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Ian Explains: Why Biden is the focus of the NATO Summit
The White House has a long, storied tradition of hiding the medical issues of the president from the American public. Ronald Reagan’s administration hid signs of his dementia; FDR hid his paralysis for years; Woodrow Wilson spent his last year and a half as president debilitated by a stroke that left him blind in one eye while his wife worked as a “shadow president.”
On Ian Explains, Ian Bremmer explains why allies worry about the growing concerns around President Biden’s health, fitness for office, and stamina to lead the country for another four years. While there’s no evidence Biden is suffering from a distinct illness like Wilson or FDR, his disastrous debate performance last month made many question his ability to lead the country and the world for a second term.
Trump is now leading Biden in most major polls, but European allies overwhelmingly prefer the old-school, post-WWII institutionalist world order the current administration represents. Trump’s isolationist, “America First” worldview is skeptical of treaties and alliances, which could seriously jeopardize future military assistance to Ukraine, whose fate may very well hinge on the US presidential election.
Watch more on the full episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, in which Poland's Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski discusses the future of NATO under a Biden or Donald Trump presidency, Ukraine's chances against Russia, and Viktor Orbán's rogue moves.
Season 7 of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, launches nationwide on public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don''t miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).
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US President Joe Biden disembarks Air Force One as he visits Stansted Airport in the UK.
Will Biden meet Zelensky at the NATO summit in Vilnius?
On Sunday, US President Joe Biden kicked off a five-day trip to Europe. His first stop is the UK, where he will meet with King Charles III for the first time since the British monarch’s coronation, as well as PM Rishi Sunak. But the most important leg of Biden's European tour will be July 11-12 in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius for the 74th NATO Summit, where the controversial question of whether Ukraine could (or should) ever join the alliance looms large.
Before departing, the US president made the controversial decision to supply Kyiv with deadly cluster bomb munitions. Washington says the move was necessary because the Ukrainians are running low on ammo, even though the weapons are banned in many countries because they tend to kill or maim large numbers of civilians. Still, it's unlikely this will hamper Biden's efforts to shore up NATO unity on economic and military support for Ukraine. The bigger question is: Will Ukraine be given a path to membership?
Poland and the Baltic states, the alliance’s biggest Russia hawks, want NATO to offer Kyiv a pathway to membership — something that was vaguely promised as far back as 2008. But the US and Germany think that Ukraine isn’t ready yet, politically or militarily, and are worried that welcoming Ukraine would eventually drag the alliance into a direct conflict with Russia. Biden prefers something more like an “Israel” model in which its Western backers help arm Ukraine to the teeth, but not formally accept it into NATO.President Volodymyr Zelensky has been invited to the summit, but he is threatening to snub it if there's no progress toward Ukraine joining the club.