Irish Examiner View: Big week for Joe Biden at Nato summit

The us president's decisionmaking on Ukraine has been inconsistent and unpredictable.

At 80, Joe Biden is already the oldest president in American history. Picture: Patrick Semansky

Much of the praise given to Joe Biden has rested on the fact that he is not Donald Trump. 

After the 45th president, the only way was up. The battle to become number 47 lies ahead, and only the longshot Robert Kennedy Jr — he of the border-closing and vaccine-sceptical right-wing views — looks likely to mount a challenge to his Democratic campaign for a second presidential term.

As Mr Biden heads for the Nato summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, by way of a token stopover in London, it is possible to raise concerns about his grasp on foreign policy and his increasing predilection for making decisions which are of greater comfort to the enemies of democracy than to its allies.

Mr Biden did not have a good start being gifted a humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan by his predecessor. However, his decisionmaking on Ukraine has been inconsistent and unpredictable — firstly being slow to respond to Vladimir Putin’s invasion and then treading water on providing Volodymyr Zelenskyy with the arms he needed in the initial stages of the war.

Then, just last week, sending devastating cluster bombs, banned by more than 100 countries because of the way they indiscriminately scatter numerous smaller “bomblets” over wide areas. It is a weapon of dictators and was widely used in Syria.

At 80, Mr Biden is already the oldest president in American history. If he leaves office in 2028, he will be 85.

His trip to Lithuania offers an opportunity to demonstrate that he is sure-footed in his approach to the most dangerous period in world history in eight decades.