Biden’s checkered foreign policy legacy looks like a blip in era of America First
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The outgoing US president rallied support for Ukraine but his stance on Gaza delighted no one. When asked about his foreign policy doctrine in 2014, Barack Obama described it as an attempt to “avoid errors”. “You hit singles, you hit doubles; every once in a while we may be able to hit a home run,” he said.
![[Joe Biden shakes the hand of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a meeting on the sidelines of the Nato summit in Washingtonon 11 July 2024.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/22baf9f9df5abfd0e3688957e41a2b859e0406e8/0_307_7754_4655/master/7754.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
“There are going to be times where there are disasters and difficulties and challenges all around the world, and not all of those are going to be immediately solvable by us,” he said. Joe Biden was president during a tumultuous era of global politics when Americans were looking for big solutions to intractable problems: home runs, if not walk-off grand slams. The problems he faced were urgent; his solutions could often appear incremental. And he leaves office with a checkered foreign policy legacy in which the successes were tempered by setbacks.
![[A Palestinian woman carries a child as they walk past the rubble of houses destroyed by the Israeli military in Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip, on 6 November 2024.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f95af9b4f49cda2f5c0c3bd5965532337ef69a57/0_183_5500_3300/master/5500.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
The chaotic withdrawal from the “forever war” in Afghanistan – a difficult decision that many argued was necessary at the time – haunted the administration, as the US-backed government collapsed and the Taliban swept back into power. Biden rallied European countries to Kyiv’s defense in a spirited fightback but leaves office with Ukraine under siege and probably facing ruinous negotiations during the Trump era. And in Gaza, the 11th-hour ceasefire-for-hostages deal comes after 15 months of bloody war and a perceived inability to restrain the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, after the Hamas attacks of 7 October.
