In Europe, Biden’s battle for democracy is no longer just a slogan

When President Joe Biden laid out his vision of a global battle to save democracy at the Munich Security Conference in February 2021, his call for democracies to join together to “fight for, … strengthen, and renew” their governing principles struck many as just another intellectual flourish.

And when the newly inaugurated president added with confidence that “democratic partners working together” would be able to “meet every challenge and outpace every challenger,” the assumption in his audience was that the central challenger he referred to was China.

As Mr. Biden travels in Europe this week, he is encountering a continent stunned by the war unleashed in its midst by a powerful autocrat against a fledgling democracy. Many on both sides of the Atlantic say Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine gives urgency and new meaning both to the battle for democracy and the need for U.S. leadership.

Moreover, a rising chorus of voices now say that the stakes in the 21st century’s first war for democracy are such that Western and other democracies cannot afford to lose it. And that means, some add, that Mr. Biden is going to have to take greater risks to ensure that Ukrainians’ aspirations for the freedom to determine their own future are not defeated.

“When President Biden first talked about his vision of a confrontation between autocracy and democracy, for many people it sounded a little bit theoretical,” says Michal Baranowski, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and director of its Warsaw office. “But now we in Europe are experiencing a real front in that war,” he adds, “and that gives a very clear and understandable reality to this existential fight [Mr. Biden] has been talking about.”

In Brussels Thursday, President Biden attended an emergency summit of the leaders from NATO’s 29 member countries that included participation via videoconference of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. That was followed by a gathering of G7 leaders that Mr. Zelenskyy also addressed, and a European Council summit bringing together the 27 members of the European Union.

For some analysts, the very high stakes and existential dimension Mr. Biden has assigned to the battle embodied in the Ukraine war mean that the president’s trip to Belgium and Poland has to do more than show moral support.

“In many respects what is happening now in Europe vindicates Biden’s view of this central confrontation of democracy and autocracy, but the fact he is proving to be right only underscores that his trip needs to be more than symbolic,” says Rosa Balfour, director of Carnegie Europe in Brussels.

“We need strategies on where to take this crisis next and how to address the many challenges we’re going to face going forward. But this kind of global thinking belongs more to the U.S.,” she adds, “so there is a need for U.S. leadership.”

More than a show of solidarity

As others see it, a trip that many analysts characterize as a defining moment in Mr. Biden’s presidency could end up a disappointment if it fails to move beyond symbolism.

“This should be a moment for rallying and reinforcing European democracies, but [Biden is] going to need to do more than that,” says William Galston, a democracy and governance expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Noting that “this is not too early to begin serious discussions about how this war could end,” he adds that “if Biden doesn’t move the discussion forward, some people will wonder why he bothered to make the trip.”

Others agree, saying the president has to go beyond a show of democratic solidarity to specifics.

“If Biden is only looking for spiritual unity from this trip … it will look like a bust,” says Stephen Sestanovich, senior fellow for Russian and Eurasian studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

“The big test for Biden” will be “to make sure the policies of democracies work,” he adds. “If Biden is able to make progress on operational unity, … the trip can come off a success.”

The back-to-back NATO and EU summits are intended to demonstrate Western unity in opposition to Russia’s aggression – and to underscore Mr. Putin’s isolation. However, some point out that the world’s democracies are not fully in line – with India, South Africa, and Brazil among those remaining on the sidelines.

On Friday Mr. Biden travels to Poland, where he will meet Saturday with Polish President Andrzej Duda as well as visit U.S. troops who have been deployed to NATO’s eastern flank. Humanitarian groups will also provide him an on-the-ground look at Poland’s widely praised efforts to welcome millions of Ukrainian refugees.

On Thursday the U.S. announced it will accept 100,000 Ukrainian refugees and provide an additional $1 billion to help Europe meet its largest refugee surge since World War II – moves designed in part to convey solidarity and a sense of burden-sharing with Europe.

At the same time, the U.S. announced $320 million in new funding to launch the European Democratic Resilience Initiative, intended to “support societal resilience and defend human rights in Ukraine and neighboring countries,” according to the State Department.

Bipartisan pressure at home

Still, in the days leading up to his European trip, Mr. Biden faced mounting pressure – from both sides of the aisle in Congress and from a growing number of national security experts – to do more to support Ukraine’s military in its existential fight and to worry less about how stronger U.S. assistance might provoke Mr. Putin.

If Mr. Biden is serious about his campaign to strengthen democracies, some say, he cannot start that battle by allowing a European country to lose its sovereignty and its right to self-determination.

“The United States should recognize that excessive fears of provoking Putin were the primary reasons Western capitals withheld vital defense assistance from Ukraine for so long,” says Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Military and Political Power in Washington.

Faulting that “reticence” for increasing the likelihood of aggression, Mr. Bowman adds, “We should spend more time in the future helping beleaguered democracies before invasions and less time worrying about provoking authoritarian bullies.”

Indeed, even as Mr. Biden departed Washington, a rising chorus was calling for more and bolder steps to thwart Mr. Putin and support Ukraine.

On Thursday NATO leaders approved doubling the number of troops stationed in the Alliance’s eastern flank and committed to providing special equipment should Russia resort to chemical warfare, as it did in Syria. Also Thursday, G7 leaders approved a new round of sanctions on Russia.

A push for MiGs

Yet even as the first weaponry from Mr. Biden’s $800 million arms package began arriving in Ukraine this week, some are insisting that more can be done to help the Ukrainian military.

For example, some say Mr. Biden should reconsider his opposition to Poland’s proposal to transfer MiG fighter jets to Ukraine.

“The White House has never adequately explained why [the MiGs] are more ‘escalatory’ than the other anti-aircraft weaponry we are providing,” says Brookings’ Dr. Galston, who was a senior aide in the Clinton White House when it addressed the Balkan wars in the early 1990s.

Mr. Biden should either “go public” with the explanation for why the jets would be particularly provocative for Russia, he says, “or the president should say ‘I’ve changed my mind’ and include the MiGs in a package of measures designed to raise the ante with the Russians and get them to accept a cease-fire.”

Yet even if Mr. Biden manages during his brief European trip (he returns to Washington Saturday) to secure measures that move toward a cessation of fighting, some analysts caution that the broader “post-post-Cold-War” challenge European democracies face will not evaporate with the end of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

“Russia’s revisionist ambitions under Mr. Putin to reconstitute the former Soviet Union are not just about territory but as much about defeating the principles, including democratic governance, that have guided transatlantic relations and the European security order” since World War II, says Carnegie’s Dr. Balfour. “That’s why this war is not just about Ukraine but about preserving those principles and people’s right to choose them.”

Noting that the Western conception of democratic freedoms and human rights has proven to be a central target of Russia’s aggression, she says it is “critical” not only for Europe but for the world’s democracies that resolution of the war focus “not just on a state security dimension but a human security dimension as well.”