The foreign ministers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization met today in Brussels, Belgium, where they met with Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba as part of the NATO-Ukraine Council. Before the meeting, Kuleba noted that Ukraine is “pretty much becoming a de facto NATO army, in terms of our technical capacity, management approaches and principles of running an army."
A statement by the NATO-Ukraine Council agreed that it was deepening the NATO-Ukraine relationship, vowing that allies would “continue their support for as long as it takes” and declaring, “A strong, independent Ukraine is vital for the stability of the Euro-Atlantic area.” In the statement, Ukraine also committed to reforming the government and security sector as it moves toward a future NATO membership.
David Andelman, a former foreign correspondent for the New York Times and CBS News who now writes Andelman Unleashed, noted today in CNN that President Biden has brought a very clear-eyed set of principles to foreign affairs, making him “one of the rare presidents who has accomplished something quite extraordinary: He has carefully defined and quite successfully defended democracy and democratic values before a host of existential challenges.”
In the Middle East he has defended Israel, which The Economist’s Democracy Index identifies as the only democracy in the Middle East and North Africa, while also trying to restrain the Israeli government and to get humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, all while (so far) keeping Iran and Hezbollah from spreading the conflict. Andelman also called out that Biden avoided the direct conflict with Russia that Russia's president Vladimir Putin so clearly wanted, supporting Ukraine but delaying its admission to NATO and ratcheting up military aid slowly enough that the U.S. did not get directly involved.
Biden is defending democracy where it has a foothold and can survive and then prosper, Andelman says, noting that he had little interest in continuing to send U.S. troops to Afghanistan, where it seemed clear democracy “never really took root.” Andelman writes, “Its ill-conceived and improbable ‘elections’ were little more than window dressing on a deeply flawed and corrupt kleptocracy that America had been backing with the bodies of thousands of its troops.”
Defending democracy “is something that makes [Biden] tick,” Andelman writes, “and remain appealing to others, as I’ve seen in so many parts of the world.”
The administration has also been crystal clear that its approach to governance at home is also designed to protect democracy by demonstrating that a democracy can do more for people than an authoritarian government, but in a speech at a campaign reception in Houston, Texas, Vice President Kamala Harris acknowledged that voters somehow don’t seem to understand that transformation.
Even as former president Trump threatened to use the government to silence press outlets he doesn't like, Harris noted the billions of dollars invested in infrastructure and clean energy, allowing the U.S. to be a global leader in new technologies; the cap of insulin at $35; rural broadband and the clean-up of lead pipes; and pointed out that all of the things the Democrats have accomplished are “incredibly popular with the American people.” The challenge, she noted, is getting people to understand these transformations, and which party is responsible for them.
“[T]here’s a duality to the nature of democracies,” Harris said. “On the one hand, …it is very much about strength—the strength that it gives individuals in terms of the protection of their rights and freedoms and liberties. When a democracy is intact, it is very strong in its capacity to lift the people up.” But, she added, “It is also very fragile. It is only as strong as our willingness to fight for it.”
Heather Cox Richardson
https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-11-29-2023-57e73a26c647ecd97e77afe19c08e077
https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news-11-29-23/index.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/world/middleeast/netanyahu-cease-fire-politics.html
https://www.timesofisrael.com/ben-gvir-threatens-to-tear-down-government-if-war-not-resumed/
https://www.politico.eu/article/nato-vows-to-stick-with-ukraine-as-long-as-it-takes/
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_220818.htm
Defending Israel and Ukraine is not about "democracy". It's about politics.
If Israel wasn't the central nation in the Bible, the Christian majority in America wouldn't care, just like they don't care about Yemen. And since Russia is NATO's reason for existing, stopping their invasion is purely self-serving. America didn't care when Russia invaded Afghanistan.
To Biden's credit he was instrumental in cracking down on corruption in Ukraine back when he was VP.