Biden is using US power to expand NATO

It could be the most powerful phone in the world.

According to the White House, the now almost certain addition of militarily non-aligned Finland and Sweden to NATO, the reshaping of the European security landscape, and defying Russia’s power play in Ukraine were all down to a series of quiet calls from President Joe Biden.

As Moscow rallied troops for its invasion in February, “Biden recognized that we were on the cusp of a new world,” said a senior US official. So he called the Finnish president to talk about expanding NATO to the Russian border.

Then, in March, there was an Oval Office meeting with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto – at which point Russian troops were pouring into Ukraine. And another fateful call.

“The two leaders actually picked up the phone there on the side table in the oval and called the Swedish prime minister through the White House situation room,” the official said, briefing reporters on the behind-the-scenes details. They “called them at night around 10 o’clock”.

The rest, as the official said, “is history”.

Actually, there was still more to do: Turkey threatened to veto the enlargement for complicated internal reasons. So Biden worked the phones again.

Before arriving in Madrid for Tuesday’s NATO summit, he called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and they “talked” about the concerns. He later exchanged views with the leaders of the two northern European countries.

Not only Finland but Sweden too will abandon military non-alignment and join a reinvigorated NATO, effectively telling Russian President Vladimir Putin that his attempt to weaken the West was a failure.

“That’s exactly what he didn’t want,” said Biden in Madrid on Wednesday.

“None of this would have happened, at least to the same degree, without massive US pressure, including from Biden himself,” said James Jeffrey, a former US ambassador to Iraq and Turkey who now works at the Wilson Center.

“He and America are having a very good week in Europe.”

Allies may be appalled at the unrest in the United States.

Mass deaths of migrants in the Texas heat, societal warfare over abortion and guns, and lurid allegations at the Jan. 6 hearings that Donald Trump threw food at the wall in frustration as he fomented riots — a lot is happening at home.

And Biden, whose Democratic Party is likely to lose control of Congress in November, appears increasingly powerless to get his way.

Across the Atlantic, however, the veteran US leader is flexing the kind of muscles that no other Western leader can match.

In addition to expanding NATO, Biden announced on Wednesday a major increase in US hardware in Europe: two more squadrons of F-35s in the UK, two more naval destroyers in Spain, an additional brigade in Romania, a permanent army headquarters in Poland.

“Air, land, sea, cyberspace — the full breadth of US military capabilities,” said White House spokesman John Kirby.

This massive array of firepower comes as NATO’s stunning overall pledge to expand its current multinational rapid reaction force from 40,000 to more than 300,000 troops, and as it moves to meet long-standing US demands that Europeans pay their share of the military bill to count.

While the main focus is on countering Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, NATO has for the first time identified China as a strategic challenge – another key US priority.

Jeffrey says Biden demonstrates US’ unique role where “nothing” can happen without Washington.

But Brett Bruen, a former diplomat and adviser to President Barack Obama, says Biden is distracted by “Trump, guns and abortion.”

Biden “seems content to get a few photos showing his strong leadership on the world stage and return home to focus on fighting for Congress in the fall.”

James Carafano, foreign policy expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation, is even more dismissive.

While the United States remains the leader, Biden’s record domestically “shows that the possibility of American decline is real,” he said.

“Our allies and partners, not to mention our adversaries, are acting accordingly. Many of them are already starting to prepare for the post-Biden era.”