As 2021, the first year of Joe Biden’s presidency, draws to a close, one of the looming issues is the future of the United States’ relationship with Russia. Alarm over Russia’s troop buildup near Ukraine has prompted direct communication between the two leaders, with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who asked for the most recent conversation, demanding an end to NATO’s military activity in Eastern Europe and Ukraine. The Kremlin has stiffened its insistence on border security guarantees and test-fired hypersonic missiles to underscore its demands.
The two leaders spoke by telephone for nearly an hour on Thursday, their second conversation this month, setting the stage for face-to-face negotiations between senior officials in Geneva in January.
The Kremlin says NATO’s expansion eastward and Kyiv’s growing ties with the body have undermined security in the region and contravene assurances made in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed. It even compares the action with the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.
President Biden laid out two paths forward, the first being diplomacy and the other on deterrence, threatening serious economic consequences should Russia invade Ukraine. The leaders agreed to hold Strategic Stability Dialogues beginning on January 9 and 10 in Geneva; a NATO-Russia Council conversation on January 12, and an OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation) meeting on January 13. Both leaders acknowledged that there are likely to be areas where meaningful progress can occur, as well as areas where agreements may be impossible.
The talks come as President Biden’s approval rating remains below 50 percent. As of December 20, FiveThirtyEight gave Biden an average approval rating of 43.5 percent, and a disapproval rating of 51.9 percent. Biden enjoyed 43.9 percent approval on December 19 and a 50.5 percent disapproval.
Much of the disapproval stems from the worries about the economy where pent-up consumer demand during the pandemic and supply-chain issues since have led to higher inflation. Yet Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal report that U.S. economic output jumped more than 7 percent during the last three months of 2021. Overall growth for 2021 should be about 6 percent, and economists predict growth of around 4 percent in 2022 — the highest numbers the U.S. has seen in decades. The U.S. is “outperforming the world by the biggest margin in the 21st century,” wrote Matthew A. Winkler in Bloomberg, “and with good reason: America’s economy improved more in Joe Biden’s first 12 months than any president during the past 50 years….”
Biden also has more experience in foreign affairs than any president since George H.W. Bush, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken has emphasized that Biden’s leadership team believes that foreign and domestic policy are profoundly linked. “The more we and other democracies can show the world that we can deliver, not only for our people, but also for each other, the more we can refute the lie that authoritarian countries love to tell: that theirs is the better way to meet people’s fundamental needs and hopes. It’s on us to prove them wrong,” Blinken said.
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