'He needed tremendous self-discipline not to react when he saw his superficial boss being endlessly applauded.' (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
It is fitting that the departure of Joseph Biden Jr. was defined by his trademark stubbornness. For weeks, he held out against those within his party who were calling for his immediate withdrawal. But then came the Republican convention in Milwaukee — an occasion dominated by Trump the Survivor, and witnessed by millions who had never before paid attention to such gatherings — and the decision was made for him.
Until then, Biden’s legendary resilience seemed unbreakable. This was, after all, a quality he acquired at the price of intense suffering. By the time Biden appeared as a newly elected senator on the Washington scene in 1973, he had already suffered two life-altering tragedies. First, the rapid downfall of his businessman father from affluence to poverty when Biden was seven years old; and second, the more terrible blow of the accidental death of his wife and one-year-old daughter some 40 days after he was first elected.
Yet still Biden marched on, winning re-election to the Senate every six years until 2008, when he was concurrently elected Vice President with Barack Obama. It was, more than anything, proof of his mastery of “retail politics”, which allowed him to keep different clusters of voters happy. In Biden’s mini-state of Delaware — whose population in 1974 was just over 600,000 when New York State already had close to 20 million — it was not hard for him to win voters one by one, especially since he chose to live in Wilmington, commuting by train to Washington each day. When I first met Biden during his first senatorial term, the legendary political guru and speaker of the house Tip O’Neill was already saying that he would be a Washington personality for decades.
Many things about Biden’s life are well-known, but only future biographers will reveal what he himself rigorously kept secret from the world: that during his eight years as VP, Obama systematically ignored his excellent advice on foreign affairs. Captive to the latest policy clichés of the NGO world, he ignored Biden’s decades of experience as a very active member and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which had heard from and interrogated hundreds of expert witnesses, many of them with valuable, first-hand experience in the world beyond Washington.
On Iraq and Afghanistan, by far the most important foreign-policy issues during his eight vice-presidential years, Biden radically disagreed with the strategy that Obama inherited and continued to pursue. Biden insisted that Iran would control Iraq unless its influence was drastically limited by US support for a Sunni regional government in addition to the Kurdish regional government, thereby confining Iran’s influence to a third, Shi’a, regional government.
But Obama preferred the advice of Dr Susan Rice, his national security advisor, Dr Samantha Powers, his ambassador to the UN, and Dr General Petraeus, whose stock of fashionable academic phrases about the world’s conflicts could never compete with the real-world knowledge that Biden had accumulated. As a result, Iran did what it wanted in Iraq. And it still does, largely because a central proponent of Obama’s deluded appeasement policy outlived his presidency: his personal friend Roger Malley, who was foisted on Biden and kept in the White House, until he was finally brought down by a security breach.
It was much the same in Afghanistan. Had Obama followed Biden’s advice, instead of listening to the telegenic PhD-general Petraeus, the US could have saved trillions of dollars and many American lives by abandoning the quixotic attempt to train and equip the Afghan army. From the start, Biden insisted that the military body was a total fraud — not just because Afghanistan’s so-called officers bought their promotions with bribes, but because the entire concept was rooted in a fantasy. Biden knew that Tajiks would only fight for other Tajiks, Uzbeks for Uzbeks, Hazaras for Hazaras, and so on — and that none of them would fight for the abstraction called Afghanistan.
Indeed, he needed tremendous self-discipline not to react when he saw his superficial boss being endlessly applauded at elite policy gatherings in Washington and Aspen, while he himself was ridiculed at Georgetown dinner parties. And it was a most bitter irony that it was Biden, as the newly installed president, who was universally blamed for America’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan a few months after his inauguration, following the mass surrender of the Afghan army without a fight.
Now, as he exits the stage, Biden has decided to offer another hostage to fortune, by nominating Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate ahead of the Chicago convention next month. That Harris is a remarkably strategic politician shouldn’t be overlooked: she started her pursuit of high office before she was 18 by choosing the modest education of Howard University over Stanford — where her father would teach — because of Howard’s politically powerful Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. But this cannot do more than mitigate her tremendous shortcomings as a candidate.
As VP, she was given one task: to stop the politically disastrous flood of millions of illegal immigrants walking across the border from Mexico. In June 2021, she made a very brief and futile visit to the border instead of staying in Washington to identify and activate effective border-control measures, which did exist and were only activated by Biden himself as the election approached. When given her only opportunity to display a capacity to govern, Harris failed.
For this and many other reasons, it seems improbable that Harris would fare well in a campaign against Trump, unless her running mate can do even more for her than the sharply intelligent Vance can do for Trump. But looking at the array of figures now trying to win her favour, one must be sceptical. As someone who was befriended by Biden decades ago, I do not derive any pleasure in anticipating that his anointed successor will be removed by the Democratic Convention — or else lead her party into a November debacle.
Professor Edward Luttwak is a strategist and historian known for his works on grand strategy, geoeconomics, military history, and international relations.
ELuttwak 
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SubscribeWow,,, I guess ‘Real Politic’, or speaking out of both sides of your mouth.
