By Daniel DePetris
President Joe Biden walked into the grand UN General Assembly chamber this morning with a list of asks, an appeal for greater cooperation among the world’s great powers and a bit of controversy trailing behind him.
Biden’s first UN address came at a difficult time in American diplomacy. The European Union, led by an irate France, is livid over a $60 billion US-Australian nuclear submarine deal that European leaders view as skeevy and duplicitous. And last month’s American troop exit from Afghanistan remains a sore point for contributing nations in the Nato coalition, some of which wanted more time to evacuate their own nationals.
Biden, however, sidestepped all of these disputes. He chose instead to look to the future where he thinks competition between great powers will be a central element of the global landscape, threats like pandemics and corruption will be tackled multilaterally and diplomacy will be the most vital tool of statecraft.
This piece was originally published in Spectator World on September 21, 2021. Read more HERE.