What Biden should say — and not say — at the United Nations

When President Biden addresses the United Nations this week, he will certainly say things he should; he may say things he should not; and he probably will not say other things that he should.

He will surely speak of the war in Ukraine, starting with the horrors that Vladimir Putin’s forces continue to inflict on the people of Ukraine, as grotesquely shown by the latest mass grave of tortured and murdered men, women and children.

He will justifiably tout the U.S. and NATO response to Russia’s aggression that has helped the incredibly valiant Ukrainian people under President Volodymyr Zelensky to resist — and now, even reverse — the Russian invasion.

Biden can claim that the Ukraine “glass is more than half full,” especially in light of Ukraine’s dramatic recent counteroffensive that has regained vast areas of territory and scores of cities and towns, and captured hundreds of Russian soldiers.

He would be justified in describing the war as demonstrative of Western resolve in the global struggle between freedom and authoritarianism.

He may feel compelled to justify why the “other half of the glass” remains empty. But he should not make matters worse by explaining again his administration’s refusal to provide all the weaponry Ukraine has needed — and still needs — to hasten a favorable end of the war, including tanks, longer-range artillery, armored vehicles and jet fighters. 

Biden made clear from the outset that the U.S. and NATO were not eager to confront Russia militarily to protect a small democracy they repeatedly had encouraged to join the security organization established to resist Soviet, and then Russian, aggression. Putting U.S. forces on the ground, which Ukraine did not request, or establishing a no-fly zone, which it did, were immediately ruled out as unacceptable escalation. “We will not fight the third world war in Ukraine,” Biden proclaimed.  

Putin fed Western fears with casual references to the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons.  That prompted the administration also to veto Poland’s offer of Soviet MiGs so Ukraine could set up its own no-fly zone. After long delays, during which Russia continued to wreak wanton death and destruction on Ukraine, Biden allowed the transfer to Ukraine of a few HIMARS longer-range artillery, enabling Ukrainian forces to reverse Russia’s ground weapons reach advantage — but he provided them with the condition that Ukraine not strike Russian territory. Ukraine immediately put the weapons to good use, but indicated it needed significantly more to make decisive gains against the Russians. 

When national security adviser Jake Sullivan was asked at the Aspen Security Forum in July why Washington was not giving Ukraine the additional advanced weapons it urgently requested, he responded, “The president has said he is not willing to provide long-range missiles because, while it is needful to support and defend Ukraine, another key goal is to ensure that we do not  end up … heading down the road towards a third world war.”

It is not clear whether Sullivan was just following Biden’s lead in his apocalyptic rhetoric or whether he initially infected his boss with it. What is clear is that the Biden-Obama-Clinton group of foreign policy specialists has absorbed too well the risks of U.S. military intervention, such as in Iraq and Afghanistan. But they have failed to grasp the risks of nonintervention, as with Rwanda, Bosnia, Syria, Georgia, Ukraine and elsewhere.  

After 2 ½ years of slaughter in Bosnia under the first Bush administration and another year of the same under the Clinton administration, where she served as secretary of state, Madeleine Albright acknowledged in a Washington speech in 1993 that “the statute of limitations has run” on Bill Clinton’s blaming it all on George Bush and refusing to get involved. She also challenged a reluctant Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell, “What’s the point of having this superb military that you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?”

Even the United Nations — notoriously hesitant to authorize the use of force even in the most extreme circumstances — took a dramatic turn toward intervention in 2005. It adopted the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect to endorse military intervention to “protect populations at risk of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.” Most, if not all, of those violations of international law have occurred in Russia’s war against Ukraine. But Biden is highly unlikely to remind the UN of its R2P doctrine — which, at the very least, should raise questions about Russia’s qualifications for membership in the United Nations, let alone its right to sit as a veto-wielding member of the Security Council.  

Invoking R2P and raising questions of UN membership/Security Council status for international criminal states would necessarily also implicate the People’s Republic of China, another Security Council pariah state that is threatening to do to Taiwan what Putin is doing to Ukraine.

As Sullivan said in July, China is learning a “concerning … lesson” from Ukraine — not that a more powerful country cannot necessarily crush a smaller one, but just that “it has to do it better.”

Beijing may be encouraged in that view if the West continues to tie its own hands from giving Ukraine the means for a decisive defeat of Russian aggression because Putin’s personal humiliation could trigger a harsh lashing out.

If Xi Jinping expects the same dilatory and hesitant response to an invasion of Taiwan, he will surely calculate that he can prepare a successful attack strategy. It will not be U.S. capabilities he will doubt but American will.  

Xi knows that Washington has the world’s greatest contingent of aircraft carriers, in both numbers and prowess, but is deterred from sending any through the international waters of the Taiwan Strait because of China’s threats. He also thinks he knows that the specter of nuclear war will block Washington from “escalating”  — i.e., responding effectively to China’s aggression.

Sullivan was asked in July to explain or confirm Biden’s repeated declarations of U.S. intention to defend Taiwan. He responded, “The president said in Japan our policy on Taiwan has not changed, that we retain a policy of strategic ambiguity and we do. … Strategic ambiguity means we don’t want to be clear. I wouldn’t call it incoherence but I would say ambiguity has to be a feature of strategy.” 

What Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States said with strategic clarity of Russia’s war there applies also to Chinese aggression against Taiwan: “It will be much cheaper for the world if we win the war for democracy in Ukraine.”

Biden, who just said casually for the fourth time that America will defend Taiwan, would do the world — including China — a favor if he would declare it officially at the U.N. 

Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2006 and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010. He served in the Pentagon when Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia and was involved in Department of Defense discussions about the U.S. response. Follow him on Twitter @BoscoJosephA.