Putin’s rising price for peace in Ukraine
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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. When German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier awarded Joe Biden the Grand Cross special class of the German Order of Merit in Bellevue Palace here last week, it was a moment of vindication for the beleaguered American president. The only other American so honored was George H.W.
Bush, who supported German unification at the end of the Cold War against objections from Russia, Britain and France. Mr. Biden believes that the U.S.-German partnership is the foundation of the trans-Atlantic alliance.
As the West faces challenges from a newly energized and aggressive group of authoritarian and totalitarian revisionist powers, Mr. Biden thinks the U.S.-German partnership will stand at the heart of the alliance of democracies united in defense of the current world order. The Trump administration, as Mr.
Biden sees it, failed to grasp the centrality of this alliance, with devastating consequences around the world. Rebuilding Washington’s alliance with Berlin was the core of Mr. Biden’s strategy to reassert American leadership.
His stance is appreciated in Germany, and Mr. Steinmeier spoke for millions of his fellow citizens when he told Mr. Biden at the ceremony, “Sir, when you were elected president, you restored Europe’s hope in the trans-Atlantic alliance literally overnight." But there’s a fly in the ointment.
Mr. Steinmeier went on to say, “And then, only a year later, came Putin’s war. When Putin invaded Ukraine, he didn’t just go after one country.
He attacked the very principles of peace in Europe." As Mr. Steinmeier conspicuously did not say but undoubtedly knows, some 32 months in, Russia is winning. Despite draconian sanctions, a hobbled economy, a corrupt state, and poorly trained
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