality that we have to be prepared for the unpredictability of the US ally,” said a European official.
U.S. officials reject any suggestion of concern among Biden’s partners about his ability to lead the alliance, even as multiple polls show that most Americans believe he is too old to serve a second term. “Foreign leaders have seen Joe Biden up close and personal over the past three years. They know who they are dealing with and how effective he has been,” said a senior government official on condition of anonymity. The administration’s national security spokesman, John Kirby, denied Monday that foreign leaders needed certainty about Biden’s capabilities. “We are not picking up any signs of this from our allies. Quite the opposite,” he said.
The summit’s critical national security substance is unlikely to be negatively affected by Biden’s political crisis, as diplomats and top military brass have been discussing results for months. They focused on the institutionalization of aid to Ukraine and the future relationship between the alliance and the Kiev government and their desire to eventually join the alliance. After months of diplomatic negotiations, a draft of the summit’s final communiqué describes Ukraine as having an “irreversible” path to membership, they told CNN three sources familiar with the deliberations.
Biden’s political storm shows no signs of abating
These are surreal days in Washington, with a sitting president fighting a battle to remain at the top of his party’s ticket with less than four months until Election Day.
On Monday, the president insisted he wasn’t going anywhere, even as worried Democratic lawmakers discussed whether Biden would cost his party the House and Senate, as well as the presidency, if he remains its presidential nominee. Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, joined lawmakers calling for Biden to drop his re-election bid. “We received a good message. The president has shown that he is not capable of delivering that message effectively,” the Washington state Democrat told Jake Tapper of CNNon Monday.
After days of conflicting statements about the president’s medical status, the White House, however, insisted that it was “not warranted” for the president to undergo a new cognitive test and did not fully explain why a doctor specializing in Parkinson’s disease had performed a meeting with the president’s doctor earlier this year. Biden had already called into MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program to emphasize his refusal to concede his campaign in a way that indicated that any subsequent request from Democratic leaders for him to abandon the ticket would cause a terrible political spectacle.
Biden is also using the upcoming summit as proof of his leadership abilities and success as president, while his campaign seeks to take advantage of his participation on the global stage on American soil to redefine the comparison between himself and Trump – the central theme of his campaign, which was obliterated by his dark night in debate.
“The rest of the world is looking – our allies are looking for US leadership. Who else… who else do you think could step in here and do this? Biden said on MSNBC. In an interview with ABC News on Friday, the president also called himself essential to global security. “I’m the guy who united NATO, the future. Nobody thought I could expand it. I’m the guy who shut down Putin. No thought could happen,” Biden said.
The president has not shut down Putin – the brutal daylight Russian airstrike over Kiev, which hit a children’s hospital on Monday, is proof of that. But he secured the most effective weaponry from a Russian adversary since the United States supported the Afghan mujahideen who fought against the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and in fact reinvigorated NATO and presided over the process of bringing the two Nordic nations into the alliance.
On the eve of the summit, Biden’s campaign distributed a memo praising his leadership for keeping Kiev on its feet more than two years after the Russian invasion. “Donald Trump is a threat to NATO, a gift to Putin and a wrecking ball for global peace, democracy and human rights,” the memo said. The campaign also highlighted the presumptive Republican nominee’s frequent genuflections toward Putin. “The eyes of the world will be on the NATO summit this week, where Joe Biden strengthened, expanded and led the NATO Alliance against Ukraine’s violation of sovereignty and Putin’s unwarranted aggression.”
It won’t be very comforting for Biden, but he is not the only NATO leader who is politically weakened. French President Emmanuel Macron will arrive in Washington after unleashing a new era of political instability. His call for early legislative elections to prevent the rise of Marine Le Pen’s ultra-right party failed to produce a government majority and gave power to the coalition that includes the far left. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is weakened after his party and coalition were defeated in the European Parliament elections. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faces intense speculation about his future ahead of next year’s general election.
The thorny issue of Biden’s age will also be highlighted in photos from the summit, as many of the leaders are much younger than a president born during World War II, whose foreign policy expertise is honed from half a century of experience. politics spanning the Cold War and the increasingly restless global landscape. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is 47 years old, for example. And Macron is 46 years old. Trudeau has been in power for almost a decade, but he is still only 52 years old. The summit will also mark the international debut of the new British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, 61, elected last Thursday.
Biden has been a steadfast guide for NATO since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and has made the survival of global democracy a cornerstone of his presidency. But he has a much more urgent priority at this week’s summit – saving himself.
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