Ukraine War Ushers In 'New Era' for Biden and U.S. Abroad - The New York Times - 0 views
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“It feels like we’re definitively in a new era,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser in the Obama White House. “The post-9/11 war on terror period of American hubris, and decline, is now behind us. And we’re not sure what’s next.”
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The attack by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on his neighbor has become a prism through which nearly all American foreign policy decisions will be cast for the foreseeable future, experts and officials said.
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In the near term, Russia’s aggression is sure to invigorate Mr. Biden’s global fight for democracy against autocracies like Moscow
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Yet three increasingly authoritarian NATO nations — Poland, Hungary and Turkey — play key roles in the coalition aiding Kyiv. And the United States is grappling with internal assaults to its own democracy.
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The war lends urgency to Mr. Biden’s climate change agenda, reinforcing the need for more reliance on renewable clean energy over the fossil fuels that fill Russian coffers.
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Yet it has already generated new pressure to increase the short-term supply of oil from the likes of Venezuela’s isolated dictatorship and Saudi Arabia’s authoritarian monarchy.
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While some experts warn that a renewed focus on Europe will inevitably divert attention from Asia, several top White House officials say the United States can capitalize on how the war has convinced some Asian governments that they need to work more closely with the West to build up a global ideological front to defend democracy.
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“And I believe one of the outcomes of this tragedy will be a kind of new thinking around how to solidify institutional connections beyond what we’ve already seen between Europe and the Pacific,”
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Mr. Biden sought to rebuild American alliances, but did so largely in the name of confronting China.
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The Russian invasion has expanded his mission dramatically and urgently, setting the stage for a seismic geopolitical shift that would pit the United States and its allies against China and Russia at once if they form an entrenched anti-Western bloc
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“We’ve been trying to get to a new era for a long time,” he said. “And now I think Putin’s invasion has necessitated an American return to the moral high ground.”
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Saudi Arabia has declined so far to increase oil production, while the United Arab Emirates waited until Wednesday to ask the OPEC nations to do so. American officials were also furious with the U.A.E. for declining to vote on a United Nations Security Council resolution to condemn Russia, though it did support a similar resolution later in the U.N. General Assembly.
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The unreliability of the two nations and Russia’s place in the oil economy have increased momentum within the Biden administration to enact policies that would help the United States more quickly wean itself off fossil fuels and confront the climate crisis.
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“We may see more fundamental questioning about the value of these partnerships,” Ms. Kaye said. “These states already believe the U.S. has checked out of the region, but their stance on Russia may only strengthen voices calling for a further reduction of U.S. forces in the region.”
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“In times of crisis, there is sometimes a tension between our values and our interests,” said Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “In the short term, we’re going to have to prioritize pushing back against Russia, at the risk of taking our foot off the gas on the democracy and human rights concerns that had been at the front and center of the Biden administration’s agenda.”