I really like the way he is a mess of contradictions – and reading what he says is entirely a ‘pick and chose’ game as the situation is untenable, has been so for 4 years, is part of ‘The Great Game’ (the Victorian era name for the West Imperial proxy war against Imperial Russia). It is a huge disaster and one with no way out unless the rules change completely. He cannot tell the historical and present truth, but can drop bits of it here and there, other wise he can not have any hope for his future.
The issue is The West created this war by baiting Russia to attack with the offer of joining NATO. This has been understood to mean Russia must go to war against the USA Proxy Ukraine. He says this – This is the entire War in one Paragraph:
”OA: I don’t think so. For me, the price for Ukraine to get into Nato is a big war with Russia, as I said in 2019, openly, it was in our media. I think the price for the West to get Ukraine inside Nato is a big war with Russia and the collective West are not ready to pay this price. This is a problem. And for me it’s completely unrealistic for Ukraine to even hope to be a part of the European Union or Nato. It’s impossible in this real-life situation.”
SEE? He knew, as did Everyone, that the offer of NATO to Ukraine would be war with Russia. It was 100% certain – he says so, everyone knew it. So Biden did just that! Biden and Boris caused this war, not Putin. Biden forced the war, Putin just responded to the forced provocation.
Biden Wanted this war! Congress wanted it – entirely a corrupt game. $200,000,000,000 two hundred billion spent and that is half way…. USA corrupt politicians got their 10%, corrupt Ukrainians got their 10%, the Military Industrial Complex get their 30%, and for All it is a huge feeding tough that all are snout down into.
To the corrupt in the West and Ukraine blood smells like money – and that is their greatest love, so spill lots of it, and every one gets rich – or those that matter get rich anyway. A million who do not matter get dead and crippled, and an entire generation and country destroyed but you have to crack the egg to make the omelet. haha….
And then is asked:
What could the West gain from a partnership between Ukraine and the West? I mean industry. I mean agriculture.
Well, after the war they send in Blackrock and Vanguard and the world’s greatest finance vultures and pick those bones clean. The mission was to destroy Both Russia and Ukraine – then they get to feast on both carcasses – to devour the minerals, energy, and so on in the pretense of ”Rebuilding”
Then they ‘Social Engineer’ these mostly White, Orthodox Christian lands and bring in 50 Million African and Middle East and Asian men to colonize them as they do in USA and Europe and break then for ever so the Globalists may own them…..
It was a long game – but here is the thing:
They LOST the War. Now BRICS+ are loosened on the world, and the West, instead of conquering the world has lost it.
Good job Biden and Boris and USA and EU Neo-Cons. This time you really messed up – not just other countries, but your own too.
100% agreement.
What we need more of is common sense such as this.
One of the most interesting interviews on Unherd. Thank you.
Agree, although it took me about half an hour to get into it. The ending was a real eye opener and the only way forward for Ukraine to end this horrible war which took hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides. Sadly I have my suspicion, that Boris was playing out his inner Churchill, when the Ukraine nearly reached a deal with Russia.
Thanks for bringing the interview.
Maybe Ukraine should be like an Eastern European Switzerland. It also has a multi-cultural/lingual population and is neutral. It seems like “translator” in the middle of Europe and isn’t a member of NATO or the EU.
It was hard to understand Mr.Arestovych and his NEW WORLD philosophy, but in the end I think, what he wanted was a neutral, multi-cultural/ lingual country between the East and the West, which seems pretty reasonable.
I still wonder what Boris did in those 3 days, when the conference failed. Hope he wasn’t talking Zelenskyy into this dreadful war, after the massacre in Bucha.
Boris let Zelensky know that if he bales on the misadventure with Russia, the CIA would kill him.
“The main problem of Ukraine is that some politicians starting in 1991 to transform Ukraine from a poly-cultural and poly-national state, into a more mono-ethnic and mono-cultural country, like most of European countries like Poland.”
&
“Ukrainian nationalism is the idea of less than 20% of Ukrainians.”
The first historically has meant either war, large scale ethnic cleasing, population swaps, or long term discrimination & assimilation. (e.g. Poland/Germany, Yugoslavia, Greece/Turkey and the Copts in Egypt) There aren’t peaceable ways to create a mono-ethnic population. But, if the cleansing only has the support of 20% of the population, odds are its going to mean a war that the nationalists lose.
Ukraine lost on day one. Putin didn’t declare war on Ukraine. He brought troops across the border to make a point that the Donbass must be liberated and the Azovs disbanded. And he wants a landbridge to Crimea. And he wants Ukraine out of NATO.
That was the time to negotiate. It has passed, and now that the US has abandoned Ukraine as they always do in these conflicts, Putin will chip away at the map. I don’t believe he wants all of Ukraine. Why would he? It’s a corrupt country full of homeless widows and amputees.
Zelensky will get his parachute compliments of the CIA, but Ukraine is a wasteland that will be picked to the bone by BlackRock.
Blimey – rarely have I read an interview that is so confusing. Ends up with
“FS: So your vision is for Ukraine to be neither part of Russia nor part of the EU or Nato, and to have a special status as a border-land country that contains many different peoples within in.
OA: Yes”
Anyone got a clue what that would mean in the real world?